Caught between two worlds

This always happens to me when I am in the skull-clenching middle of a book I am writing. I enter a twilight zone of the Other World, the one where my characters are trying to claw their way to resolution, and I am at the rim, writing it all down. I am not actually in their world, that would be creepy, but I am half in it. And half in mine, of course, and that's not creepy - that's chaos.

I get a little uppity at this stage of the novel. I sort of want to tell everyone to shut up and leave me alone. Don't talk to me. Don't ask me questions. For pity's sake, don't saunter. But I sort of need my normal life to make any sense of the fictive one. It is only by participating in my normal world (that means being a polite, civil person that sauntering people want to be around) that I get the inspiration to solve the problems in my fictive world.

It's like this. I have Character A in a really important, plot-pivoting scene that I am finding very hard to write and My Real World beckons me. I grudgingly peel myself away from the fictive world, address the Real World issue at lightning speed (which can be as simple needing to use the bathroom, making a meal, or taking a child to a dentist appointment) all the while stewing over the interruption.

And yet when I come back to the story, the loathsome interlude has produced new insights I didn't have before. The hateful disruption into all things real has made all things fictional easier to visualize.

Getting back into the stride is still just about the most dismal thing there is. It's like trying to jump back into a swinging jump rope. It's easier if I never have to step out of it.

But easier has never made for a better story. Not for me. My best stories have always been the hardest to write. Natch. There is probably wisdom somewhere in that but I gotta get outta this blog and back to the Zone.

Now go away and leave me alone.

So the plan was, take our darling Bella to Dog Beach. It's a fabulous beach. For Dogs.

We planned it for several weeks, waiting for a nice, hot weekend with lotsa sunshine and on a day when the adult members of the fam could come and enjoy Bella's inaugural romp in the surf and sand.

We arrived in lovely Del Mar just a little past noon with about three gazillion other people - who may not have all wanted to take their dogs to the beach, but they sure wanted the beach. And they wanted parking places. After doing the Desperate Search (and coming up with nothing but angst and neck pain) we made our way back to 11th Street, parked (finally) and began the long trek back to 29th Street on flip-flop.

So after all this mental and physical build up, the pressure was on. We arrived at Dog Beach, hot, breathless and sweaty, and beheld a bunch of canines jumping the surf, running in the sand, chasing Frisbees and small children. Bella took note of the abundance of other dogs, and then she looked down at the white foamed surf as it crawled toward her like a possessed Persian rug. She totally freaked. It took us several minutes to persuade her that the planet was not melting, the world was not shifting, the ground was not trying to swallow her whole.

She eventually relaxed, posing like a good dog for the first photo (which, contains - if you look real close - a man in white shorts running toward his dog who has friskily passed Bella in a dash of exuberance and salt spray and was now several yards away.)

When she finally found her confidence, she sat in the surf, perhaps to subdue it, and posed for this last photo. Then she proceeded to roll - wet, of course - in the sand.

Getting her into the van without taking half the beach with us was interesting. Hosing her at home was fun, too. The grains of sand kept falling off of her. Her fun meter definitely pegged that day. So did mine, actually. But hey! These pictures are great.

Next week we take our cat to Cat Beach.

That would be my joking voice . . .

Win a book!

Just a quick note here before I head back to my current work in progress. I am loving it! It's called Lady in Waiting and the historical thread in this one is the demure, dulcet and doomed Lady Jane Grey. Brave girl. . .

The Shape of Mercy is a Book of the Year finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writers Women's Fiction category. Yay! To celebrate, I am giving away a signed copy here and also on The Shape of Mercy character blog!

To enter, just drop a shout in the comments section here by Thursday, July 30. You can enter on the The Shape of Mercy blog, too, if you want.

And just so you know, The Shape of Mercy didn't win the RITA award at the RWA national conference last week in D.C. The accomplished Nora Roberts won in our category, but it really was a thrill to be a finalist alongside her.

Have a great weekend. On Monday, pictures of a reluctant canine on Dog Beach. . .

