Trying to Get on the Road Again

Yesterday I began checking things off the list. By 11 a.m. I had finished the last of work chores and enjoyed meeting friends for brunch. Afterwards I went to the Post Office where there was a package. I left my purse and briefcase with laptop on the front seat because the trunk was filled with items I was donating to a yard sale for the homeless in St. Augustine. When I returned to the car, purse and briefcase gone.

Instead of leisurely packing and cleaning my apartment yesterday, I spent the day frantically on the phone trying to remember everything that needed cancelling or replaced. I cried a whole lot too because the laptop represents much of what I have come to define myself as: a writer. It also kept me connected to the world as did the cell phone that went with the purse. For several hours yesterday I contemplated cancelling the trip, but then cooler heads - such as Joy's - prevailed and with the help of several other friends managed to get things done. By 2 a.m. I fell into bed exhausted and welcomed sleep only to wake at 6 a.m. to finish packing.

The road beckons and Jack Kerouac would be proud.

Counting Down

I like preparing for a trip. The past week has been filled with frantic movements so my life is in order when I embark on this three-week odyssey, but as of last night as the work load lessened I began to get excited about the moment I walk out the door with my luggage and step into my friend, Tamara's, car for the ride to the Jacksonville airport.

Before we take off on Route 66 on Monday I head to a family reunion with Anna in South Haven, Michigan. I'm staying with my long-time buddy Linda Miazga during the weekend when 30 members of the Camburn family descend on this beach resort town in southwestern Michigan. Linda and I met in 1973 at Crystal Lake in the upper part of the mitten of Michigan. Although neither of us remember the weekend very well, the memory stuck enough for us to become best friends while enrolled in the same psychology class in early 1974. Another friend, Karen, will be there too and I met her through Linda and another mutual friend. It's been a long, happy 34 years of friendship. We've gone from silly high school girls to focused wives and mothers to crazy single (i.e. w/o children) women. It is fitting this journey starts with them.

Now the family is another story for another blog.

Route 66 Pre Trip Jitters

One week from today, my friend Joy and I and our daughters converge on Chicago from all around the country. After a night of Chicagoing we get in the mini-van stocked with camping and writing gear, and head west on what remains of Route 66, even if it is buried under 9 inches of asphalt.

The anticipation of a journey buzzes around my head, but I cannot allow the buzz to become too strong as I struggle to get all of my work done before hitting the road for three weeks. Magazine deadline today keeps me somewhat focused although here I am writing this blog instead of preparing copy for the production team.

A sigh of relief when the day looms for departure because it will all be done and I will be exhausted.

Local Government

When we shut the voice of the opposition, we run the risk of ending all of our freedoms. As we honor the war dead today, let's not forget this one basic lesson. Everyone has a voice in a democracy. We may not like it but if we silence those voices then we must have something to hide.

It's Just Life After All

Does anyone else love the lyrics of the Indigo Girls as much as I do?

I know that my family does not and I had to hide my listening of their CDs to avoid their comments. But no longer.

"Stronger than the monsters beneath my bed."

"The less I seek source from some divinity, the closer I am to fine."

I am drawn to listening to them once again during this transition time in my life, from married to single. That and my writing keep me connected to the source of my peace.

Mostly I have made it through this transition intact, but there have been casualities, mostly other people who do not know how to deal with this break up. I admire those who have stuck it out with my ex-husband and myself — those who have wanted to learn how to cope with the separation of a couple they thought had it all together. I have forgiven those who cannot understand or who fear the separation of two people who have been together for so long.

I just came from having cocktails and dinner with my ex. It was nice and sweet and comfortable. But we both acknowledged the rightness of our decision. I can guarantee that the same dinner, if it had occurred while we still lived together, would have been none of those things.

"Honey, it's not for the weather or the lack of loving you."

Where does the time go?

Hard to believe it has been a month since I blogged. I have been juggling so many details in my freelance life that I have not had the time to just sit and write for fun.

