You’ll appreciate this: today at work, I got hit by a flying lazy Susan. Yes, a wooden disc came bounding toward me, and I didn’t really see it until it had bounced off me onto the floor. Fortunately, lazy Susans have no corners or sharp edges — I wasn’t hurt a bit. I rescued it, and I even stood on it for awhile. My backup man “T” hadn’t seen the incident, and he was quite startled by my sudden ability to rotate in place without moving my feet (he couldn’t see my feet from where he was standing) — I think he was considering calling an exorcist. At the end of the shift, I left it leaning against the cardboard shaft, on the floor. Maybe someone on the second or third shift will fancy it and take it home.
Frick Park, May 4, 2013
Okay — there’s what it looks like when I write with the Neo in Frick Park! That’s me actually working on the book!
My “office” in Frick Park, Pittsburgh
(That’s an abandoned dog leash on the ground, not a snake.)
Frick Park
I’m getting ever closer to the end of the draft: the book is now at 129,430 words. The latest sentence I wrote was “I blinked.”
Writing place in Frick Park
That’s Julie’s purse, not mine . . .
May 4, 2013
Grrooiinnkkk! [The sound of changing the subject with a monkey wrench]
Some exciting news is that a couple weeks ago, I was in Wisconsin for the baptism of my new goddaughter! I’ll withhold her full name to protect her family’s privacy, but her first name is Elizabeth. It was an honor and a great blessing to be there, and a very special privilege to have this responsibility! It was wonderful to spend time with a college friend and his family. Here’s a picture of me there, at the softball game of my friend’s oldest daughter:
Me, looking like a movie director
When I told my boss I was heading for Wisconsin, he insisted that I had to try something called “cheese curds.” I was agreeable; I’m always most ready to eat cheese. I wondered how “curds” were different from straightforward “cheese” that we all know about. Was it a folkloric thing, I wondered, like curds & whey? Would it be like eating cottage cheese with my fingers? The mystery only deepened when I got to Wisconsin and my friend (“Preacher” on this blog) advised me that cheese curds would be squeaky . . . they’d squeak against my teeth. “How can cheese be squeaky?” I asked him. He told me I’d understand soon.
So on the way to that double-header softball game, we stopped at a cheese dairy and acquired a big bag of curds. They really do squeak! Now I understand indeed. And they are amazing! Throughout the weekend, I kept suggesting that we get them out of the refrigerator and eat more of them. My hosts would ask me at various times if I was hungry, and I’d say, “Well, maybe we could get out the cheese curds?” I would have brought some back with me, but the ones for sale in the airport were labeled “Keep Refrigerated,” so alas, they must remain a good object of pilgrimages to fabled Wisconsin.
Okay, here’s a picture of me and little Elizabeth:
Central Wisconsin, April 2013
And here’s something for which I’m also tremendously grateful! My friend (Elizabeth’s father) arranged for me to do some writing workshops at schools while I was there!
Second-grade poetry writing workshop
For one thing, I got to work with second-graders on writing poetry. This workshop was a whole lot of fun. Poetry is perhaps the easiest form of creative writing to teach, especially to younger children. We have to learn vocabulary and mechanics as we get older, but kids are natural born poets. From the time we leave the womb, we enjoy rhythms, repetitions, and playing with sounds. We use our senses; we soak the world in. In this seminar, we made a list of spring colors and of things we see, hear, smell, and feel in the springtime. We talked about rhyme schemes and beats in a line. Then we worked as a class to write a spring poem (which was quite good! — I wish I’d saved a copy!). Finally, each student followed some instructions to compose a poem of his/her own. And wow! — there are some amazing young writers in that class!
Fourth- and fifth-grade creative writing workshops
In the fourth and fifth grades, students identified and focused on some principles of good writing. Then they set about improving a story that needed some help. Again, I was impressed with how well they did! I could tell they have dedicated teachers at their school.
The artwork of Emily Fiegenschuh for “The Star Shard” in CRICKET Magazine
I showcased the illustrations Emily Fiegenschuh did for “The Star Shard” in Cricket, and we talked about the collaborative process between a writer and illustrator. I hope the workshop encouraged the artists in the group as well as the writers.
High-school novel-writing workshop
I also had the great fun of speaking to a high-school class about the process of novel-writing. I drove the points home that, if you want to change the world even a little for the better, one of the best things you can do is to write clearly and well; and that if you have the dream to leave books and stories behind you in this world, it’s an attainable goal. There’s nothing superhuman about published writers. They’re simply people who don’t give up — who keep writing. They’re people who finish things. They’re people who love the excitement of making something real and vivid and lasting on pages that started out blank.
Yes, it was a good time in Wisconsin. I’m thankful to have been there when the wheel went ’round.
Julie says: 
fsdthreshold 
Preacher 
Marquee Movies 
Gabe Dybing 
Joe M 
jhagman 
Morwenna