The ledger of our lives

I am not one of those thrill seekers who would jump at the chance for a civilian excursion to the moon. I doubt such trips will happen in my lifetime, but if they did, I could not be paid any sum to be one of the lucky passengers.

I am too fond of terra firma, too aghast at the thought of being unhinged in space, too afraid that something would go wrong and I'd be ejected into oblivion where I would spin and tumble forevermore, dead and forgotten.

Aside from all that, I love the moon the way it looks from here. Bold and glowing, big and imposing, lovely and luminscent. I am like my husband's grandmother who loved the moon's romantic side and was throughly disgusted when the Apollo missions revealed it was really nothing but a great lifeless globe of dirt and rocks.

I was eight years old when Neil Armstrong left his footprints on the moon, and today, on the 40th anniversary of those famous footsteps, I am reminded of the words he spoke when he made them. He took a small step for himself, he said, but made a giant leap for the rest of us. A barrier had been broken, a frontier explored, a dream realized.

But the really interesting thing is, Mr. Armstrong has lived a quiet life since then, downplaying his personal role in this historic event and declining the mantle of hero time and time again. This article in today's paper was of particular interest to me because it ironically sheds light on the man who eschews the lunar spotlight. Makes me think that he wants us to remember it wasn't walking on the moon that was so incredible but getting there.

And isn't that what so many great people have told us? It's not the destination but the journey that makes us who we are. I love this quote by Neil Armstrong, one of the few he has uttered about his historic stroll: "We'd all like to be recognized not by one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work."

I think maybe that's one reason why there has been no new treks to the moon since the seventies. It would just be expensive fireworks that wouldn't challenge or woo anybody. Or add to the ledger of anyone's lifework.

And isn't that what really motivates us in the end? Not seconds of infamy but a lifetime of little choices that left the planet a happier place?

Jammies that matter!

Today I am happy to have my friend Ann, whom I have known since she was a sophomore in the high school journalism class I taught back in the '90s, visit the Edge to share something really cool. Ann is a business manager for the International Princess Project, an organization dedicated to helping women escape the horror of human trafficking. Ann is here to talk about a wonderful way to be a part of that healing project.

Ann says: “In India, millions of women and girls work as prostitutes. Many have been trafficked, kidnapped, lured with promises of jobs, or sold by their own families into sexual slavery. Some as young as six years old have become sex workers (the actual term used in India) due to poverty or lack of opportunities. Within the huge, cosmopolitan city of Mumbai, lies the largest red-light district in the world, which is home to a myriad of injustice, abuse, and horrors.

One million children are trafficked into the sex trade each year, taken from their families and forced to work as prostitutes. In Mumbai alone, ninety cases of HIV are reported every hour. Once in the sex trade, women and girls may be forced to have intercourse with up to twenty clients per day.

You can help bring hope to women who have been rescued or escaped from forced prostitution and human trafficking! By purchasing pajamas these women have made, you help empower them to restore their lives. While living in a safe, holistic recovery home, the women learn to sew PUNJAMMIES™ so that they can support themselves with skill and dignity, heal in body and spirit, and live lives of freedom.

If everyone takes a small piece of responsibility in the fight against human trafficking and forced prostitution, we can overcome the dark reality these women have lived and prevent others from experiencing the same.”

So hey: You can purchase these pajamas online at www.punjammies.com. As my friend Ann says, “Every sale contributes to restoring hope and dignity to another life.”

That’s something to feel good about! Have a great weekend, everyone.

An AP article in yesterday's paper revealed that more and more people are choosing charming human names for their pets. Rover, Fido, Mittens and Socks have given way to respectable names like Winston, Bart, Molly, and Tabitha. I've actually been on this band wagon since 1995 when we brought home our first family pet, a homeless kitten we named Missy (she had a cute little M on her forehead that sadly morphed into a Harry Potter scar as she grew). She was followed in 1996 by a gangly Labrador Retriever puppy christened Luke by my children (after the galactic warrior not the gospel-writing doctor) and lately with the newcomer, Bella - a blond golden retriever named so by her former owners for her beauty, not after the love interest of one Edward Vampire Cullen.

