It's Musical Monday again!

Some warm music for a cold Monday! A few  piano meanderings by a composer who hasn't gotten nearly enough attention yet...(but we're working on it!)

Enjoy!

Janny

Happy Birthday Robert Burns!

In honor of the occasion...a quintessential love song, sung by one of the greatest of all time. Have tissues handy.

And...you're welcome.

A Red, Red Rose

Janny

For Musical Monday...A Surprise!

 Yes, it was for ME, too.

Check it out!

Janny

A Miracle Musical Monday!

I think this is probably one of the best ways you could start any week. But, then, again, I think it's pretty much impossible to listen to Haydn and not smile...

So enjoy the rest of your week with this as accompaniment!

Janny

The Story So Far...

I admit, I stole the title for this entry from a Battlefield Band album. But it's an apt way to describe how we're all doing, don't you think?

And I had an interesting perspective on how I'm "doing," almost five and a half years after Patrick's death, during a message I wrote to a man with whom I'm chatting on Catholic Chemistry.  Yes, I've done some dating services. No, you don't want to know how many...or that I was 7-for-7 on scammers with at least one of them...or what some of the men out there seem to be focused on when they talk about a new relationship. (It's a three-letter word. Use your imagination.) But this particular entry was an answer to his musings about whether he may have been too picky all his life, looking for a woman to settle down with--he'd never married--and the makings of "chemistry." He asked me if I believed in it, and if it was something that happened fast, or something that "grew" on you...what I thought.  And I looked at that, and just laughed.

How I answered him, I think, shows a great deal about how far I've come, where I've come to, and what I'm looking at in this new reality of mine. See what you think:

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Brace yourself, because you asked the wrong girl about "chemistry." LOL! Yes, I believe in it...boy, do I! It could be said that I kind of NEED to, as a romance writer...but I'm lucky/fortunate/blessed enough to have also had terrific chemistry on my "second time around," and I miss him every single day.

I say "second time around" because technically, I had a first marriage--but I was never married in the eyes of the Church, and I've come to refer to that relationship as my "fake first husband." Oh, we were legal and all--but we married at age 20, and we frankly didn't have a clue what we were doing. The young man was a charmer who proposed to me on the second date. (!) Coming from a father who was verbally abusive, emotionally crippled, and not the kind of "daddy" any little girl should have, I ate up the affection, laughter, and compliments of this guy, and I thought that was all it'd take. I did my best to be a good little Baptist wife, kowtowed to his preacher father, and all the rest. Seven years later, when I discovered my husband was a chronic liar, couldn't hold a job, and had a disturbing affinity to violent and/or pornographic literature...I bailed. I got a legal separation, moved out into my own apartment, and pursued full-time music study...

...and then, I encountered the love of my life.

I don't say I "met" him because, in fact, I had already MET Patrick. He was in the same music classes I was, we performed in several ensembles together (as well as performing in separate ensembles at the same concerts!), and I knew OF him. But he was a very quiet, reserved, and shy drummer, and so I never knew him, per se...until one night, (purely "by chance") I sat next to him at a choir pizza party, we started talking--and the bond was immediate. We "clicked" so well that, that night going home in the car, my hands were shaking on the steering wheel. I knew SOMETHING had happened to me--what, I wasn't sure yet!

From there, we became fast friends, then best friends....and eventually, he decided he wanted to date me. Truth to tell, I was head-over-heels for him probably about from "hello," and he claimed he'd had a "sign" early on that I was the one. But he was a very, very cautious soul, and he wanted to take his time pursuing a relationship with a divorced woman, especially since she was 7 years older. (Yeah. Just call me "cougar"! LOL)

But the chemistry? Happened like lightning. Everyone who knew both of us told me repeatedly that we had "something special." And we did. It was more than just our shared faith, our shared music, our shared weird sense of humor, or--let's face it--a whole lot of just plain physical attraction. Fundamentally, we looked at the world the same way, which is kind of my informal definition of "compatibility." And yes, we went through all kinds of trials...but we laughed almost every single day, never lacked for conversation, and came through some very rough times even more in love than we started.

