HOOKED on eBOOKS

I'm totally hooked on ebooks. I know  many people prefer print, but when I read on my 11" tablet in landscape mode with two columns, it looks familiar, like print. But it’s better. I can changes text sizes on a whim and read in the dark when Other is sleeping. Best of all, I can highlight with abandon and view highlights apart from text, instantly search to keep track of who’s who, share passages without retyping, add volumes of notes ... so many things I never did or can’t do with print. This ability to find things in the book is a boon for writing reviews and preparing examples for classes.
Those are only a few of my reasons. More than thirty years ago, when I ran out of wall space for shelves, I made the decision  that my book collection had to enter no net gain status. If I bought one, I had to off-load one. The Friends of the Library love me for all the contributions I’ve made to the Used Book Sale. This book diet comes at a price. I've often wished I could check something in one of those old books. Most have also been weeded by the library. They exist now only as ghost prints in memory.
In spite of this limit, right now my house holds over fifty cartons of packed paper books (only a dozen, about 600 lb., are mine). My digital bookshelf would fill at least another dozen in print. When I think of the time saved by not packing and unpacking and all that involves, and the money saved on shipping from here to Austin, I love digital even more. I keep my digital volumes well backed-up.
There’s more to the story. I recently bought an absurdly large cell phone. I may come to regret that size decision with regard to the phone, but to my amazement, I love reading on it. My eyes barely move as I scan the entire page width. It's easier for me to read. It feels good.
When I look back now at some of my old books with wide pages, tiny type and tight line spacing, my eyes cross as I recoil. How did I ever READ this stuff? Small print on a phone screen is one thing. Small, tight print on a paper page five inches wide is impossible for my old eyes and brain. Besides, how can I find the passage I want? If I can't find a book in digital form, I'll still read paper, but I far prefer pixels to print. 
Yes indeed, I am HOOKED ON eBOOKS.
Write Now: Write an essay on your thoughts about ebooks. Share your thoughts in a comment.

I’m in Love with Volya Rinpoche

I never expected to fall in love with Volya Rinpoche, a bald, squarely-built Russian monk who dresses in gold-trimmed maroon robes and sandals, has skin the color of acorns, and is a world-renowned spiritual leader and author. Neither did Otto Ringling, the narrator of Breakfast with Buddha, Lunch with Buddha and Dinner with Buddha, a trilogy of mind-bending, possibly life-changing novels by Roland Merulo . But who could resist that heart-melting smile, that endless compassion and infectious laugh? His naïve observations and whiplash fast “wessons?”

But wait. Nothing kinky here.As the story begins, Otto’s whacko, forever hippie sister tricks him into taking a road trip alone with this monk, her latest love interest. As miles and days pass, their relationship grows and Otto decides the Rimpoche is “the real deal.” Between volumes, monk marries sister, plots thicken, and Otto evolves. The novels are poignant in places, hilarious in others, always thought-provoking, and sublimely well-written. Otto’s acute observations on history, geography, philosophy and food are meticulously detailed.

I’ve always encouraged students of lifestory or memoir writing to read widely, to read like a writer, to find authors whose style they admire and immerse themselves in their work. Roland Merullo is my new hero behind the page. These digital volumes are full of pink highlights for exquisite description and gold ones for powerful points.

Although these volumes are clearly fiction, drawn from Merullo’s fertile imagination, they read like memoir. They are among those remarkable titles I occasionally find that convey Truth in concentrated form, more potent than most actual life experience could support. I consider them a prime example of the power of the fiction alternative.

The Buddha books came into my life at the perfect time (who believes in coincidence?). Over the last few months our nearly completed move from Pittsburgh to Austin has become unexpectedly complex and stressful, full of fretting and fear and second-guessing. I was convinced I had neither time nor the concentration to read. In spite of these self-imposed barriers, a book with a Buddha title slipped through the cracks.

I didn’t have time to not read these books. They reminded me of wisdom I’ve accrued over at least forty years, much of which I’ve ignored for the last many. They reminded me that I’ve largely fallen away from soul-enriching practice. They reminded me we can choose our reactions, our thoughts. Along the way, they altered and added perspective. I feel better now, stronger, and ready to forge ahead! Thank you Roland Merullo!

This is not the first time books have restored or enriched my soul and nudged me around corners. Should I include any of these time periods in a memoir, for example this move, it could not be complete without mention of these three books and their influence. I could take things further. Pat Conroy, perhaps best known for his novel, The Great Santini, wrote My Reading Life, a themed memoir devoted to books that have molded and shaped him.

What better time to snuggle down and read than these days of early darkness, of golden leaves and frosty mornings? Find an author you love and read ‘til your eyeballs cave in. Make highlights in ebooks. Put sticky tags in print ones. Collect heart-stopping phrases and notable elements of structure.

Write on: start a list of books that have affected your life and thinking. Write about these in your journal and develop your thoughts into an essay. Add a few of your favorite titles to a comment, as a tribute to the author and a beacon to fellow writers.

In Defense of Surface Writing

In her new book, The Art of Memoir, author Mary Karr repeatedly urges readers to dig deep to discover their true story. As a disclaimer, I’m not digging back into the volume to discuss it. This post is based on what I perceived, understood, and remember, not her specific words. My perception is my reality, my truth. If that varies from literal words in the book, that’s how memory works, and that’s part of my point.

Karr, along with countless others, myself included, have continually made the point that as you begin to edit and refine your initial story and reflect about what really did happen, how else you might look at the past, how else might you tell it, your story changes. In fact, you reconstruct history. Some give the impression that this reconstruction conveys our true essence and is truer than our initial understanding or viewpoint, no matter how long we held it.

As I read Karr’s thoughts on this reconstruction, I was overwhelmed with the certainty that these “deeper truths” are no truer than the ones we’ve lived with, perhaps for decades. Our lives may be richer for reaching them, but they NOT MORE TRUE.

What you remember on the surface is your story, the story that made you who you are. You may derive enormous personal benefit and change your life by digging, archeologist-style, into your past, but that does not diminish the personal validity of your original insights and belief, your original truth.

Early drafts of your story convey a sense of who you have been. When you begin crafting and editing that story, it remains true, but continues to develop. You continue to develop and grow. Deep reflection and insight can shape and reflect who you become. New information can change how we view the past, but it can’t change how we thought and felt before we turned that corner. We are, after all, works in progress, continually evolving as we travel life’s path, and stories change even for those who never write.

Memories do tend to morph over time. Read an old journal if you need examples. Just keep in mind that their initial form is as true and valid as whatever form they eventually take.

I bring this up in the hope that nobody will be deterred from writing or sharing stories for fear they have not dug deeply enough or their story may not be true enough on the first or second draft to be deemed “worthy” of writing or being read. I hope nobody will be deterred from writing at least a few stories from the certainty they’ll never have the time, skill or motivation to polish it to perfection.

Enough of that Inner Critic talk! All stories are worthy of writing and sharing. Furthermore, no matter how well-developed and polished, or how loudly your supporters cheer, not all will appeal to a million people. So whatever your level of skill, motivation and resources, don’t hesitate to write yours.

Do you find this concept startling, that truth can be defined on multiple levels? Do you agree? What are your thoughts and experiences? I welcome and encourage comments on all facets of this topic. Please join the discussion.

Cockpit design: a picture plus a few thousand words

As I mentioned before, nothing focuses the mind on cockpit design like spending 150 hours in the cockpit of a sailboat more or less in one continuous stretch. Previously, I outlined my conclusions from this experience in prose, but this time I have an actual 3D rendering of my proposed design, with all the details filled in.

And nothing focuses the mind on the need to finish designing and build a houseboat that sails more than what is currently unfolding in South Carolina, which I just recently sailed through. Last week, Charleston, where I had spent a week, had fairly deep water running over the streets. Next week it will be Georgetown's turn; the entire town, where I had spent a few days too, is going to have to be evacuated. “You are lucky to be on a boat!” people keep telling me. Indeed, I am! But it's not exactly the right boat; it's a pretty good boat, but it's not QUIDNON.

What's been happening in South Carolina is but a preview of coming attractions. People are still calling it “a thousand-year flood,” not realizing that the next 10 years will bear little resemblance to the last 1000. Interesting things happen to the normal curve when you move the mean: what used to be uncommon can become commonplace rather suddenly. This is exactly what rapid global warming is doing: moving the mean. We are already most of the way a to 2ºC temperature rise, and heading toward 6ºC. It is about time we all got used to it.