I am working on a book proposal about a hostage situation from fifteen years ago. I want to spend all my time working on it because the topic is fascinating. However, I have taken on a very challenging jog with a publisher of several magazines who has never had an editor before. Man, am I under fire for making unpopular decisions regarding editorial content versus advertising.

And of course I am adjusting to single life which is not much of an adjustment except that my friends do not have much to do with me these days. It can be difficult to be the one to leave especially when my husband did not beat me, drink, cheat, lie, steal or gamble. He's just a regular sweet guy and my life would be simplier perhaps if I just stayed. But somehow I want more in my life and I do not want it here and he will never move.

I digress.

Moving

I moved this week and am having a time with my computers. That is why I have not blogged in over a week. Computers are beautiful things when they work!

So here I am getting slammed with work finally and having to go back and forth on computers to find one that works properly. My life as a freelance writer depends heavily on the Internet. I never realized quite how much until I started having problems.

But how can I complain? I have carved out this great life for myself and I am finally being reward monetarily for it. I'll figure out the rest because taking the plunge and going full time as a freelancer was the hard part.

The Hurry Up and Wait Part

Sometimes I am inundated with deadlines and I seem to be on the fast track pushing myself further and further. And then the deadlines are met, the editor/agent/publisher has the work, and I wait for remarks, words of encouragement, and publication.

The writing life is certainly a "hurry up and wait" game. The best cure for the blues during the "wait" period is to "hurry up" with something else.

And then there are the days such as today when I have so much work waiting to begin that I am the stumbling block causing the wait. Some of those things consist of filing, cleaning drawers, writing up publicity materials, researching markets — anything but writing.

And so, the question becomes on days such as this one do I crawl into bed with a good novel or do I begin my next one and let the other stuff wait?

Or perhaps I'll just take a nap. I'm tired just thinking about it.

Inauguration - Third Installment

Anna's friend, Steve, was arrested around 1 p.m. on inauguration for putting a hand on a policman's arm. But he wasn't just handcuffed and hauled off to jail. The arresting officer threw him to the ground and kicked and beat him. Then he went to jail to the taunts of the officers.

One of the police was a black woman and when she began berating Steve for protesting, he asked her what Malcolm X and Martin Luther King might think of her views. She kept her mouth shut after that.

Steve stayed in jail for the next 24 hours. They would not release him until he signed a paper stating he would take a drug test once a week for the next year. Everyone arrested in the protests that day had to sign the same form, regardless of their alledged crimes.

Anna and the rest of the crew picked Steve up around 3 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 21, and immediately took him to the emergency room because of the pain he was in from the beating the day before. He had bruised ribs. Some in ER congratulated the group for their efforts. We saw Steve a week after his return and he was still having a great amount of back pain.

As soon as Steve was treated and released from ER, they began the drive home. Anna and another friend did all the driving because everyone else was too exhausted. They did not want to spend another night in the nation's capital.

I plan on going to St. Augustine and interviewing Anna and her friends more in depth in the next week so I can compile a more in-depth article and try for a broader audience. Suggestions are welcome.

Second Installment - The Inauguration

Before Anna and her friends left St. Augustine, they posted a request on the Internet for a place to sleep once they arrived in D.C. The First Presbyterian Church, four blocks from the capitol, responded and gave them a warm place to crash each night.

When Anna's friend was arrested, the officer noticed her friend wore an "I love Jesus" pin. The policeman said, "How can you be here protesting our President and wear a pin like that?"

I never knew protesting and Jesus were mutually exclusive things. Perhaps someone should have told Jesus when he protested against the moneychangers in the temple.

Anna and her group arrived late Wednesday night after an accident in the snow and ice. It took them over 24 hours to make a 13 hour trip, but they continued on their journey determined to make it in time for the inauguration.

The next day, Thursday, Jan. 20, was bitter cold. They hooked up with thousands who decided to not go to the prearranged free speech zones set up around the inauguration route. Instead they took to the streets and began advancing. There were concrete blocks to keep out vehicular traffic but they assumed since they were pedestrians they could continue. Anna lost track of where she was and moved with the crowd. Her friend told me they had no idea they had advanced as far as the actual route and it scared the police.