Does that mean he was perfect? Heck, no. Neither am I. And there are a lot of things about the relationship, and his personality and habits, that I DON'T miss. But in balance? I believe we were absolutely meant for each other, and had been from before either of us was born. That kind of "soulmate" truly IS rare, and I know a lot of people who settle for less; I feel sorry for them. But if you may have been a bit picky about what you were looking for in terms of a wife, imagine how picky I am NOW! (LOL) Yes, I know the bar is set incredibly high, and I may never find another partner that good. As Tom Hanks' character says in SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE, "It doesn't happen twice." It does, of course, in that romantic movie. It may not for me, but if it doesn't, I have to say....I'm okay anyway. Yes, it's lonely. But it's lonely for a particular brand of person, a particular brand of relationship...not just for "having someone" in my life. And that difference is important.

That's why I also believe that the best thing someone who's looking for a "partner" can do is to learn how to be happy alone. I did that as a single girl in college, and I'm doing it now. Put your imprint on your space. Surround yourself with things you love. Do things, as a single person, that treat YOU well. So many times in my grief-support group, people will talk about not wanting to cook a nice meal "just for one person," because it seems like it's "not worth it." To which I want to say, "Of course, it's worth it. That one person is YOU, and you deserve good food." The same applies to the rest of one's life--you deserve a place you can snuggle up and "nest" in, something far more than just a place to eat, sleep, or wash up. You want a haven for yourself, and you want to treat yourself well. Because Jesus says. "Love your neighbor as yourself..." but all too often, people forget the "as yourself" part. It has to be part of the mix, or you won't know how to love someone else well!

So, yeah. This very long answer to your long post boils down to a couple of answers. I most definitely DO believe in "chemistry," and I believe you don't know if it's there or not until you're face to face with the person. You can think it's there through such things as these messages, or even over the phone...but there's another component to it that only happens when you're physically present with the other person. That's when you know for sure. It can happen very fast, or it can build nice and slow...but for me, it has to be there, or I have to say, "Thanks, but no, thanks," to pursuing anything further.

Hope this gives you some insights!

=======================

Thoughts?

Janny

Some Fun and Frolic for Musical Monday!

 This.  Just way too much fun, IMHO. Although it could also be said there IS no such thing as too much fun...

(as the old country tune said so well!)

Enjoy!

Janny

"Russian" Into Musical Monday!

Yeah, I know. I couldn't resist.

But this is worth the trip.

As I say in my Facebook post, I'm "T-H-I-S close" to getting this under control. And when I do, the chills that will run through my system could air-condition this house for the rest of summer.

Good chills. Trust me.

In the meantime, enjoy this version. I certainly do!

Janny

What's the Good Word?

Probably many of you are too young to remember what the question above was a common greeting...but that's neither here nor there. 😉

I've had to stop reading two books this week.

One promised to be a neat, paranormal suspense book, with ghosts and hauntings and danger and all. I was really looking forward to it.

Until I got into the book, and discovered that everybody in it had potty mouths.

Yes. Including the seven-year-old son.

But what wore on me even more was the casual gutter speech from the parents.

Specifically, Mom.

Now, it's a British book. So, I had to tell myself over and over again, "Brits are cruder in their everyday speech than you're used to."

So when she teases her husband by calling him a "cheeky bastard," I could laugh along. He was being one, as a matter of fact. 

But when she greeted her kids, first thing in the morning, by saying, "You're up early. Did you shit the bed or something?"

I stopped.

And, while I did read a little further into the book, at that point, I lost interest.

The book had many "tripping points" for those of us used to an opening that moves fast, anyhow; it delved into great and meticulous detail about the layout of this fantastic estate where that the woman was going to be live-in manager. Describing in fine specifics the lengths, and breadths, and numbers of doors, and the whole shot. Even that, I could adapt to...in a book where, clearly, the setting is as much a character as the people. I get that. I've even done it. Although not, it must be said, in such exhaustive geographic detail.

But not a mother thinking it's in any way remotely affectionate to tease her children about being up early by asking if someone's defecated in a bed.

I wonder, to this moment, what she would have responded if they'd said, "Yes."

Part of me, I confess, wanted them to. Just to see her jaw drop.

But they took that in good spirit, as if that was the kind of thing their mother said to them all the time. And the notion of that turned my stomach.