We already pretty much know that the entire Eastern Seaboard of the US, where half of its population lives and where most of the infrastructure is, is going to be underwater and uninhabitable roughly by mid-century. Well before then access to potable water, the electric grid, piped natural gas, passable roads and structurally sound bridges and other trappings of civilization will become problematic for a growing percentage of population. This is because the money needed to rebuild the infrastructure after each cataclysm will not exist.

A lot of these people will wish that they were living on a QUIDNON, with its big water tanks, propane lockers, its own electricity, a bulletproof copper-clad bottom and, most importantly, the ability to float and to move about using the wind and the currents. And this thought has given me the impetus to finish the design. Here is the picture, which I hope is worth a thousand words, and worth even more with a few thousand words added.

QUIDNON has a flush deck. There is no cabintop—just a vast expanse of flat deck, 36 feet long and, at its widest, 16 feet wide, with gunwales and lifelines all around. The superstructure consists of two masts, two arches (which serve many purposes) and the cockpit. The cockpit, located just aft of the mainmast, encloses the companionway and the cockpit well. The cockpit well's floor is made up of hardwood slats with gaps between them, and drains into the anchor chain locker below it. In turn, the chain locker drains into the inboard/outboard engine well immediately aft of it. Space for the anchor chain locker and the engine well is carved out of cabin space using three full bulkheads: on one side of the bulkheads is “boat”; on the other is “sea.” Even if a huge sea breaks on deck and floods the cockpit, it will harmlessly gurgle away through the cockpit floor in a matter of seconds.

The Dodger

The dodger is a box made of polycarbonate plastic and fiberglass-reinforced plywood. Except for its top, which is slightly curved, to add rigidity and to make it shed water better, it is a box. Most dodger designs have a windshield that slants back, but this is very bad for visibility, especially when it's raining. Most working boats have windshields that slant forward; this provides maximum visibility, but looks downright ugly on a sailboat. The compromise is to make it perfectly plumb and square. Another common concession to style is to curve the windshield, but this detracts from windward performance. When going to windward, at a 35-40º angle to the wind, it is better to present a sharp corner to the wind then a flat surface. And so the dodger is just a box: simple, sturdy, and cheap to build. I made such a dodger for my current boat before I left Boston and have verified that it works quite well. The polycarbonate of the windshield and the side windows is structural; joined at the corners using aluminum angles, it is very stiff and able to deflect a big wave and any kind of wind. Below the top of the dodger is a box, which can be locked using a lid that nestles in a slot above it, and which holds the VHF radio, the chartplotter and an old-fashioned magnetic compass (still very useful for when all else fails).

The Lazarettes

There are upper and lower seating positions provided for by two lazarettes that run fore-and-aft. The lazarettes serve as backrests for the lower seating positions, and as seats for the upper ones. All seating positions have backrests which are angled out for comfort. The seats are surfaced with nonskid because they perform double duty as places to stand. The lazarettes provide locker space for things that are generally stored in the cockpit. The two lockers inside the dodger, with top-opening hatches, can be used to store paper charts, the logbook and navigation guides; flashlights, a flare gun and flares, emergency satellite transmitter, rigging tools, snacks and drinks and so on. The four lockers further aft have hatches that tip out, and can hold foul weather gear, dock lines, fenders and other such items, none of which belong in the cabin.

The Companionway

The companionway hatch lid hides in a slot just aft of the companionway. To close the hatch, it pulls out of the slot and flops forward over the companionway. The hatch lid holds a bug screen inside it, which can be pulled out and used separately. This, it turns out, is a very big deal at certain times. When sailing past an agricultural area with an offshore wind, flies that get blown off the land head straight for any sail they can spot. Then they get hungry, and very bitey. For those in the cockpit, swatting as many of them as quickly as possible is a good idea, because then they eat their own dead, preferring cannibalism to human flesh. For those in the cabin, the idea is to keep them out of the cabin.

The Tiller

As I explained previously, I have determined that wheel steering is a bad idea, and that a tiller is the way to go. But what sort of tiller? Having had quite a lot of experience with tillers, I designed one that I think will be particularly versatile. It is an aluminum pipe—strong and lightweight—that is precisely horizontal. It positioned so that were it to swing violently (as tillers are sometimes wont to do in sloppy conditions) it wouldn't cause too much damage.

For someone seated in the lower seating position, where the seat is at deck level and one's back is against a lazarette, it should hit that someone right below the belly button. Anywhere lower—and it may hit a kneecap; anywhere higher—and it may hit the solar plexus. If it hits even higher, it may hit the funny bone or crack a rib. None of this is helpful for one's continued ability to steer a boat. And so right below the belly button is where you want to hit an inattentive helmsman—if you have to. The gut is fairly immune to blunt trauma, being well protected by a layer of muscle (for those who do sit-ups) and a layer of fat (for those who also regularly exercise with 16-ounce weights). For the upper seating position, the tiller should hit the shin, or the sea boot if one is wearing them. This is painful, but the shin bone is strong and can take it, and the pain is rarely bad enough to force you to neglect your course-keeping duties.

Inside the tiller tube lives the tiller extension. It is made up of two more tubes, which slide inside one another and can be locked together at an arbitrary length by twisting them against each other. At the outer end is a comfortable handle. At the inner end is a hinge; when pulled out of the tiller as far as it will go, the tiller extension can be operated from any angle: seated on a lazarette, or even standing at the lifelines and looking over the side—this being very useful while docking. When pulled out only part of the way, the tiller extension can't pivot and just makes the tiller longer and increases its lever arm. This also makes it possible to steer while sheltering under the dodger as you would during a torrential downpour.

This tiller design allows for a lot of comfortable and useful steering positions: seated facing forward with one arm draped over the tiller; in the lower sitting position facing sideways, with one foot on the tiller; in the upper sitting position, with the tiller extension tucked under the armpit; standing on a lazarette and peering over the top of the dodger (as you have to in fog, when the dodger becomes opaque because it becomes coated with tiny droplets of water); leaning over the lifelines while steering toward the approaching dock; and so on.

There is one more steering position that I would be remiss not to mention: with the tiller swinging between the legs, or tapping against a thigh. When dropping anchor, or weighing anchor, or doing anything at all with the sails, it is very useful to be able to free both hands for the operation, while continuing to steer the boat, and being able to steer with your legs is what makes it possible. I once asked Chris Morejohn what his trick was for tacking the huge genoa on his Hogfish all by himself, and his laconic response was: “A sheet in each hand and the tiller up the ass.” (I am sure that he was speaking figuratively, and that we both reserve our anal sphincters for purely sanitary uses.) Here too the vertical position of the tiller is important: it should rest against the thigh; any higher, and one's continued ability to beget progeny may come into question.

Lastly, there must be a way to fix the tiller at any given angle. This is provided for using a tiller rack, which is a toothed rack mounted directly below the tiller at the back of the cockpit. The tiller has very restricted vertical travel—less than an inch—and is equipped with a spring-loaded detent that allows it to be either all the way up or all the way down. When forced into the lower position, it engages the toothed rack and cannot be moved sideways. This is an essential feature. The rudder is fixed at an angle when heaving to. It is fixed amidships when engaging the autopilot (which takes over the steering at a point between the tiller and the rudders). And it is clamped down at some appropriate angle when temporarily abandoning the steering because there is something more important for you to attend to.

Anchoring

QUIDNON's two anchor rollers are located on two sides of the bow, some feet apart, because with QUIDNON's hull shape anchoring at an angle to wind and waves, splitting them along the hard chine instead of taking them head-on with the bluff bow, produces much more pleasant motion and far less noise.

The anchor chain locker is located underneath the cockpit, with the anchor chains running in a channel and around rollers along the deck. The two chains converge at the cockpit, where, on the starboard side, is a manual anchor winch. The chains then disappear down holes just aft of the anchor winch, and are pulled down into the chain locker by gravity.

Two short snubbers (not shown) can be used to hook the chains right in the cockpit. Of course, a real snubber, fitted right at the bow, is always an excellent idea, and the anchors should always be secured at the bow while underway. But all other anchoring operations can be performed right from the cockpit, while steering and using the engine—a single-handers dream!

Engine

The engine is an outboard that is mounted inboard, in a well right behind the cockpit. Instead of tipping up when not in use it slides up on a track. The engine is pulled out of the water using a hoist, the line from which is found among the running rigging.

The hatch over the engine well is slightly recessed and made up of hardwood slats with gaps between them, just like the floor of the cockpit well, so that any seas that wander aboard from the stern find an easy way back down instead of inundating the cockpit and drenching its inhabitants. Inside the engine well, right below the hatch, is a baffle that deflects the flow of water away from the engine while also providing sound insulation.

