Anna Scott Graham, Indie Novelist

April 22, 2013

Semi-retired

A relative long time ago there was a movie called Semi-Tough. Back in those days, there was no internet, cell phones, iPods, or laptop computers. But we all seemed to survive pretty well.

Not quite back that far, but not too many years later, I started writing poetry. It was lousy poetry, teenage-angst to the gills. But for a young woman growing up in the middle of nowhere, it tapped into a part of my brain, leaving marks on my soul. After I met my husband I gave it up, because all I could write was depressing drivel that seemed incongruous with being head over heels in love. But every once in a while, an event would lead me back to a poem, or two. At that time I wasn’t writing much more than journal entries or lesson plans, a homeschooling ex-pat mum living in the UK. Then NaNoWriMo invaded my life, and the rest is indie novelist history.

Until last month, when a short story was pirated. That incident peeled away a layer of skin that at the time I didn’t notice was gone. Writers have pretty thick hides, or we should. And while mine is darn tough in some places, it’s just semi-tough in others. My heart and soul were burned by that thievery, but hey, crap happens. Get over it.

I thought I had, especially since finding NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month). It’s not affiliated with NaNo, but I’ve been having a blast in between rediscovering my poetic roots and starting an epic poem that has sort of taken over April. “The Hounds of Love and War” is pretty melodramatic, but not all the output has been angsty; “Ninja Hat Poem” and “The Pancake That Saved Silicon Valley” spring to mind.

In April, I also wrote what turned out to be the very beginning of a series; I didn’t plan it, but sometimes sagas crop out of nowhere. I completed the first of who knows how many installments of that tale, and plan to return to it sooner rather than later.

While still writing poems.

And snapping clouds.

And gardening.

And watching baseball (rarely at the park, but Spring Training was a heck of a ton of fun).

And… All the other stuff that happens when I’m not seated in front of my computer or somewhere else with pen and paper in hand. I adore pen and paper, how the poems are fashioned, even the LONG ones, like ”The Pancake That Saved Silicon Valley”. It was fourteen single-sided sheets from a legal pad, and I reveled in every ridiculous minute of it. (Pancakes, aliens, Eric Clapton, blah blah blah…)

Amid all this faffing about, I learned something else; I don’t particularly want to publish novels anymore. In part, yes, due to having been pirated. I’m pretty damn tough when it comes to some areas in my life. But in others, I’m semi-tough. And until I can be tough all over when it comes to publishing…

I’m going to pull back. I’ll be retired fully once I finish “The Hounds of Love and War”; I want to publish that leviathan, one of these days, as it’s part-poem, part-novel. As for the rest of it…

It’s like baseball or football, which is what the film Semi-Tough was in part about. Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson, and Jill Clayburg were a love triangle also involved with football and self-help movements.

(Remember, it was 1977.)

But whether it’s 1977 or 1999 or 2013, if one’s heart isn’t in something, what’s the point? I don’t like admitting a pirate got the better of me, or maybe that’s not it at all. Maybe poetry has been waiting for me to get over the angst, then return for new lessons. Life is about learning, exploring, finding one’s true calling. For the last couple of years it was publishing novels (and expunging a truck-load of melodramatic tendencies). Now it’s something different.

As I begin this new adventure, I won’t be blogging about it; in part that I think I’ve said all I need to say about writing. And that poetry is a wild, fleeting gift that arises without warning. You can’t cage it, although you can revise, just as in noveling. But the act of catching a poem, or being caught by one, isn’t the sort of treasure I could accurately describe in a blog post. I’ve been blogging about writing since summer 2007, here at WordPress since last July. Over the last six years I’ve met fantastic bloggers and authors who have enriched my life immensely. Now it’s time to slip inside a poem and see what happens.

As I’ve noted on this site’s main page, I’ll consider myself semi-retired until ”Hounds” is released. Then I’ll be a fully retired author of novels or novel-like poems. Indie publishing was a blessing that I’ll forever hold close in my heart. But not everything lasts forever. Some events are momentary, yet, unless I’m willing to sit quietly, those events might pass me right on by. Thanks for reading this blog, and the books. May all your authorial dreams be found, and may some of them sneak up behind you and say Boo!

15 comments | tags: indie publishing, poetry, retirement, semi-tough, writing | posted in happiness

April 14, 2013

Postcards from Camp: Garden fun

By Anna Scott Graham

Well, the writing progresses at a lovely pace; I’ve reached my Camp NaNo goal, although the story has gone from an approximately twenty-three chapter novel to something a little more involved. I won’t hazard a guess at this point how many books, but more than three, hopefully not topping the Alvin’s Farm series of six.