When the language of the kids didn't improve any over the next few pages...I stopped. I just had had enough of their smart-ass mouths. 

I no longer cared if the ghost got any of them. In fact, I was rooting for it.

The same has happened with a second book I started, and was quite absorbed in, because a lot out of it is funny. It's another paranormal thriller, with a black-humor bent in it that I appreciate. 

I even was heartened when, in the first several pages, the language was actually cleaner than I expected.

Unfortunately, that didn't last.

But the kicker for me? One particular scene, upon which a major incident in the story gets built. A scene in which our "hero"'s wife is being, shall we say, sexually indulged by one of her fellow workers. 

Mind you, they're only separated, she and the hero. Not divorced yet. And he doesn't really want to divorce her.

Until that moment, when he doesn't catch them directly in the act...but right afterward.

And he spares us no description of what that looks like. Body parts, reactions, smells, the whole thing.

This is piled on top of an increasingly foul text anyway, in which our hero is dealing with mobsters and semi-mobsters and people who once did business with the mob, and petty crooks, and the whole shot...and none of them, apparently, know any creative words and terms beyond "a**hole," *d***head," and, of course, the ever-popular "f**k" (and all its forms).  

A little of that, I put up with. 

When we then start to wallow, deeper and deeper, into language--be it conversation or description--that makes me want to take a shower when I'm done reading it?

I'm outta there.

Which brings up my ever-present question.

There are over 600,000 words in the English language.

Why can't people learn to use some more of them?

And why don't publishers demand better?

One time, someone posted on Twitter that he couldn't understand why people had a problem with the word "f**k." 

I said, because it's vulgar, obscene, and repetitive.

To which another respondent agreed with the first poster and said, "Oh, but there are situations in which it's the perfect word."

To which I responded, "Only if you're too lazy to find any others."

I stand by that.

I stand by that as pertains to "a**hole," as pertains to *d***head," and a host of other terms that are so peppered throughout most contemporary prose that, were they actual pepper, you couldn't consume the dish they were used on.

Which, when you think about it, is a very good metaphor.

People will say, over and over, "But this is the way people talk."

To which I can only answer, "It's not the way I talk. And it's not the way people with a grain of decency talk. Or write. Or narrate things."

Above all, it's not the way people who actually want to convey real English talk...or write. 

And before you scream protests? It can be done.

It has been. Countless times. 

You can write about the seamiest, grittiest, most down-and-dirty plot points in the world in your prose without a single one of these lazy words.

And, no, it won't sound like a Sunday school teacher wrote it.

Because there are some really wonderful words in the lexicon that can be used as substitutes for these words. And they're not just substitutes, in that you're doing some knee-jerk "cleaning up" of your writing--they're actually better words.

More descriptive.

More vivid.

One or two, or half a dozen of these other "gems," in speech? If you want to have your characters portrayed as lazy speakers, go ahead.

But peppering them throughout narrative, throughout thoughts, throughout conversation as if they're anything but the nauseating insensitivities they are?

You do that, I'm going to get tired of digging through the excrement to get to the pony. But worse than that, for your author's reputation...is that I'm going to doubt that there even is a pony in there to begin with.

And I will set your book aside.

And I will delete it from my Kindle.

And I promise, I will never recommend it to anybody. 

Do you really want that reaction from a reader? Any reader?

You all can do better. I know you can.

Give it a try.

Go ahead.

I dare you.

Thoughts?

Janny

Musical Monday for my Birthday Week!

Hey, all...time for some sweet dance music!

Enjoy...

Janny

 

 

How Did This Happen? (lol)

 So here I am, doing my Social Duty on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram...

...telling people to feel free to bop on over HERE and enjoy the writing therein...

...only to realize that with all this socializing, plus finishing the newest book, I haven't actually WRITTEN anything new in here for ...er...let's not say how long!

Added to that the fact that I'm repurposing a LOT of older material into "writing tips" every Tuesday...

...added to that the fact that I've been doing social events at church and helping a friend move...

Yeah. 

I really need to set aside a definite time to update THIS place, and my Website.

Because a lot is happening in my writing life.

I'm getting more attention now, and I might be getting that attention multiplied through a various set of social connections that even I'm having trouble keeping up with!