The engine control box is mounted on the starboard lazarette, just inside the dodger, and includes an integrated shift/throttle lever, a starter button, a kill switch, a fuel pump switch (since there is no convenient way to access a squeeze bulb) and, for the engines that need it, a choke lever.

Running rigging

All of the running rigging enters the cockpit through the front of the dodger and goes through a block of rope clutches. It's all 3/8" 3-strand polypropylene line, and there is a lot of it, because everything is done using blocks instead of winches, the only winch being the anchor winch. The halyards alone are 200 feet apiece. A 600-foot spool of 3/8 3-strand polypropylene, of the sort fishermen use, is around $50; fancy Regatta Braid will run you almost 10 times that.

Since the line is purchased in bulk, it isn't color-coded, so that the only way to identify a line is by looking at the cluck block, which is labeled as follows:

port centerboard hoist
stbd centerboard hoist

engine hoist

fore halyard
aft halyard

fore topping lift
aft topping lift

fore reefing line
aft reefing line

fore sheet
aft sheet

The lines are paired up—fore/aft and port/starboard—because you might actually use them together, raising, reefing and lowering the two sails in tandem, dropping and raising both centerboards at once, and trimming the sheets on both sails together. Hoisting both sails together would take quite a bit of muscle: all hands on deck, and an appropriate chanty to be sung while heaving them up.

After they exit the clutch, the lines disappear into a slot which leads them to a set of take-up reels mounted in a cage at the top of the anchor chain locker, right below the floor of the cockpit well. These are spools, like the ones that rope or heavy-gauge wire comes on when purchased in bulk. Inside the hub of each spool is a loop of neoprene strapping arranged to create a “rubber band motor.” Each spool is spun up using a winch handle to tension the neoprene loop before the bitter end of the line is attached to it, then the spool is released and it spools up all of the slack. Once in a while the neoprene loop will snap and one of the dozen lines fails to disappear below deck; then it's time to lift out the cockpit well floor, grab a winch handle and a spare loop of neoprene, jump down onto the anchor chain and fix it. I believe that this is a small price to pay for not having to live in a rat's nest of line, and I am sure that once you experience this system, the usual ways of handling line will seem absolutely stone-age.

Handrails

There are handrails (bent and welded out of 1-inch thick-wall stainless steel tubing) that go all the way around the cockpit, so that no matter where you stand or sit there is always a handhold within easy reach. The rails along the sides of the lazarettes and the back of the cockpit double as backrests. The vertical rails on either side of the dodger are helpful when climbing in or out of the cockpit. The horizontal rail along the back of the dodger is used when climbing in or out of the companionway, or to steady yourself while using the instruments under the dodger. The rails that wrap around the front of the dodger help you catch yourself instead of going splat against the windshield when a big wave knocks you off your feet.

Dimensions

Because there is plenty of room on deck, this cockpit design can be scaled based on the height of the intended crew. The only dimensions that are fixed are those of the companionway and the cockpit well.

Minimum height is more important than maximum height; having to stoop a bit or feeling a bit cramped is never lethal, while not being able to reach something essential, or to steady yourself because the handholds are too high or too far apart, very well can be. Women tend to be shorter than men, and rather few women are over six feet tall. And yet I have seen plenty of cockpit layouts designed for someone at least six feet tall—probably a man, and probably a man who expected some poor woman who, chances are, is significantly shorter than he is, to go sailing with him—and to actually enjoy it! This goes double for children: if you expect them to enjoy sailing with feet dangling and nothing within reach to hold on to, then your expectations are a bit unrealistic.

And so it turns out that the best cockpit design must take these considerations into account, making it possible—though not necessarily comfortable—for everyone to do everything. The shortest crew member has to be able to peer over the top of the dodger on a foggy day; the tallest crew member has to be able to stretch out (almost) all the way when lying down in the cockpit. And so the design parameter I plan to plug in everywhere is 5 feet 6 inches, or 168 cm. Of course, it will still be possible to plug in a bigger number when building a QUIDNON that is to be operated by a race of giants, as I am sure it will be.

Shifting Rhythms

It’s too soon to draft a  memoir about our move, but it’s not too soon to begin reflecting on my sense of things. As I sat is a glorious state of almost forgotten peace and relaxation earlier today, I realized that (speaking only for myself) we’ve entered a new phase, and not a minute too soon.

That corner was actually turned the day we were told that the photographer who would make our house look amazing on the web needed to arrive three days early. Before that I’d been in a total panicked frenzy, wondering how on earth we would ever possibly meet our self-imposed deadline for listing. But right on schedule, birds sang, bells rang, and angels descended. Only one room remained out of bounds for the photographer.

Tension drained.

Then, a few hours before we were scheduled to fly to Austin to find a house, that last room clicked into alignment, ready for showing. We flew off to Austin a few hours later. For three days we looked, well-prepared with seven months of web research. We did find a home, holding our breath until a previous negotiation fell through at exactly the right time. So we never needed our backup choices.
Once that contract was signed, life became large, calm and amazing. Pondering the shift, I noticed some similarity to a symphony. Each movement has a different rhythm and tone. So it has been with us. Our transition symphony seems to have :

Deciding to do it. This was the beginning. We’ve talked for years about relocating. Our three children are widely scattered. We can only be near one. Which one? Or maybe suit ourselves and go somewhere else? We lived in a state of paralysis by analysis for a few years. Slowly, a decision emerged from the fog.

Public announcement. We “came out” in Austin last winter at a huge party at our daughter's home. Through the course of the evening, “We’re thinking about moving here” morphed into “We’re planning to move here.” We called a real estate agent and began our search.

Big shift!

Delaying phase. We both had commitments in Pittsburgh that had to be completed. Although listing around the first of April would have been ideal, it did not work out that way. I stayed mellow and loose through this time. 

Big shift!

Pressure phase. When not much had happened around the first of May, I got nervous. I got tense, fretful, even bitchy. I lived in a state of chronic fear and anxiety, dreading the thought of yet another winter here, and even more, the loss of time to dig in down there. As much as I’ve loved the time we’ve spent here and all our friends, it’s time to go! My clock is ticking louder every day. Productive years could possibly be counted on fingers. No time to waste! Committing to a listing date amplified that pressure several fold. Then, Ta Dah! We were done.

Big shift.

Transition. From the time that final room was vacuumed through the time when we signed our offer, was an intense transition, packed into a very few days. As I said earlier, signing the contract was an enormous relief. Time to kick back for a day or two. Intense or not, it was different from the previous phase.

Packing up. That’s where we are right now. Things may not stay mellow. Pressure is sure to increase.

Projected big shift.

Moving. Driving two cars from here to there and getting all the loose ends in place at our new house is bound to be intense.

Projected big shift.

Settling in. I’m hoping that after the first few days,  settling in will be a relaxed affair. No need to rush. This will be the end of this story.

I can’t tell the story yet, but I can see the plot. I see tension arcs within each of these phases, or movements. I think I see the thread holding it all together, but that’s another post for another day.

Write now: Think of a period of time when you went through a transition. Jot down some thoughts about turning points or Big Shifts as the transition evolved. Can you map out a story along that path? It may be a large story or a shorter one. Give it a try.

Improvements

Over the past month I have spent some 150 hours sailing—moving south for the winter. This has given me plenty of time to rethink some elements of the QUIDNON design, and to introduce a few improvements. While some are purely products of reflection, others resulted from direct experience with a sailboat design which I found to be inadequate. Here, I will explain the changes in prose. I will come up with updated drawings as time allows.

Wheel vs. Tiller

The sailboat I have been sailing has a very traditional layout: a pedestal at the back of the cockpit, with a wheel, a throttle and a shift lever. On top of the post is a binnacle with a compass. On top of that is an instrument cluster: a GPS chartplotter, a radar and a VHF radio. It seems simple, rational, well designed. But it is also horribly constraining.

The wheel is comfortable to operate from just one position: standing directly behind it. This gets tiresome rather quickly. Other positions—sitting behind the wheel, sitting to the left or to the right, standing in front of it—don't work nearly as well. Some group of minor muscles quickly runs out of its glycogen supply, and you have to try something else—like standing directly behind the wheel again.

Now consider the tiller.

• My favorite position when conditions are calm is to lounge with my back against the back of the cockpit and the tiller protruding from my armpit, with my right or left arm draped over it.