The article quotes the author of The Best Pet Name Book Ever! (Wayne Eldridge), who says - and I agree - that pet owners who give their animals human names are more likely to treat them as members of the family.

That would aptly describe me and the Meissner household. Luke, with his aging, Skeletor face, ears that don't hear much any more, arthritic hips that make him sway like a drunkard, still has us smiling and cooing over him. Missy, at 14, commands all the attention of a matriarchal, fussy aunt who can get away with moodiness because of her spinsterhood. And Bella, the newcomer, is definitely everyone' s life coach. Her approach to every day is. "And what can I do for you today?"

I am fiercely devoted to my pets-with-human-names and I don't like to imagine life without their fur on my black pants, their escapades into the kitchen trash and their penchant for producing odious odors.

My pets are good friends. Forgiving friends. Easy-going friends. They deserve names that elevate them to a more homosapien-like status.

And no, I have no plans to rent the DVD Marley and Me. None. Do not ask it of me.

You should've seen me when I closed the cover on The Art of Racing in Rain.

So. How about it? Care to share the names of your pets? Don't worry. There shall be no judging on the Edge if Cuddles or Fifi is what you have sleeping at your feet as you write. Let's hear 'em.

My favorite morning get-it-together read has long been Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for Highest. I've been toting the same dogeared copy around for the last decade but I still find that he can surprise me even though I've read every entry at least half a dozen times.

Today's reading (July 10) has me contemplating its nuances several hours later. I am still grappling with its meaning, and therefore, its takeaway.

Chambers wrote: "The test of our spirituality comes when we come up against injustice and meanness and ingratitude and turmoil, all of which have the tendency to make us spiritual sluggards. We want to use prayer and Bible reading for the purpose of retirement. We utilize God for the purpose of getting peace and joy, that is, we do not want to realize Jesus Christ, only our enjoyment of Him. This is the first step in the wrong direction. All these things are effects and we try to make them causes."

Injustice, meanness, ingratitude and turmoil are effects and we approach them as causes. Is this not what he is suggesting? Injustice is the effect of spiritual laziness. Meanness, the effect of laziness. Ingratitude, the effect, not the cause. Turmoil is not the cause of spiritual deadness. It is the effect of it.

I'd like to have the wise Chambers in my living room right now. I'd serve him a very respectable cup of tea and then I'd ask him to please, please tell me more. My appetite for understanding has been whetted not sated, I want more.

I feel like I am only scratching the surface of perception here. Wiser minds out there, what do you think?

From the moment last year when I hung my hummingbird feeder outside my kitchen window - and I mean this literally - I've had a steady stream of snackers at the buffet. It was as if the local hummers had been waiting on the power lines all their lives for me to hang the scarlet-hued dinner table. I had no sooner hooked it and stepped back inside my kitchen (wondering how many days it would take them to find it), when several swooped in to drink, before I'd closed the sliding door behind me.

It has amazed me how quickly the birds have claimed ownership of the feeder - my feeder - dogfighting over my balcony for sipping rights, chastising each other in the sweetest sounding insults you're likely to hear, and chasing newbies away with raw rudeness. The feeder has six flower-like sipping stations - plenty of room for several to snack at once but they hate to share.

The prettiest one of the bunch, a redheaded grump who simply cannnot tolerate anyone else at the water hole - even when he or she is clearly sated - will perch on the power line a few feet from where the nectar hangs and attack any would-be eaters with all the arrogance of a golddigger who's found the motherlode and won't share it with his pickmates.
They haven't a clue that I am the one who keeps it filled, who buys the nectar concentrate at $4 a pop because I care about their nutritional needs, who cleans it out when the ants discover it, who notices when it's getting down to the dregs and needs refilled.

I can't help but wonder if there's a little object lesson here for me- I wonder how often I view my provisions as something I've hacked out of the earth on my own when really it shows up everday as a gift from someone else.

And I am supposed to share. . . .