All this, by way of building a "platform." Upon which to do, what, precisely?

That, they don't ever clarify. It's just something they want to see, so that they'll be assured that someone, somewhere, will actually BUY your book when it comes out.

Seems to me if it's a whiz-bang terrific book, that ought to take care of itself.

But it doesn't. Because there's just plain too darn many books out there for ANYONE to sort through anymore. Thanks to the brave new world of indies, small presses, and dozens of "fan" sites upon which you can publish anything from essays to complete short stories.

And, it goes without saying, most of this is free to the public. Except for the poor indie author or small press author. Not to mention those of us trying to crack "traditional" publishing.

And waiting for "traditional" publishing to remember that there are some of us out here who ARE, in fact, traditional.  You know who you are. I don't have to tell you. 

Nevertheless, over the past four years I have written SEVEN books.

Yeah. Count 'em. SEVEN.

That includes my personal love-story memoir, which I don't anticipate ever publishing.

So SIX for public consumption.

SIX.

I didn't have six books to my name for the previous 30 years' worth of trying to crack this thing.

I am grateful.

I am also...consequently...really, really, really BUSY.

What have YOU all been doing?

Elaborate in the comments!

More to come,

Janny

Repurposing, Reporpoising, Reintroducing, Oh, My!

Yes...I know there's no such word as "reporpoising." I don't think you actually can "porpoise" in the first place.  On account of cuz "porpoise" is a noun, and all. 

Just a disclaimer. Since nowadays, you have to explain everything. 👌

But, a short note is apropos here about what's going on with some blog posts. Which, if you've been following me on any other social media, you may realize you've "seen before."

Yup. Because almost no one saw them the FIRST time...and they're good stuff. That deserves to be shared.  That people are enjoying in its new "incarnation."

I can't promise this won't occur again, and again, and again.

But don't worry. I also plan to write more NEW stuff, too. 

Which, if you've ended up here because of the material you're seeing in other sources...is ALSO a good thing.

So, don't be shy. Dip into some of the previous years' work here...and you might get a smile.

And a sneak preview of the next Tuesday Writing Tip!

Stay tuned,

Janny

A Musical Monday for the Beginning of Summer!

Since tomorrow is the Summer Solstice...some "nature music" to celebrate!

(And, because anytime is a good time for Dvořák!)

Enjoy!

Janny

Be Careful What You Wish For...Or, No Good Deed Goes Unpunished (Original post: May 2007)

The more things change, the more they stay the same. And this is still something you can run into...so I'm revisiting it here. Enjoy!

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For years, I’ve enjoyed a certain ability to help people with their writing. I have some skill in editing, some skill in storytelling, a pernicious and truly frightening grasp of spelling and grammar…and I don’t hesitate to use them. 

But I didn’t come to this spot overnight. And no one does.

Which leads me to a few words about an incident I had recently.

If you spend enough time online, you get to know people. Their styles. How they work, if they work, if they really care about writing or if they’re just hanging out. Doesn’t take much more than oh, say, three or four excursions into a chat with someone to tell where they are on the Writer Spectrum.

Some of us don’t care if we write for anything but our own amazement, and that’s fine. Many times, these people who’ve decided to do this thing for fun are among the happiest of us (!)—but also, curiously enough, they can tend to be the most understanding of the ups and downs of the writing life, and just how hard it can be to make it in this business.

Maybe that acute understanding is precisely why they don’t pursue it as a business/career. They know how hard it is, and they don’t want to work that hard. God love ‘em—they do us all a great service with their positive attitudes, their sheer enjoyment, and sometimes their safe shoulders. (Not to mention their occasional chocolate!)

Then there are all the rest of us. We want to sell our work, to progress in the craft of writing so that we eventually get a) past the form rejection postcards, into the b) realm of longer notes, encouraging and sometimes even signed by an editor…and inviting us to send something else (!), and finally, c) to a sale. Or many sales (from my keyboard to God’s ears).

Those of us in this group are also in a wide spectrum of ability and experience. We’re all over the place. But there are certain things we learn, over time. We learn that our high school English teachers didn’t necessarily know whether we could write. Those who thought we could, and those who told us we couldn’t, are often equally right. It’s what we start doing after high school that ends up counting. :-)

We learn that if we’re ever going to grow as writers, someone besides our mothers and best friends needs to read what we do and offer us feedback.