• To steer, I just wave that arm to and fro, not even having to lift it. When the conditions are not calm at all, my favorite position is to tie a neoprene strap to the tiller, and work it with both of my feet to push it away from me.

• When I am pulling up to a dock, I like to stand on one of the cockpit seats—the one closest to the dock—look over the side and steer with my extended foot on the tiller.

• When going upwind, I like to connect an extension to the tiller, sit on the cockpit coamings (on the leeward side, since crew weight distribution doesn't matter on a big boat with a small crew, and the leeward side is more sheltered and more comfortable) and steer using the tiller extension.

• When the autopilot fails (as it does sooner or later), I can run a line from a sheet through a block to the tiller, connect a strap pulling the other way, and then adjust the lengths of the line and the strap until the boat steers itself. This is called “sheet-to-tiller steering,” and Slocum used it during his first ever solo circumnavigation. It doesn't work with wheels.

• One good, inexpensive option for an autopilot is the so-called “tillerpilot.” These are telescoping sticks that run on 12V and incorporate a fluxgate compass, a network interface (NMEA2000) that allows them to work with wind sensors, and clip to a spot on the boat and a spot on the tiller. They don't work with wheels. With wheels, the two options are a “wheel autopilot,” which uses a stepping motor and a belt and works only in calm conditions, and a “below-deck” unit that includes a compressor, a hydraulic ram and a bunch of electronics, and costs a fortune.

• Wheel steering systems have a tendency to break. There is a lot to break. There is typically a key that keeps the wheel from just spinning around on the shaft; if that little piece of metal somehow gets lost, so is your ability to steer. Then there is a chain going down the pedestal, some pulleys, and a cable that goes around the quadrant that actually turns the rudder. Tillers directly connect to the rudder shaft, typically via a hinge.

• There is often the need to fix the rudder in a certain position. With wheels, there is typically a friction knob on the side, which is tightened and loosened. It takes time to operate and never works 100%. The best solution with a tiller is a rack: the tiller clicks down onto a toothed rack; after that it doesn't move at all. This takes no time at all to operate—just push the tiller down onto the rack to fix the rudder, and pull it up again to steer.

The one advantage of wheel over tiller is that wheels can be made to apply a lot more force to the rudder. To apply an equivalent amount of force, a tiller would have to be too long to fit in the cockpit, have too wide a swing range, or require superhuman strength to operate. But a rudder that requires a lot of force to operate is a badly designed rudder. Well-designed rudders are balanced: they have just enough bias so that they trail in the water with the boat moving without fishtailing, and in calm conditions can be deflected with a fingertip.

In heavy weather, even a balanced rudder can suddenly become heavy. This is especially the case when going downwind with waves on the quarter. They tend to roll under the transom, and when they do that water washes over the rudder in the wrong direction—aft to fore—rendering it temporarily inoperative. It also has the effect of slewing the boat around. But this is where a tiller is especially useful. With a wheel, in such conditions it is necessary to quickly spin the wheel while the boat is slewing, and then control it, allowing it to spin back slowly to bring the boat back on course. This is a lot of spinning and controlling, and wears you out in no time. With a tiller, you can be comfortably seated with both of your feet on the tiller. When the big wave rolls under you, you push with your legs, and then offer some resistance to bring the boat back on course.

Cockpit layout

Having spent some 150 hours trying to get comfortable in the cockpit, I had a number of realizations.

• The cockpit can't be too wide. It must be just wide enough for the shortest crew member to be able to sit on one side with the feet on the edge of the seat on the opposite side, knees bent slightly. That, it turns out, is a key ergonomic requirement.

• The cockpit coamings must provide back support. A lot of boats have almost vertical coamings that hit you somewhere in the back with a sharp corner. The worst case scenario is that they hit you near C5 and C6 cervical vertebra. Sail a boat like that long enough, and your arms will go numb. Cockpit coamings have to be high enough so that they fully support the shoulderblades of the tallest crew member when seated upright, and the back of the head when slouched down.

• The angle of the coamings should be laid back at an angle that makes it comfortable to sit with one's back against them, legs extended forward, knees bent. Upright coamings result in something close to a fetal position, and it doesn't work for adults for any length of time.

• The tops of the coamings should provide comfortable seating as well, with the back resting against the lifelines, both along the sides and over the transom. In good conditions these are the best places to sit and enjoy the breeze and the view. These should not be obstructed with shrouds, stays, winches, cleats and other hardware. With QUIDNON there are no shrouds or stays to worry about, and there is just one massive winch—a big 3-speed crab winch that's used as both the anchor which and the halyard winch, and is mounted right in the cockpit for ease of single-handing.

Shelter

The QUIDNON design shows a big pilot house, but a far more minimalistic layout can provide reasonable comfort in most conditions and result in better sailing performance. The minimal cockpit has a floor that cuts into the space below and drains into the engine well and the anchor chain locker directly below. It has generously high coamings, sides and back, with seats on top of them, with railing that wraps around the seats to provide comfortable back support and a handhold for climbing in and out of the cockpit onto the deck. Sea cloths on the railing can be used in heavy weather. On top is either a canvas bimini or a hard fiberglass roof. In front is a fiberglass-and-lexan dodger, which shelters the companionway hatch.

Running rigging

QUIDNON's running rigging is rather simple, but it can produce a mad tangle of line in the cockpit. A good solution is to have the anchor chain/rode, the halyards and the centerboard lines come in on one side of the companionway hatch, next to the crab winch, and the sheets to come in on the other. The other lines are short and don't produce much of a mess. All of these lines should be provided with clutches. Obviously the anchor chain and rode descend directly down into the anchor locker. But so can the halyards, the centerboard control lines and the sheets, where they come to rest in canvas bags hanging from the top of the anchor locker (in which, it turns out, there is room for everything). To tidy up the cockpit, one just feeds the lines into their respective scuppers in the bottom of the cockpit, and they vanish from view!

Instruments

Putting the instruments on top of the steering pedestal, it turns out, is a spectacularly bad idea. They are expensive, fragile, and, at that location, in harm's way. In heavy weather someone might get tossed across the cockpit by a big wave, miss a handhold and rip the chartplotter or the radar directly off its mount. A much better place for the instruments is under the dodger (a hard, fiberglass and Lexan dodger) in a box that can be locked. The cockpit layout should be such that the crew member with the shortest armspan can hold the end of the tiller with one hand and operate the instruments with the other.

Remaining questions, previously left unanswered, are: 1. where to put the VHF antenna; and 2. where to put the radome.

The VHF antenna will be mounted on top of the mainmast. The logic there is that although it will only work with the mast up, when the mast is down you are either inshore or close to shore, range is not important, and a handheld VHF will do.

The radome poses a problem, because there is simply nowhere for it to live where it will not be in the way of something—the sails, or the booms, or the running rigging, and still be high up enough and yet still have an unobstructed view.

Deck beams

I previously designed QUIDNON with deck beams—transverse timbers that reinforce the mast tabernacles where they exit the deck—on top of the deck. I have since changed my mind: the deck beams are going to be below deck. Yes, they will cut into the headroom in a couple of places, but I think that this is a much better design:

• Less deck clutter: if on top, the deck beams would cause people to stumble over them in the dark, not to mention complicate the arrangement of deck chairs.

• Better structure: the hull will be formed around two very strong upside-down trapezoids, reinforced at the corners using generous triangular brackets called “knees.”

Lights

I problem I have run into in the past is what happens to navigation lights on a sailboat once you take down the masts and motor. You might still have navigation lights (the red-greens that take up 2/3 of view pointing forward, 1/3 (red) on the left and 1/3 (green) on the right. There is also a stern light, white, which takes 1/3 of the view pointing directly back. In my case the red-greens were mounted on the front of the mast, and there was no stern light, so I was left with no navigation lights. But whatever the case the steaming light (white, 2/3 of the view pointing forward) is halfway up the mainmast, and that goes down with the mast, as does the anchor light, 360º, atop the mainmast.

There are two additional problems, which have to do with human nature. There will generally be some sailboats around when you go sailing, but when you take your sailboat motoring, along rivers and canals, you are likely to encounter many more motorboats than sailboats, and naturally the motorboat drivers won't be looking out for sailboats—they will be looking out for other motorboats. Anybody who can drive a boat can read the red-green-white navigation lights, but the steaming light halfway up the mast is not obvious, because motorboats generally have a steaming light directly on top of the pilot house. Nor are they likely to spot your anchor light, hanging up in the heavens 50 feet up where they are definitely not looking, hidden among the fixed planets of the celestial sphere, and if you have no other lights on will narrowly avoid plowing directly into you in the dark. I have learned this the hard way, and now only use the anchor light if I am anchored next to a bunch of sailboats (that have their anchor lights on—a rarety) but I leave the nav lights on all night otherwise. This doesn't seem to raise any questions with anyone, but causes everyone to slow down and proceed with caution because a stationary vessel with nav lights on is an unusual sight.