March 2012 Putting in the initial spider plants

March 2012; the initial planting…

Some ideas execute successful coups, sort of like spider plants. Amid the noveling and epic-poem scribbling (poems are all written in longhand which sends joyful shivers down my spine), I’ve been attacking the backyard, usually my husband’s domain. I prefer potted plants, but last year I put in over a dozen spider plants along the western fence. They have succeeded in taking over that section of the property, and I know are plotting an actual coup for the house.

April 2013 spiders... Bottom three are new

April 2013… They are looking to move eastward, into Nevada, by autumn. The bottom three are newbies, who will hold down the fort as the rest scale the fence, heading for Vegas.

Part of this month’s writing has been poured into a poem that has awakened my love for that form of expression, and given a home to an idea that I didn’t realize meant so much. I work on the novel in the mornings, the poem in the afternoons, amid baseball and recent outdoor tasks that will keep me busy over the next several months. I don’t have an emerald thumb, but I do like to get my hands a little dirty.

Marble pathos with a spider in the centre

The marble pathos draping over the edge are cuttings from a houseplant, a spider hidden in the centre. This pot resides just outside my work window.

Like dabbling in melodrama; the WIP-novel-wise has really caught me off guard by its length, and my dedication to it. With Alvin, even when I was wasn’t sure just how involved it was going to be, I took three to four months off between tackling another installment.

Back in 2009, I was looking at that book as installments, as I didn’t imagine it would take three novels to finish what I had assumed would be a tidy 50K tale.

This plant was bought weeks ago at a local DIY, and is pleased to rest in a bigger pot.

But now I’m a wee bit wiser; just how wordy the current novel will become, I cannot guess. But the intriguing part is that as soon as I wrap up this initial section, I don’t want to wait until summer to return to the story. I’ll give myself a couple of weeks; I definitely need some down-time. But come May, unless other issues arise, I’ll get back to spinning some more of that yarn.

One cherry tomato, as an experiment.

And as for that poem…

The big pot held spider plants last year, petunias and zinnias this year. Small pot takes the overspill…

“The Hounds of Love and War” isn’t going to be completed anytime soon; I write three parts, then plop another poem amid the sprawling saga of the Scotlands and Nesmiths, still firmly entrenched in the mid-1960s. Not all my poems are sturm und drang; one was about my husband’s recently purchased ninja hat.

Leftover zinnias went into the ground near some flowers that survived winter, alongside the honeysuckle.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, of course.

Just for NaNo Buddy Laura; this peach tree was planted last spring, and the crazy thing has peaches already…

And then there is baseball (the SF Giants are playing well), family gatherings on the horizon, and I badly need a haircut. But the muse has tapped into me with all gears. I can’t tell which I enjoy more, prose or poetry, although the poems are pretty prose-like. I’ve also scribbled a couple of short stories; pen and paper have lured me into brief flashes of fiction that I type out, fiddle with, will hand over to Top Writers Block. One future theme is meringue, and I already know just what that will entail; Rae Smith’s foray into perfecting chocolate meringue pie. If you’ve read the last three Alvin’s Farm novels, well, all I can say is that while Rae’s husband Tommie won’t be trying a slice of chocolate heaven, Chelsea and Pru think Aunt Rae’s latest Todd Lambert Special is just fine…

R.I.P. Brennan Manning 1934-2013

6 comments | tags: Alvin's Farm, camp nanowrimo, epic novel-sagas, epic poems, flora, writing | posted in gardening

April 5, 2013

Postcards from Camp: The Hounds of Love and War

By Anna Scott Graham

Writing is going well, but I have to admit the beginning of the novel was dicey; it’s going to be long, very long, maybe more than one book. Alvin’s Farm taught me not to discount a thing, so I’m faithfully writing, not worrying, just telling the story.

As for the poetry… That has been a bigger thrill than I imagined, and today I took a huge step, perhaps over the edge. During my afternoon walk, I listened to tunes from what I had thought was a defunct playlist, The Hounds of Love and War a shelved novel idea. Yet, via Cheap Trick, Neil Young, Aerosmith, and Linda Ronstadt, suddenly that idea was firm in mind. Coming home to baseball on the telly, my husband watching the Giants and Cardinals, I knew that day’s, and many of the next several, poem. I would write “The Hounds of Love and War” in verse.

Which is complicated, for a few reasons; most of my poetry is confessional. Most of it is while not short, certainly not epic. And it’s an odd idea to squeeze a novel into verse. But I’ve produced the first part, of how many, who knows! Fortunately I had character sketches stashed away, in addition to the very necessary music.

I found this photo at an antique store; these are who I picture as the Nesmith siblings, as children, within the poem.

I need to thank Miss Elliot Rose for her very inspiring quote, which transformed this novel, when I was going to write it as a novel. Elliot’s words are just as meaningful as this work morphs into poetry: Peace is just a lot of hopes put together.