We learn that sometimes that feedback isn’t very polite, or doesn’t spare our feelings. If we’re lucky, we learn that our worst “enemies” probably help us grow the most.

We learn that sometimes that feedback is just plain wrong, but it’s still worth listening to because it can often point to a potential reader problem.

We learn which people in our lives are really good at pinpointing what will improve and strengthen our work, and which of them aren’t really good at that…yet. (This doesn’t mean they might not get good at it. This whole craft is a work in progress.)

But above all…we learn that writing is work.

Note: this doesn’t mean it’s not fun, or that it need be drudgery, or that it has to somehow “hurt” to be “real art.” Few things are more irritating than hearing either whining about how “hard” the “artist’s life” is, or how now that you’re “serious” about writing, “it’s not fun anymore.” If you’re hurting, see a helper. If it’s not fun, get out of the pool. Sometimes that’s the kindest thing you can do for yourself, not to mention everyone else.

But make no mistake about the other side of this, either. Writing is work. It’s hard work. It’s the second-most fun you can have with your clothes on (music is first), but it’s also work. Succeeding in this work takes time. And commitment. And effort.

It also takes something the athletes among us know well—something called coachability. 

And that’s where many people fall down on the job. They simply aren’t coachable.

If you tell them their writing needs work, they tell you they’ve done that work. Only problem is, the writing shows no improvement. Which means that somewhere, there’s a disconnect. Somewhere in there, they’re lying to themselves. And that special form of denial is not a good place to spend your writing life.

I had an incident one weekend that illustrates this to a tee.

A particular writer acquaintance of mine sent me a message late on a Saturday night asking for advice/help/etc. We had a long IM conversation, during which I got sent a link to the potential publisher she was thinking of…and then a second link that I thought would take me to another publishing site. Instead, it took me to a chat room where she was hanging out with her friends. 

Now, keep in mind, this is 11:30 PM and counting. And I’ve been up and on the road that day since 5 AM. I’m in fact in my hotel, winding down after Day One of some family stuff. Good family stuff, but still…tiring. I don’t mind talking writing for a few minutes before I go to bed. And that’s what I thought I was doing…talking one on one with this gal. For a few minutes. 

Instead, I end up in this room with these people yakking—people who obviously think I’m there for a visit!—and I’m wondering where the focus of the first gal went to.

So after pretty much resisting sticking around in the chat room, I exchange a few other words of advice with her, and we call it a night, okay on both sides. Or so I think, until I get home from my trip, boot up my e-mail, and discover this woman has written me to tell me that I have done something not even a destructive parent could…I have convinced her she has no talent. 

So after claiming 50 finished books, she is going to stop. She's going to destroy it all, and stop writing forever, since she obviously is never going to be published, because no one cares for anything she'd want to say. 

Boys and girls, can you spell overreaction? 

What had I said to so totally finish her off? 

That she needed to go back to her synopsis, strip back everything that wasn’t central to her story, and see what she had left. She had gone into numerous side trips, most of which were backstory, and I told her that. I also said something along the lines of, “No one is going to care about your characters unless you give us a reason to. So find those reasons. Tap into those. There’s your story, not all this detail about haunted castles and ghosts and curses and all the other stuff. Latch onto the story.”

I had good reason to say this. She had supposedly sent this material to 30 other places, editors and agents, and she couldn’t figure out why none wanted it. So I told her.

I wasn’t necessarily gentle about it, but neither was I brutal. I was frank. The way I always am…and most of all, the way this gal knows I am, because she knows me. 

And I probably was less patient with her than I could have been, had it not been 11:30 PM (when my body thought it was 12:30 AM!), had I not been basically led down the garden path into this chatroom, where I had no intention of being…

…and had this whole thing not been just another manifestation of this gal’s lack of ability to take advice and actually use it to improve.

You see, she was going to use my editorial services, not too very long ago. She was going to pay for them and everything. (!) As soon as she got a certain check she was waiting on, we were going to go for it.

That was December of 2005. She never executed that agreement.

Prior to that, she sent me a query letter and synopsis and asked my feedback. I was glad to give it. Only problem was, prior to her getting the feedback, she sent the thing off, flaws and all. And then she was surprised when it was rejected.