And so I see absolutely no reason not to fit QUIDNON with the following lights:

• Red-green nav lights on each side of the bow, right below the rail, as shown

• White stern light on the aft edge of the aft arch

• Steaming light on the forward edge of the forward arch

• No anchor light. To achieve the same effect, turn both the steaming and the stern light on at the same time. Their illuminated sectors together add up to 360º.

Other combinations just don't work. Putting lights on masts doesn't work with the masts down. Puttling lights on top of the arches will get them smashed by the boom sweeping across in no time. Putting a steaming light on the front of the foremast will make it snag the sail parrels on the way up and down the mast.

I'll try to come up with updated drawings as time allows.

Email As a Journaling Tool

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m journaling the heck out of this relocation experience. I may not be making as much sense of things right now as I’d like – that usually takes more time and distance. But I will have the details as I saw them when things were fresh, raw and new with all the roller coaster dips and climbs as they happen.

During this time when each moment is precious, I often face a choice: email a friend or write in my journal. As soon as I discovered email, I recognized its power as a personal history archive or journal. But who has time to sort through half a million emails to find those key 100? Especially when they’re scattered across half a dozen accounts and … you get the picture.

A couple of months ago, the lights went on. I saw a way to combine three main journaling streams – paper journal, a journal in Word, and email. I can write a long email detailing current stress and success, then copy the relevant part and paste in my Word Journal doc for the current year. That part is a no-brainer. The key to making it work for me right now is to pick up my paper journal and make a one line entry: “Aug. 30, Sunday, see Word Journal.”

I don't use my Word Journal nearly as often as my paper one. My Word one is lovely with virtual pink paper, a string of red hearts atop each page, and a handwriting font in blue ink. Realizing that layout is dependent on having that font installed and Microsoft’s history of changing document storage formats, I know better than to rely on Microsoft for long-term stability. I have 25-year-old Word Perfect files I can still access, but the layout and font info are out the window.

The simplest solution is to save each year's volume in PDF format, with the font embedded. Embedded fonts are the default if you create the PDF document with Word. PDF format is widely regarded as the most stable format for long-term accessibility. I'll also keep my word docs and revisit them every few years to keep them fresh.

Ultimately I may print them. Paper is still the most likely and accessible form for some descendant to find hidden away 85 years from now.

Returning briefly to that paper journal – sometimes I jot quick memory notes on random scraps of paper. I don't recopy those. I tear them out and stick in the relevant spot in my journal.

Write now: start adapting this system to fit your preferences. If you journal only on your computer, form the habit of pasting in relevant snips from email. If you don't have a digital journal, start one. It doesn't have to be fancy like mine. A plain old Word file will do. Just date each entry as you start and leave a couple of extra lines at the end. You can easily go to the end of the document via Ctrl+End. Hopefully a Mac user will leave a comment about how to do this in your version of Word. 

With this simple system you can have many of the benefits of journaling without ever specifically writing a journal entry!

Tip for Surviving Change

This could be a picture of our belongings heading west to Texas on a South  Hills Movers truck, presumably before the end of the  year.  Moving is complicated and stressful. When I added things up on the classic Holmes and Rahe stress scale, I found that I’m not far from the boiling point of 300.

• I have a seemingly impossible To-Do list to get the house ready to list with a realtor by our target date.
• I’m having to pull away from my cherished writing groups and classes and other friends.
• I’m already missing the home I’ve loved for thirty years.
• My mate of 52 years baffles and enrages me at times (and keeps me laughing at others).
• And ye gods, the thought of finding the right house in Austin and getting the deal done in a timely manner and all the work of settling in … YIKES!

Of course there’s so much to look forward to:

• More time with granddaughters and extended family there.
• Connections with new friends (Austin is a friendly place).
• A chance to reboot writing groups down there – or not.
• A lovely new home to settle into.
• Fresh chile and tortillas easily available.
• Amazing food stores.
• The impeccable service of South Hills Movers.
• Finding things I’d forgotten I have.

Making a list is daunting. At this point, pressure and unknowns far outweigh the obvious rewards. It seeems like I keep falling off my raft as I go through this white water stretch on the river of life.

So what’s a person to do when it’s time to start packing, hold a garage sale, fill out a couple of reams of forms to list and buy a house, schedule inspections, fix a few more things … ?

JOURNAL!

I say I don’t have time to write. But I make time to journal. Journaling is like taking vitamins. It’s good for your health. Even ten minutes is good. I need to rest my back anyway. I journal to keep track of what’s going on. I include lessons learned: tips for cleaning, mistakes to avoid, messes I found and more. I journal about frustrations when I’m convinced that yesterday  we agreed to do X, and today he informs me that’s not even close… it all goes in the journal, along with dreams of how things will be when we get there and gratitude for the kindnesses of people here.

I would not be surprised to find that journal turning into a memoir of this move. But not soon. I need time to process. And right now I must climb back on that raft and load a few boxes. I’ll keep you posted now and then, but not often.

Write now: Write about a stressful time in your life and how you survived. Share a few tips in comments.

What Is TRUTH?

Nine years ago as I pulled together the material that became The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing, I thought I knew the answer to that question, what is truth: It's what really happened, or what you really think. It's basic honesty, plain and simple. Everybody knows that, right?

That's a good starting point, but as I've learned since then, that's both incomplete and misleading. Some of my increased understanding is old news, things I knew that had not integrated into my cluster of life writing neurons. Meanwhile, advances in the study of memory continue to deepen understanding. These discoveries have profound  relevance for life writers. Here's a list of a few evolving insights worth sharing:

Memory is fallible. Contrary to what you probably heard in psychology class, self-help seminars, and various other places, you do not remember every minute detail of every sensation that ever entered your brain. Recent evidence shows that incoming data is filtered, scrubbed and consolidated. Irrelevant material is unlikely to be retained. Furthermore, our brains often mistake vivid mental images for fact, embedding them as memory.

Memory morphs. Research shows that each time you recall an event or thought, current circumstances and thought become enmeshed in the memory, and the initial memory may become buried in debris over time. Compare this to your story files on disk. You may save your initial draft. Then you edit and save again. You may repeat that process twenty times, perhaps changing only a word or two each time you read. Five years later, if you had a copy of that original draft, you may not recognize it as the same story. But you didn't save the original, so there's now way to know.

Perception is personal and situational. In 1978 I grew sick of my long, hippie hair. I was enrolled in an off-campus graduate program at Central Washington U at the time, and made the hundred mile drive to the Ellensburg campus every couple of weeks. One day I left early and stopped at a hair salon before a lunch date with my mentor. Although I felt foxy as heck with my sleek new bob, I could barely see beyond a new fringe of bangs invading my view. My next stop was the library. When I stepped up to the checkout desk, I heard a man say, "Oh, my GOD!" A bomb exploded in my self-absorbed brain. Could my hair be that bad? I swung around and saw him gaping at a document.

Truth is relative. This perspective is based on the one above. In my essay, Mayhem at Camp RYLA, I cite the example of a young woman who worked as a bank teller and was held up at gunpoint a few months earlier. Shots were fired, though not at her. During a simulated crime at Camp RYLA, she saw an object held at arms' length, pointed in her direction. Not only did she tearfully swear under oath at the mock trial that a gun had been pointed at her, but that she'd heard a shot. That belief was so strong and true for her that she went into near meltdown at the revelation the "gun" had been a plastic water pistol.

Truth is situational and sometimes inconsistent. Victims of abuse often testify to this. "I loved him," they claim, years after they got brave enough to leave. "I really loved him. And I hated him when he beat me. Sometimes I wished he was dead." Those feelings, those truths, can exist side-by-side for decades.

So, you see, although I don't deny the existence of universal truths like the power of love, story truth is fuzzy, fleeting and personal.Write your story the way you see it, the way it's real and true to you. If you find truth changing as you write, consider yourself blessed.

Write now: Make a list of beliefs about what you hold true. Jot down a few examples of each. Then ask yourself Byron Katie's question, "Is this really, really true?" and "How do I know it's true?" You may be surprised by what you learn.