Thanks to her mum Sarah for allowing me to use that priceless piece of wonder. And thanks to my husband for taking me to Washington D.C. to see The National Mall. And to Penny the basset, who proceeded Buttercup, in my basset realm.

And of course, thanks to Buttercup too.

8 comments | tags: camp nanowrimo, The Hounds of Love and War, writing | posted in storytelling

April 1, 2013

Postcards from Camp

By Anna Scott Graham

My Easter was lovely; after an afternoon with my most beloved, my husband drove us safely home through some fairly stormy weather. I snapped shot after shot of what to me is like heaven, if I’m not in the bosom of my family.

Or writing; today I began Camp NaNoWriMo after a bit of a belated start, sharing breakfast with my husband, our eldest, and her husband. Now it’s relatively late, well, it’s nearly time for baseball. The writing took place mid-morning, and from the looks of it, will go on much longer than I thought. I covered about a third of the outlined chapter, maybe a quarter. This new novel is going to be long, or just not quite what I originally imagined.

Not like that’s a problem, it just is.

And on top of noveling, I’ve joining the fun at NaPoWriMo. I’ve been playing around with poetry a little in 2013, but honestly, it’s my first love. For this last month that I’m forty-six, I’m going to let it all hang out. Not sure what forty-seven will bring, so let’s have one heck of a party now.

And in the meantime… Well, I probably won’t be blogging much here. My NaNo buddy Laura gave me the idea for Postcards from Camp title, so here’s some lovely peachy peace to her and all. If you want to know what’s going on with the novel, check here. For the poems, try this blog. Scattered within this post are some of yesterday’s storm shots. Hard to shoot from the speeding car with water on the window, but I’m a cloud junkie, just can’t help it.

I’m a writer too, can’t say no to words either.

10 comments | tags: camp nanowrimo, NaPoWriMo, photography, writing | posted in purpose

March 28, 2013

A fool for Christ

By Anna Scott Graham

One of the things I like about being a Christian is the absurdity. Basically, it’s just another belief system, and goodness knows plenty of those exist. What’s special about Christianity is how truly foolhardy it is.

I mean, get this; a week ago a Jewish carpenter turned prophet waltzed into Jerusalem on the eve of Passover. He’s celebrated like he was king of the Jews, palm branches and hosannas and such. Then, less than a week later, he’s gotten the crap beaten out of him, dying on a cross like any common criminal. His followers were allowed to retrieve his body, set it in a tomb. End of story of yet another alleged messiah.

Now, if you have faith, you take it as fact that a couple of days later Jesus rose from the dead, proving that he was more than a wandering prophet. He stunned his disheartened followers, then ascended into heaven. And over two thousand years later he’s still heralded as the Son of God.

To me, that’s not the absurd part. Throw enough advertising behind an idea or product or politician and the average Joe is hooked. What gets me is that the night before he’s going to be assaulted, tried, then hung, Jesus had dinner with his closest male friends. (I make the gender distinction, because when he was hanging from that cross, the women who loved him surrounded him.) After they ate, Jesus, their teacher and leader for the last few years, got down on his knees and washed their feet. Peter, the most outspoken, was offended, but Jesus brooked no such nonsense. ”I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Jesus couldn’t have made it any more plain; if the Son of God can wash feet, well… But deities aren’t supposed to be that earthy, or die on crosses. Pretty fictional, if you ask me; as a writer, I certainly couldn’t have come up with a more far-fetched way to start a religion.

It’s supposed to be about power and wealth, palm branches and hosannas and all that business. Yet with Christ, it was always the most unlikely method. Born in a manger to an unmarried teenager. Turns water into wine at a wedding where frivolity already runs rampant. Escaping from crowds who want to crown him king. And on the eve of his death, he’s washing these guys’ feet, really?

According to John 13:15, that’s what Christ did. Then he allowed himself to be arrested. He permitted Jewish high priests to slap him around, then faced the Roman governor Pilate, who could see the machinations behind the charges. Jesus was another messiah-thorn to the Jewish leaders, but washing his hands of the whole mess, Pilate let the story proceed as it would. After getting the snot beaten out of him, Jesus was hung between two condemned men. Women stood nearby, including his mother. Mary watched her son die, another Jew dead under the Romans.

Tomorrow is Good Friday and Sunday is Easter. To many, it’s a holiday not much different than Christmas, save the massive commercial build-up. To me, it’s a reminder of the absurdity of life, my life. I’m not just a wife, mother, writer. I’m a child of a God of the foolhardy. I’m a daughter of a King who is in three parts. My best friend is a guy who spent thirty-three years on earth, but only during the last three did he make a big deal of his destiny; to save the world through the ultimate act of love.

Are you serious?

Yes, I am.

On my dresser sits a page-a-day calendar, scriptural in nature. Today’s quote is from Kevin A. Miller: The reason Jesus stretched out His arms on the cross was so He could reach them around people like you and me.