She has received critiques from many of us, specific, pointed stuff, aimed at helping her get better. Only when she submits her material to us again, supposedly revised…it’s no better.

This woman claims that at times she’s spent 12 hours a day at the keyboard. But 12 hours a day at the keyboard is just exercise, and not very good exercise at that, if you can’t discipline yourself to stop believing your friends who say your work is “wonderful” and start believing people who are really trying to help you, even if what they’re telling you will only “slow you down” to put into practice.

The fact that those people see the same errors over and over again should tell you something.

And that something isn’t that those people are too picky.

Nor is it that anyone is saying you have no talent. 

But raw talent does nothing for you unless you’re willing to be coached. Really willing to be coached. 

You also need to be willing to take the time to grow. Not to try to force it, to try to adhere to some timetable you have in your head, or the like. Goals are fine, but they take time to get to. And if you're not willing to give yourself and your work that time, you'll only spin your wheels. 

As my dh and I learned long ago in music school, it’s not just how long you practice. It’s how well. It’s how intelligently.

If you claim to want publication, part of that intelligence is a generous dose of humility and patience to go with a work ethic that could shame a Puritan. If you can’t muster up the intelligence, the humility, the patience, the work ethic and give it all time enough to take root, for growth to occur…maybe the answer is that you really do need to quit the "business" end of this and just do it for entertainment.

But the one thing you don't have the right to do…is blame someone else for that.

Needless to say, I won’t be trying to help this person anymore. That’s a shame, but it’s also freeing. As I said to my own crit partner, “There may be a lot of clueless people in the writing world—but boy, is it nice to know I don’t have to fix ‘em all!”

Amen, and amen. 

Life's too short to play denial games. If you aren't going to run with the big dogs, it's okay to rest on the porch. Just don't project onto other people reasons for decisions you make yourself...either by your conscious effort or by your unwillingness to do the work needed to get to where you say you want to go. 

 

Thoughts?

Janny

Reprise!--or, If They Can Do It On TV...

OK. I've written this blog for something like 16 or 17  years now, if you count all its iterations, being discontinued and then renamed and brought back...et al.

But lately, I've also become WAY more active on social media. 

To the point where, while I aim people toward this blog frequently, it has also dawned on me that I've been so busy aiming people here...that there's precious LITTLE for them to read once they get here, unless they're brave enough to venture into "Earlier Posts" or even earlier years.

And I suspect many of them don't want to do that. Or would love to, and don't have the time.

So...I'm going to do something that, on one level, bothers me...

...and on another level only seems like common sense.

I'm going to start "reprising" older blog posts here.

As I do that, I will probably delete them from the archives of earlier years--just so there's no confusion.

And so the blog front page doesn't become so crowded that it's daunting to newcomers.

In that spirit, watch this space...for new and improved content that's actually based on OLD and only semi-improved content!

Stay tuned...

Janny

A Mendelssohn Musical Monday!

A piece I'm actually working on...for today's installment.  

Stay tuned for the day when I can finally play again. In the meantime, enjoy!

Janny

Something Mellow for Musical Monday!

Check this out...you KNOW you want to!

More to come...

Janny

Happy Musical Monday!

Nothing starts a week on which I'm going into surgery (!) like a little Debussy that I'm presently working on...and was long, long years ago, when I was in school. It can be an emotional trip pulling out this music that I "know" so well, and yet had to be introduced to, and learn, all over again.  It would be a worse emotional trip for YOU all if I were to subject you to the still-rough version of this I'm polishing! 

Therefore, we'll let Aldo Ciccolini grace your ears with it instead. 

Enjoy!

Janny

It's Tuesday, and You Know What That Means...

Tuesday WRITING TIP time!

Check out this week's--and previous editions...here.

Enjoy!

Janny

Wanna Dance Your Way Into the Week?

Here you go, courtesy of Musical Monday!

Enjoy!

Janny

It's Bright! It's Shiny! It's New!

 ....it's a new book. Working title, PARADIDDLE.

And if you infer by that title that this book will have something to do with percussion...

...you're right.

Cover me. It's gonna get close to the bone soon!

More to come,

Janny