Photo Scanning Tips for CreateSpace

My heart nearly broke when I checked the resolution of a photo in a client’s family history/memoir I was preparing for upload to CreateSpace.com for printing copies for family members. When I copied the document photo and pasted it into IrfanView (my favorite free photo editor for low-end needs), I saw that the resolution was only 72 dpi (dots or pixels per inch). That’s a small fraction of the pixel density CreateSpace requires. This was the case with nearly all the several dozen photos in the book.

I had the gut-wrenching task of explaining to my client that she had a choice: I could resample the existing images to trick CreateSpace into believing they were 300 dpi . . . or she could rescan them.

How I wished that she, like the majority of people scanning old family photos, knew all along about scanning at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi. Here’s why it matters:

CreateSpace will sound an alarm when it analyzes an uploaded document and finds even one image of less than 300 dpi. For good reason. Lo-res images will look even worse in print than they do onscreen when zoomed above 100%. Ignore that warning at your own risk.

The left photo above is scanned at original size at 72 dpi. The image on the right is exactly the same picture, scanned at 300 dpi. Notice the crisp, clear detail in the high-res version compared to the blurry approximation on the left. That’s the sort of result you can expect with any image printed at 72 dpi.

My client wanted her volume to be top quality in every respect, so she opted to rescan as many photos as she still had available. For the rest, we stuck with small sizes and I resampled the existing photos as 300 dpi to stabilize them for printing. That turned off the CreateSpace alarms, but nothing could recreate lost detail. Still, those photos add value to the story and they are better than nothing.

Many of us scanned hundreds of pictures fifteen or twenty years ago when scanner technology was new and file size a concern. A 3” x 4.75” photo scanned at 300 dpi produces a file larger than the 1.44 megabyte capacity of the 3.5” floppy disks we used back then. We scanned at 72, or perhaps 96 dpi. I have a few hundred files like that myself, with the originals clear across the country, as many of hers are now. Those low-res files will work fine for eBooks and online viewing, but they are not print-worthy.

The tips below will help you get the best possible results for your publishing projects. If you decide to have someone else do layout for you, getting the photos right before you hand over the file will keep costs down and save you lots of aggravation.

Terminology

Resolution – the number of dots or pixels per inch. At 72 dpi, a square inch of image will have 72 pixels horizontally x 72 pixels vertically for a total of 5184pixels. At 300 dpi, that will be 300 x 300 for a total of 90,000, allowing for more than 17 times as much detail.

Resample – this word carries a touch of magic. If you change the resolution of an image, software uses samples from the image to calculate how to best condense or expand information to cover the desired amount of space. Increasing resolution spreads existing information thinner and is unable to add more detail.

Tips for preparing photos for publication

Scan at 300 dpi and 100% resolution – or higher. If you have a photo that’s 2” x 3”,  scan it at 600 dpi or higher to give you a high quality image printable at larger sizes so you can enlarge it enough to let people see detail. 600 dpi will allow you to double the size of the original in print. 900 lets  you print up to three times larger. Most old film photos lack the crisp resolution needed to successfully enlarge more than that.

Resample and enhance. If you aren’t able to rescan those old images, resample them to 300 dpi turn off the alarm.

Size in Microsoft Word to fit space on the page, then copy the image and paste into IrfanView or another editor to check resolution. Resample to 300 dpi at the precise size of the image in your manuscript. Replace the “temp” image with the resized one.

This matters because Word does a poor job of resampling, and images resized within the document generally look terrible when printed. This is partly due to changing the resolution as you resize in Word. Resizing is a nuisance, but worth the effort. I’ve tried not doing it and the results were not pretty.

Crop images with a photo editor. You  can do this in Word, and it might be okay, if you start with a 300 dpi image and don’t change anything else about its size. Check the quality of the image in your proof copy of the finished book.  For best results, crop in IrfanView, Photoshop Elements, or something similar and check to make sure the final image is 300 dpi.

Use an image editor to convert color images to grayscale if you plan to print in black and white. You can print from color or use Word’s image editing function to do this, but it’s not your best choice.

I’ll do another post soon on using your scanner interface. For now, scan big and pose questions in comments.

Write now: take a break from writing and scan a photo or two. Insert it in Word and play around with sizing. Download IrfanView and practice resampling. Tip: Resizing is on the Image menu. Ctrl+R will get take you right there. Have fun!

Six Things I Learned Going from Memoir to Fiction

Invited guest post by Carol Bodensteiner

Long time readers may be surprised to find a post about writing fiction on this blog about life writing. While it’s true that my focus is on memoir, lifestory, journaling and other forms that draw upon actual experience to express personal truth, sometimes the freedom of fiction is more effective in conveying truth. Carol Bodensteiner found this to be true. She has successfully written in both genres and her experience moving from memoir to fiction has lessons for all.

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I’d been a business writer all my life, so I was used to working with facts. Memoir was a logical first writing step. Growing Up Country: Memories of an Iowa Girl, tells the stories of my childhood growing up on a family farm in the middle of the United States, in the middle of the 20^th Century.

When I finally raised my head from writing, publishing, and marketing the memoir, I looked around for what I’d write next. I turned to family-inspired fiction, which I’d never written before.  My novel, Go Away Home, which I indie published in 2014 and was acquired by Lake Union Publishing (an imprint of Amazon Publishing) later that year, is the result of that effort.

The road from memoir to fiction brought many adventures and a lot of learning. Here are six things I learned along the way.

1) A family story can be a great launching pad to fiction.

Go Away Home was inspired by my maternal grandparents. My grandfather died of the Spanish Flu in 1918. Throughout my life, I’ve been intrigued by my connection to this major world event. As someone used to writing from facts, a family story gave me a starting point: A story I cared to write and people and places that were familiar.

Writing the story as fiction was necessary for many reasons. One was that I didn’t have enough facts to write it any other way. Of course I never knew my grandfather and even though my grandmother lived until I was well into my 20s, I never asked her a single question about him or their lives together. And she was not the type to share. So though the story began with family, it is fiction.

2) Don’t get stuck on the facts

Once I got into writing the story, one of the biggest challenges was letting go of the facts. Since the genesis of this story rose from people in my family, and I knew a bit about the people, places, and events, my inclination was to use those facts. But I quickly found that the facts didn’t work for the story I was ultimately telling. They didn’t create a good story arc. There was no drama. On his website, Write the Truth, Robert McKee said, “The weakest possible excuse to include anything in a story is: ‘But it actually happened.’”  Having gone this route, I believe him.

3) Do get stuck on the facts

Since Go Away Home is historical fiction, research was critical to creating the time period accurately. Clothes, transportation, hairstyles, technology, colloquialisms. The list of topics I researched and fact checked was long. Readers of historical fiction really care about the details. Writers must, too.

Research also helped shape the story. One example: Family lore was that my grandmother went to a sewing school. Research revealed that the town in question didn’t have a sewing school, rather that young girls apprenticed with seamstresses as a way to learn an important life skill and to meet a man to marry.  The idea that seamstresses were invited to their clients’ house parties had terrific dramatic potential, so I ran with that.

Another bit of fact to fiction. My grandmother took pictures, but the whole part in the book about the main character’s work for a photographer and her relationship with him is entirely fiction.  Most of the book is that way. Tiny fact. Huge fiction.

4) Planner vs. Pantser

Writers fall into two general camps: Planners and Pantsers. I wrote my way into Go Away Home, discovering the story through countless re-writes – by the seat of my pants. I always knew the end of the story; I didn’t know how we got there. In the first draft, the story started in 1900 and my main character Liddie was 10. In the second draft, the story started in 1915 and Liddie was 19. In the published draft, the story starts in 1913 and Liddie is 16. Believe me – those changes create seismic waves throughout the story.

Having used this highly inefficient “pantser” approach once, I’m reasonably certain that I’m a “plotter” at heart and will be more plan-ful in future writing.

5) Fiction is freeing

While I thought it would be easier to start with some facts because that was what I was used to, the reality was there was great freedom in starting with nothing. As the story developed (pantser), it became clear that connections were missing. I needed a scene to show my main character’s inexperience with men. No problem. I made up a guy. I found it was great fun to let my imagination run. Over and over, I filled holes with scenes that met a plot need.

6) New craft to learn

I learned a lot about creative writing as I crafted my memoir, much of which was also applicable to fiction. Dialogue, scene development, visual characterization – all come into play in both genres. Plotting was a new challenge in fiction writing, as I noted earlier. Developing multi-dimensional fictional characters was another challenge.

I used a number of techniques that contributed to creating the real, individual people living in my novel. I visualized people I know who were somewhat like the characters I had in mind. Writing exercises helped to identify key traits and to express them in fresh ways. I used Enneagram research to flesh out the positive and negative traits of various personality types.