Who is this Jesus anyways? How in the heck does he even know who I am? And is he even real? There is no tangible proof, no way to ascertain the validity of bibles, or hunches. My very strong hunch is that God exists, Jesus is his son, the holy spirit set deep within my heart. Now, I could be completely wrong, and I won’t know until I’m dead. But this world is an odd place. Maybe, amid the media hype, there is room for a guy who washes feet and loves unreservedly.

Wishing a peaceful Good Friday and a very Happy Easter to all.

9 comments | tags: absurdities, blessings, Easter, faith | posted in Christianity

March 25, 2013

Dusting off after the chaos

By Anna Scott Graham

Last week was hectic, no joke. I’ve learned some valuable lessons, which are as follows:

1) Keep track of one’s novels via search engines. You never know where your stories may land.

2) Don’t be afraid to leave yourself a one-star review. Or to encourage others to do the same.

3) A bad apple can’t spoil the whole bunch.

People, on the whole, are good. That was the biggest and most valuable point taken. I would be remiss if I didn’t note that while I’m still writing, and plotting, and even pondering far-off in the future ideas, I am facing more than a little weariness when I think about publishing. This has been niggling before a pirate stole my book, but has grown since the Amazon debacle. I’m not sure how much is due to temporarily feeling like my heart had been ripped out of my chest, or plain overwork. Even though I’ve cut back, I’m still feeling pulled in too many directions.

When I started publishing independently, my goal was to carve out a niche for my novels. But it’s funny how ideas evolve; over the last two years, since I began walking this indie path, I’ve learned tremendous truths about writing, editing, publishing, and… me. I didn’t expect that at all.

I assumed I wouldn’t change in the midst of all the tear-down and build-up. I would be the same hard-working, or yes, driven, person when it comes to writing. And within my more plots than sense head, that remains as true in 2013 as it did in 2011, as it was in 2010, 2009, 2008… In 2008, I dove head-first into the fictional pond, submersing myself completely I loved it, felt such gratification. It was about learning to write as much as telling stories. I didn’t mind the lessons; nothing valuable emerges until a level of expertise has been gained, through hard work. Not that writing is like building houses or farming. But skills are acquired by practice. I wanted to write, so I just did it.

Then I wanted to publish, so I queried, had a few nibbles, then reassessed. Going indie was the culmination of many considerations, and I have no regrets.

Not until now.

And it’s not even a regret really; I was just telling my daughter that life is too short for regrets. You make mistakes, you learn from them, you move on. I don’t regret anything to do with my writing. But as I said, even before experiencing piracy, I was starting to give pause to what I’m publishing and why. Maybe it’s the result of all I did last year, maybe it’s aging, maybe it’s not enough roughage in my diet. Or chocolate, or too much sun, blah blah blah… All I know is that today I wrote a somewhat crappy chapter, then sat to plot next month’s Camp story, and not two minutes after pulling out the folder, laying it on the kitchen table, I closed it up again, no heart to even picking up a pen. I poked through a chapter of another project, then was so glad my daughter was awake, ready to get something to eat. We had arranged a late breakfast-early lunch date, and for the first time in memory, all I wanted was to get away from writing.

I’m discombobulated, as the lovely Melissa likes to say.

Discombobulated is a fantastic word; it’s being out of sorts, but in a long, complicated manner of saying it, much like this post, or many of my posts. I’m not in need of assistance, which is great! But I’m just not THERE, you know?

I’m discombobulated. I think I need some chocolate. Well, maybe not, but it probably wouldn’t hurt.

21 comments | tags: discombobulation, writing | posted in equilibrium

March 21, 2013

Two great pieces of news

By Anna Scott Graham

First, Amazon has removed the pirated copy of “50 Years Waiting”! I am so pleased, and want to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who left comments here on the blog, and reviews and ‘likes’ on those reviews at the pirated story. Especially I want to mention Dianne Gray, who wrote about this on her site; the outpouring of support was a joy in what was one of the most confusing and distressing moments of my indie career. Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, to all who assisted in the cessation of this thievery. And kudos to Amazon, who speedily rectified this situation.

Second, Trash Day!, a collection of short stories, was released today by Top Writers Block. My contribution, “The American Way”, is a poem; I’ve been in a poetic mood as of late. I’ve also been happy for a break from reality, and this gathering of tales, from flash fiction to short yarns in a gamut of genres, entertained and intrigued. All proceeds go to Sea Shepherd, and at two dollars, it’s a great deal. Get yours today from Smashwords, where you can find other fine anthologies by indie authors coming together to share stories and raise funds for the betterment of our oceans and waterways.

16 comments | tags: Amazon, appreciation, piracy, short stories, thankfulness, Top Writers Block, writing | posted in anthologies