Anna said they continued shouting as they marched. "Not Our President," "Show Me What Democracy Looks Like. This is what Democracy Looks Like."

"I saw police with big hoses spraying something. I thought it was water which would have been enough because it was such a cold day, but it was mustard spray," Anna said. "I was pressed against a building as I watched these cops with crazy looks on their faces with sticks and batons just hitting people like crazy. They just kept repeating these motions as if they were robots with that crazed look in their eyes.

"The people who were getting hit with the spray began vomiting. They had snot and tears running down their faces. It was like someone hit them with Tabasco sauce right in the face."

Then guys with backpacks began setting up impromtu triage stations with medic signs. They offered water and milk of magnesia to the victims of the spraying. Anna watched as one of these men was arrested for helping out the victims.

Tomorrow: Anna loses track of her friends as one of them is haulted off to jail.

Bush Inauguration Protests

My 23 year old daughter just returned from Bush's Inauguration in Washington. This trip was the first one she had taken without any parents in tow, and she learned a whole lot more about this country from that one trip than all the educational vacations I had planned for her in the past.

She traveled with six other students from St. Augustine, Florida to the nation's capital to protest their dismay over another four years of Bush as president.

"I told myself, 'if he becomes president again, I'm going to be up there screaming with my fists in the air,'" she told me the week after her return. "There's a war going on in this country against personal freedoms and rights as citizens. It's a war on rights as human beings."

And so she went despite the ice and snow, and she came home even more motivated to continue her protests. But she also came home to questions. Many asked her what she thought she proved by going.

"It's horrible if these things happen and no one yells," she said. "It's fueled me more to improve the community I live in and to fight against what's happening."

She saw first hand what the police do when confronted with anyone who disagrees with those in power. Mainstream media reports about injured policemen upset her because she saw the protesters being beaten and kicked and sprayed for simply marching in the streets. She marched toward the inauguration route with thousands shouting, "Who's streets? Our streets."

Tomorrow I will share what she saw and heard on January 20, 2005, as King George sat on his throne in front of his paying guests.

Letting Go a Big Sigh of Relief

For months I have been keeping a big secret, but now I can take a huge sigh of relief and exhale a whole lot of pent up air.

Today when my monthly newspaper hit the streets, so did a surprise to our readers. My husband and I announced that we would no longer be publishing the paper after the next issue. We made the decision months ago and while we hoped that someone would purchase us that has not yet materialized. But we realized no matter what happened, we had left the newspaper business in our hearts and we knew we had to stop before it showed in the paper.

We also made another decision about seven months ago and have been living with that secret all this time because of the paper. We are separated, and I will be moving away within a very short time.

It's pretty amazing that we have managed to put out the paper together while our marriage fell apart. I'm actually proud of the way we have managed to handle ourselves and so is my husband. Now we have to deal with the rest of the world handling it.

I just told one of our readers when he asked why we were stopping the paper. He said, "Why are you doing this to me?"

The Rights of the Press

As a journalist, I am often asked if I can get information that regular citizens cannot just because we are the press. Although some of my colleagues may disagree with me, we are not entitled to any great rights or privileges than other citizens. We have just learned how to seek out information.

The other night at a commission meeting a colleague - and I use the term loosely - kicked city staff off of a table she was using because she claimed the table was reserved for the press. I was disappointed they moved. But they moved next to me, sitting in the regular seats.

"You know that's BS, don't you?" I asked the Fire Chief when he settled in the chair next to me.

"I know it, but I didn't want to start a fight," he said, "but as far as I'm concerned she can kiss my . . ."

Sorry but I believe furniture purchased with public funds belongs to everyone. There is no elite seating for the presss.

So to my colleague: "Get over yourself."

Monday Morning Blues and Chills

On this cold, cold north Florida morning, I attempt to thaw my brain and get back on track. Yesterday about all the writing I could squeeze out of these fingers occurred with some fairly lame emails.