From memoir to fiction, from craft to research, I will always be able to learn something new about writing, and for me, that’s great fun.

Go Away Home is available on Amazon in paperback and ebook formats.

Growing Up Country is available on Amazon in paperback, ebook, and audio book formats.

Carol Bodensteiner – Bio

Carol Bodensteiner is a writer who finds inspiration in the places, people, culture and history of the Midwest. After a successful career in public relations consulting, she turned to creative writing. She blogs about writing, her prairie, gardening, and whatever in life interests her at the moment. She published her memoir Growing Up Country in 2008. Her WWI-era, debut novel Go Away Home was acquired by Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing. It launches July 7, 2015.

Carol’s online links
Website/blog 
Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook

Write now: think of an interesting ancestor or other person who has influenced your life that you know relatively little about. Drawing on Carol’s experience, write a short story about how you imagine this person’s life might have been. Don’t worry about facts. Just let that story rip. Have fun with this!

A Delicious Way to Eat Your Words

Thanks to the efforts of his creative wife Vivian, on May 9 this year, about thirty people helped Don Duncan eat his words.

We were all gathered at the Whitehall Public Library in Whitehall, Pennsylvania to celebrate the conclusion of The Power of Memoir, an eight-week series of classes  that I had the pleasure of leading. Each week a dozen eager students gathered for two hours to learn a few pointers from The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. During the class, they read stories based on their assignment for the week.

Each week we had a predictably wide spectrum of stories. Some, like the one about a woman’s first date with the undertaker who became her husband, had us howling with laughter. Stories about growing up in foster care touched our hearts. We shared memories of growing up around the South Hills region of metropolitan Pittsburgh, holidays, and other aspects of life.

At the conclusion of the class, students brought their favorite stories to a Saturday morning event at the library and read them to friends, family and library patrons. Mary Kay Moran, the librarian who arranged for the class, provided a magnificent continental breakfast, and the crown jewel of the occasion was the cake you see above.

Don Duncan had read a story, “Singing Brings Joy.” His wife, Vivian, surprised everyone with the cake you see above. She knew which story he planned to read. She took the story file to her favorite grocery store’s bakery and had them print the first and last pages on special edible rice paper with edible ink. She explained that this is the same process they use to print pictures and other messages not formed with the traditional piped icing.

“You put the icing on the cake and immediately put the printed rice paper on top. If you order a cake, they’ll do this for you. I bake my own. It’s important to put the paper on as soon as you finish spreading the icing so the oils in it ‘melt’ the rice paper right into the surface. If you wait too long, it won’t react correctly, and the paper just sits on top.” She told us they’ll print anything and just charge you for the printed page, as long as you assure them no copyright violation is involved.

We enjoyed each story we heard that morning, and then we enjoyed eating Don’s.

As predictably happens with such a class, the group wanted to keep meeting to write and read together. The library agreed to provide space and Mary Kay has taken the lead to facilitate the group. I look forward to stopping by for a visit once in awhile.

I was excited to hear last week that a similar group is underway at the Community Library of Allegheny Valley in Natrona Heights north of Pittsburgh, led by Caitlin Bauer, one of the librarians there. I was especially thrilled to learn that Caitlin is using a leaders manual I prepared a couple of years ago to help libraries around the county start these groups.

I published that manual under a Creative Commons license, making it available for free for anyone who wants to start a group. I put no restrictions on its use, though I hope all groups will be open to anyone who wants to participate without restriction based on gender, etc. I do realize that organizations like Senior Centers may have age restrictions, but beyond that, in my opinion, diversity is the key to the success of these groups. So far more than a dozen groups have validated that it works.

You don’t have to be a strong or experienced writer to lead a group. The manual includes an outline for a six week workshop to get people started. Beyond that, people learn from each other. The leader’s main role is making initial arrangements and keeping people focused on their written stories rather than reminiscing during meetings.

If you are interested in starting a group, send me an email and I’ll be happy to send you the pdf file and answer any questions you may have.

Write now:  1) Be adventurous. Send for the Leaders Manual and use the suggestions for finding a location and group members. This will be one of the most rewarding things you’ll do this year. Start planning now to start a group this fall.

2) Bake a cake and let somebody eat his or her words – or yours.

Clear the Haze from Pictures and Memory

The pictures above have deep meaning for me, and I think they are likely to strike a chord with most viewers, evoking memories of their own. I want my stories to have that effect. I want readers to see themselves in my words, finding new ways to see old situations and become more fully themselves.

I recently found this left-hand picture from 1973 in a pile I was sorting through. Something in it stirred me, though haziness dimmed my response. I decided to try restoring it.

I scanned it with my Epson V600 scanner using Professional mode on the scanner interface. I used the Color Restoration tool and the Unsharp Mask tool set to high. That produced over 90% of the result you see on the right, but I wanted more. I cloned out spots on the pillow and sharpened the picture a bit more. Then I added a warming yellowish tone to approximate the wall color I recall.

The crisp, haze-free result makes me feel like I’m “back in the picture,” especially when I view it full size and zoom in on details.

I used an ancient version of Photoshop for this, but Paint.net does almost as much as Photoshop and it’s free. Picasa, another popular free choice, is easy to use. Most scanners should have some semblance of the  Epson’s capability. My husband’s 12-year-old Epson can do this, just not as fast.

Once I got a clear view of the photo, I sat with it until I sank into the feeling of having those tots around full time, and gratitude I felt. I thought about how different they were from each other. I looked at our clothing and recalled the joy of sewing. George is on the left. I made his jeans. I made Susan’s to match one I made for myself. I made John’s trendy fake vest shirt. Sewing with knits was big in the seventies. I’m surprised to realize that my shirt and pants both came from stores. Nearly everything in my closet was my own creation.

I remembered the challenge of reupholstering the tattered Goodwill sectional my mom was tired of. Fake animal fur was affordable and trendy. It was a perfect fit for the shag rug in our brand-new home. When we bought new living room furniture, this old stuff went down to the family room. On the right side you see the crewel embroidery project I was working on. That huge picture perfectly matched the carpeting. I put it away years ago. I may rehang it yet.

Oh, the hair – where did it all go? This was my Involved Earth Mother phase: PTO, League of Women Voters, Republican Women, bridge club and more.  I also recalled feeling overwhelmed at times, and wondering just where I fit into the larger scheme of things. Mostly it was a time of settling into house and community and keeping those lively youngsters and their daddy fed, clothed and happy.

I made a list of memories I can use in stories spawned by that picture:

• Shag rug: hard to live with! Vacuuming flattened it, and I used a garden rake to restore it to fluffiness. Needless to say, I did not do that on a daily basis.
• Bare feet. I lived in bare feet in the house. I still do in the summer.
• Making things. I loved crafting enhancements for our home. Repurposing “found objects” was my specialty. I hope to get back to that soon when we move into another new-to-us home.
• Informality: Our life style was and still is informal. What you see there is no formal pose. It’s typical.

The list goes on, but you get the idea.

My final thought is that stories are like that these pictures. I liken the left one to an early draft. A robust round of editing clears the haze, letting the story shine through. A few more tweaks enhance detail. The final version conveys the sense of the situation so well that readers feel “in the picture,” much as I do with the finished version on the right.

Write now: Find an old picture that’s hazy and indistinct. Play with settings on your scanner and use Paint.net or Picasa to touch it up. Zoom in on details in the finished result and look for stories everywhere.

Dreams Do Come True

Dreams do come true – the day dream kind, the wish upon a star kind. I know this because many of mine have. I know they have because I wrote them down. Two examples stand out and show how writing dreams down can benefit life writers.

Moving to Pittsburgh
Around 1983 I began dreaming about moving away from what I considered to be the serious career limits of life in Washington’s Tri-Cities (Richland, Kennewick and Pasco). That was during the hey day of the goal setting movement, at least for me. So I drafted a list of everything I wanted when we moved, even though no move was in sight. That list had over twenty items. Among other things it included

• Major university.
• Major corporate headquarters
• A house with high ceilings
• A stream in our backyard. (That was pure whimsy, nothing I expected to get.)

I stuck that list somewhere and forgot about it. 

In 1985 my husband accepted a job transfer from the Westinghouse Hanford Nuclear Project to the Westinghouse Nuclear Center in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. I was thrilled to be in a suburb of a real city. Fast forward about three years. I found that list. I was stunned. Every item on it had been fulfilled. True, the high ceiling is only a half-cathedral and the stream only runs after a serious rainstorm, but it is a stream, and it is in the woods in our backyard.

Moving again
in 1993 I wrote a future vision as part of another goal-setting/dream-building exercise. Over the past several years I’ve remembered that exercise often, and looked all over for it, primarily to show my daughter that a dozen years before she met their father, I knew she’d eventually have two daughters. My memory was of writing it by hand in one of the pile of notebooks I began as journals of one sort or another and then abandoned. I’ve found it perplexing that I’ve never been able to find it.

Yesterday I found it. While sorting through various artifacts in my office, thinning things out before packing to move (date as yet undetermined), I found some gorgeous 20-year-old overhead slides I used in workshops and programs on holding effective meetings. Hoping I could find the original file on my computer, I began digging through back-up folders uploaded from old floppies (remember those?). I never did find the slides, but I found something even better:

I found my dream building file, the one I’ve been looking for. Memory was wrong It was never on paper. It’s beautifully done in workbook format. I remember now that I had visions of publishing that workbook, without my personal content.

Reading over the elements of that dream, I buzzed with excitement. I’m living most of that dream right now. Other elements, like the office and house I describe, exactly match what I recently wrote about the house I hope to find in Austin. The dream document said Seattle, but at this point Austin is a better choice. My daughter has built the free-lance writing business I foresaw, and she does have two young daughters. Nearly 25 years after writing that, we will live near each other.

 So what?
Quite aside from any mystical, metaphysical “laws of attraction” aspects of goal-setting, these documents are jewels for lifewriters.

• They document with laser precision just what we hoped and dreamed for at various points in time.
• They provide a mirror for reflecting on subsequent events. If we were on target as I have been, we can follow the trail of events that led from then to now. If not, we can explore the insurmountable obstacles, how they affect us, and how they shaped our lives.
• They provide a focus for stories and memoir.

Sowing and reaping
It’s never too late to start harnessing the power and fascination of dreams. I can’t guarantee they’ll all come true, but I do guarantee you’ll have a fascinating experience as you consider the possibilities. Although it does work to lose them and find them years later, I suggest you start a journal for this specific purpose and keep track of it. That  might be on paper, but a computer file serves well too. Just back it up and file it where you’ll be able to find it again.

Write now: write down a dream of life as you’d like it to be at some point in the future. Give your inner critic a sleeping pill and call in your muse to help you be creative. Be precise and specific about describing details that make it real. Include whimsical elements like that stream. Include emotions and feelings you expect to have. Don’t worry about editing or spelling. Just write it all down. It’s worked for me to file this stuff away and forget about it. Most gurus have you post it on your wall and keep it in sight to keep its power alive. Follow your instincts on this. Years from now, you’ll find it again and have something to remember, write about, and maybe share with your family and the world.

Image credit: Ruben Alexander

Check Your Rhythm

Sometimes you read a story and know something is “off,” but you can’t put your pencil on it. Chances are, the story’s rhythm or “music” is the problem. Most people are aware that rhythm is an inherent facet of poetry, especially classic, rhyming poetry. But if you went to the mall and asked random people if they thought stories have rhythm, the typical person would give you that lopsided, raised-eyebrow look that implies she thinks you’re nuts. 

“What do you mean, rhythm in a story? Like in a song? Foot-tapping rhythm with a beat?”

 “Any kind.” You shrug.

“Well . . . no. There’s poems and songs. That stuff has rhythm. Stories, not so much. No. Stories don’t have rhythm. They’re just plain old talking like people talk."

The fact is, plain old talking does have rhythm, at least when thoughts flow freely. Even the occasional “uhm” or stumble is rhythmic. For example, read aloud the following two sentence excerpt from a YouTube interview between Kathleen Pooler and Susan Weidner. As you read, tap your fingers rhythmically, like a ticking clock or a metronome.

Kathleen: How was writing this story, uh, how did it differ from writing your memoirs?

Susan: Well, it was quite different because I was allowed to use my imagination.

Read these lines aloud again and tap your fingers rhythmically, like a ticking clock or a metronome as you read. Broken into even beats, Kathleen’s sentence sounds like this:

|How was |writing this |story, |uh, |how did it |differ from |writing your |memoirs? 

Susan’s words have a similar flow:

|Well, |it was quite |different be|cause I was |allowed to |use my |imagi|nation. 

Not only are these sentences rhythmic, but they’re streamlined, with no extra words. Contrast this with a sentence from an early draft of written story.

Nobody could refute the certainty of the arrival of furious storms every winter that lashed at houses built out of solid rock that was hewn out of the very bedrock we all lived on . . . 

My head spins and my tongue tangles when I try to read that sentence aloud. I’m reminded of riding on an unpaved mountain road. If this sentence occurred on the first page, I would set this story aside immediately. My sense of things is that if this sentence were actually spoken, it would sound more like this:

Nobody could refute the certain arrival of furious storms every winter. They lashed out at our solid stone houses built from the bedrock we lived on. 

 That revision still isn’t going to gain fame. I’d consider the underlying thought and smooth it even more:

Everyone knew we had killer storms every winter that seemed like they’d wash our solid stone houses off the bedrock we lived on. 

Even that sentence may need more work within the context of the larger story.

Tips for giving your stories rhythm 

• Trim extra words. 


• Clear out the dead would. 


• Question every use of “that.”


•  Eliminate the word “very” and related intensifiers in favor of precise language.


• Use scrap paper and a pen to write the simplest possible version of what you are trying to say in a complicated sentence or passage. Use that to simplify your draft.


• Read sentence and stories aloud! Notice where your tongue stumbles and follow its lead as you edit.


• Read them aloud to a group. You’ll notice where your tongue stumbles, but you may not notice that what your spoken words don’t match what’s on the page. Again, follow the lead of your spoken words. That’s what you really mean, and what sounds best.

Write now: read through the draft of a new story or an older one you haven't seen for awhile and find sentences with awkward rhythm. Use the tips above to smooth them out.

Monkeys, Jackasses and Wispy Mist

In her blog post, “Jackasses & Monkeys – Inner demons of writing,” Carol Bodensteiner reveals that her inner writing demons take the form of monkeys. She expresses relief on learning that others, such as Kimberly  Brock, have similar problems. In my opinion, Kimberly’s challenge is worse. She is beset by Jackasses.

Carol invited readers to share their experiences. I also have demons, as I believe we all do. Like Carol, I battle monkeys, described by Zen masters as Monkey Mind. My monkeys are different from Carol’s. Mine swing through the trees at random, taking my thoughts along with them, rendering me incapable of staying focused. They dangle distractions, and they're a hindrance all the time, not just while writing.

Look this up NOW! Right NOW! one shouts while I'm unloading the dishwasher or chopping celery for salad. When the monkey shouts, I enter a state of paralyzing need to obey. I crave the closure of filling that gap. Sometimes I return to chopping celery, but laundry may remain unfolded for days, a blog post unfinished for ... maybe ever.

Jackasses? I’ve known a few of those, but they don’t live in my head. For me the voices Kimberly attributes to jackasses are more subtle and indirect. Much harder to quantify. Mine are formless entities. They whisper from wisps of mist. "It's not good enough. It's shallow," they whisper. But wait. I reread my work and it is shallow. It isn’t ready for print. Those critical voices protect me. They drive me to more research on craft, to yet another round of edits. My whispering wisps protect me. I cherish them.

Tips for silencing monkeys, jackasses and wispy mist

1. Talk to them – ask them for their advice. If they tell you to work on your craft, they speak true. Heed them. If they tell you you’ll never succeed, you’ll never be good enough … tell them firmly to zip their lips and stuff them into their crates.
2. Talk to others – like Carol Bodensteiner, you may find it a huge relief to compare notes with fellow writers and learn that they battle the same demons. Compare notes on coping strategies.
3. Write stories about them – especially stories that poke fun at them. Write yourself as the shero of your own story (or hero, as the case may be). Have fun with these stories. Be silly, be bold, be outrageous. Smash and bash away.
4. Feed them cookies and make friends – because they can be helpful, as mine have turned out to be. Just don’t eat the cookies yourself. It is not true that writing success is directly proportional to body mass.
5. Call their bluffs – by succeeding in spite of them and yourself. Just write. And edit. And get lots of feedback. And then publish or share your work with legions of others. Those critters will get the message.

Write now: write a story about your inner demons. What form do they take? What do they sound like? How have you dealt with them? If you haven’t yet neutralized or harnessed their power, imagine that you have and write about that. Post your story in a comment or email me a copy. I’d love to read it.