I have to write up an interview with a disillusioned commissioner who is leaving office bitter and disappointed. I would rather write about my newly found character Mickey Sanders. On Saturday at my writing seminar I used him as an example of putting a character in a scene and having him react. Interesting exercise. One of the participants wrote the scene but had the character act not as the character but as the writer. Since I knew the writer, I called her on it right away and she admitted the truth. Great lesson for everyone.

But my Mickey Sanders told the bag boy at Winn Dixie to "bite me." And it felt pretty fine to let my character speak. Great catharsis.

Is anyone out there?

Is anyone reading my blog? I know when I can see the printed word and my byline in a magazine, newspaper, or book that others have the opportunity to read what I write. With this blog I feel somehow disconnected with readers. And then I wonder, what if no one ever sees what I write? Did I really write it? Am I really here?

I am really not an existentialist, but sometimes I wonder.

Burning Books

I covered a story at a local school the other day. The Rotary Club purchased a dictionary/resource book for every third grader in the county and they were delivering to a school in my newspaper's coverage area. The students eagerly tore open the books when they received them.

"I never had my own dictionary before," said one student. "I never knew they could be so cool."

The dictionaries contain sign language, braille, periodic tables, geographical information, and many other things that might expand the minds of these young students and show them the world.

One of the Rotarians told me, "You know one of our members is very upset that we are doing this."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because we bought dictionaries that contained an Arab calendar."

God forbid that we should try to understand anything at all about another culture. Why didn't they just burn those books when they came? That's what they would have done in Nazi Germany if the books had contained parts of the Torah.

Reading Baghdad Burning

I just read an interesting blog, but I could not find a way to respond to it. Baghdad Burning is written by a woman in Iraq who says no phones and no electricity for long periods of time is the natural condition these days. Many are attempting to flee the country before the borders close the week before the election.

Yes, it's a fine situation there.

She wondered about a news release she just read that stated George W. Bush had stopped searching for WMD and she wondered if anyone ever believed in them in the first place.

I want to respond to Baghdad Burning that there are many of us in the United States who never believed any of it from the very beginning. While we are supportive of our young men and women in Iraq, we are not supportive of the lies and propaganda that we have been fed. But now that W has been elected for the first time, certain things are coming to light.

My heart goes out to all of you in Iraq. We are all One people and unless we All come to that realization, it will destroy us all.

Characters - Love or Hate 'Em

Do protagonists have to be likeable? I have always believed so, but if recent works I've read are any indication others do not share my belief.

I just read a short story where the narrator was bigoted and selfish. By the end of the story I did not care that he had redeemed himself because I had learned to dislike him from the very start. First he made fun of a blind man and then he questioned if the blind man had married a "colored" woman. He did not want the man in his house.

During the course of the story story he proceeded to get drunk and despite his opening to the blind man by the end, I did not like the man nor did I like the story. I like stories where characters change for the better, but because of the short story setting, I did not see where this man's changes would last since they occurred over a three hour period.

So likeability in this case became a matter of believability in the character's ability to embrace change.

Mickey Sanders Becomes Real

As I wrote a character profile for my bartender with the baseball cap, I learned his dark secret that haunts him.

He was raised in a southern Baptist home where his truck driver father and housewife mother taught him that homosexuality was a sin and Satan-driven. But Mickey ever since he could remember always dreamed about men and never felt anything for the girls who flitted in and out of his life. He has never told a soul nor has he acted on any of his urges.

He hates his parents and he hates his life. And so he keeps the baseball cap in place. He succeeds as a bartender because he listens. He fails as a friend because he never responds.

Mickey will do something dark most likely to himself in this novel.

Creating Character

I love creating a new character, especially if they are the antagonist or have some juicy secret. Last night as I ate dinner at my favorite bar/restaurant, I watched the bartender. I think I might use him in my new novel.

Mickey Sanders wore the baseball cap low on his forehead. If someone wanted a good look at his eyes it would require getting into his face and looking up into the brim of the visor. But one look at his square jawline and lips set in a straight line would discourage anyone from getting that close to him.

The hat protected him from others, and it protected others from his wrath.

Now why does Mickey Sanders want to shield himself from the outside world? Stay tuned, because right now I haven't a clue!