On Monday I have to submit one of these sales hooks for wide distribution. Which one would most entice you to read on? 1. Fifty years after Rachel Field’s heartbreaking death, Robin Clifford Wood stepped onto the sagging floorboards of the renowned author’s long-neglected island home off the coast of Maine. Wood became enchanted by Field’s mysterious past, a life fraught with challenge, flushed with success, then buried by tragedy. The journey into Rachel’s world took Wood further than she ever dreamed possible. 2. The Field House, a unique biography-memoir, features the rugged shores of Maine, old New York, and early Hollywood. Two strong women writers – one living, one dead – share uncannily similar passions and conflicts that shape their lives. When they “meet” through the whispers of an old, neglected island home, they forge a startling friendship across time and impossible distance. This April 10th blizzard left our backyard like Narnia under the spell of the White Witch. We flushed a great blue heron from the pond. She unfurled her great wings and lifted off like a great flying dinosaur. Omens of unexpected beauty abound. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 229: 185 words, TOTAL = 37,395; 22,605 remaining
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Strange, but now that I’m so close to handing in my final manuscript for the Rachel Field book, I’m dragging my feet. It has been a superb distraction and time-filler during these quarantine days. There hasn’t been a day when I lacked for pressing work. Yesterday I got the last round of remarks to go over from the wonderful copyeditor, Molly Lindley-Pisani. I’ll do my final clean-up, return it to her one last time, then she’ll send me a manuscript ready to submit! I have all the photos and images lined up, just filling in captions and photo credits. Instead of diving into book work this morning, however, I went for a glorious hike around the Great Pond Mountain Conservation Lands in Orland, Maine. For two hours I was utterly alone – no other car in the dirt lot where I started, never saw a soul until I was a few hundred yards from getting back. The absolute isolation gave me alternating feelings of liberation and unease. I got a walking stick from the woods in case I met a bear. Got lost, missed the summit, loved being with trees. Now it’s snowing. April in Maine is crazy. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 228: 197 words, TOTAL = 37,210; 22,790 remaining Rachel Field and Spriggin, courtesy of Portland Public Library Special Collections and Archives My “author tip sheet” for The Field House is due for submission in five days, almost done. In addition to basic info (author/title/price/size), you need a 60-word sales hook, a 200-word description, key selling points, audience targets, author bio, social media handles, comparative titles, publicity highlights, keywords, blurbs, and BISACS (“book industry standards and communications” codes). Crazy, right? As with so many ventures I’ve plunged into, I am grateful that I didn’t appreciate what I was getting into when I decided to write a book. I may have never begun. I’m learning a ton, once I push past the overwhelm. Also on my grateful list is the model of my husband, a man undaunted by challenges if ever an exciting plan emerges in his head. My tendency is to see obstacles and say “oh never mind,” “It’s too hard,” or at best, “whatever. This is good enough.” But Jonathan’s voice in my head says, “It’s not that big a deal. Do it right.” Okay, okay. I’m doing it, and I’ll do my best. But sheesh. Rachel, I’m getting there. Thanks for waiting. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 227: 182 words, TOTAL = 37,013; 22,987 remaining Okay, even if you’re not a comic-con, Marvel heroes groupie type, suspend your skepticism for a moment. We all need a break from the ravages of reality – whether it’s utter exhaustion, grief, fear, loneliness, or garden variety boredom. This movie delivers, beyond my expectations. Perhaps some of the electronic music was overwhelming, which worried me during the opening credits. But the film was wonderfully engaging both in STORY and in CHARACTER, in many surprising ways, and I don’t just mean the fact that we get our first Black Spiderman. Miles, a young, Black, Latino boy from the city, is enormously appealing, funny, not in a canned way. The graphics are dazzling, and delightful in their blending of comic-book style effects with realism in their animations. The movie is funny, triumphant, warm, a spectacle of lights and color. It takes you away for a little while, which is just what we need when we can’t really go anywhere. Take a break. Allow yourself this little two-hour escape. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 226: 166 words, TOTAL = 36,831; 23,169 remaining My book group met virtually for the first time this morning to discuss Edward Snowden’s book, Permanent Record. It is a meticulous, poignant, highly convincing story of Snowden’s rise to insider power and retreat into exile. He begins as a classic, nerdy kid, utterly entranced by computer technology in the earliest days of home computing, and ends up as one of many young techno-wizards who is given a ridiculous amount of access to and power over national security. Snowden tried to point out flaws inside the NSA to no avail, and ultimately decided he had to serve the Constitution and democracy rather than a bloated ruling power. Though highly technical, the book is quite readable and human. I am left feeling chilled by the rapid slide towards authoritarianism that the digital age has inadvertently empowered, and by the prevalent, shoulder-shrug response from so many citizens. Snowden convinced me; mass surveillance and data gathering is not okay. I applaud the integrity that compelled him to sabotage his life. I’m grateful to be reminded that the government’s job is to serve the people, not to surveil and control them. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 225: 187 words, TOTAL = 36,665; 23,335 remaining I tuned in to our UU church service today. One reason I felt like attending was to take part in the “joys and concerns” ritual. Usually we stand up front, light a candle, and share our thoughts in a microphone. Now we type them in from home, and the worship leader reads them. I’m thankful for:
Technically, it changes nothing, but somehow it helps to share what’s pulsing most insistently in the heart. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 224: 170 words, TOTAL = 36,478; 23,522 remaining I feel like I’ve just played hooky, or snuck a day off the books. Our two Portland-daughter families drove an hour north; we drove an hour south, and we met in the middle at the beautiful Jamies Pond Wildlife Management Area in Manchester, Maine, south of Augusta. First, it was a spectacular, sun-bright, cloud-dotted, brilliant blue day. Second, we followed a lovely wooded trail around a huge wind-rippled pond. Best of all, though, was spending a few hours with Oscar (granddog), my kids, their husbands, and Fiona, who has graduated to outward-facing mode in her front carrier, so we could see her face (well, most of her face. She was contemplatively mouthing the rim of her cloth carrier much of the day). I never knew how hard it would be to refrain from hugging and touching and holding my family, but we maintained the six-feet rule, aided by Jonathan’s six-foot walking stick. Worth every minute. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 223: 155 words, TOTAL = 36,308; 23,692 remaining I slithered down the wet leaves of the wooded hillside behind our fields to get a closer look at Reeds Brook, rushing along after days of gray, cold rain. Gloomy days, gloomy times, but standing beside this little stream was settling. A little stream can exert great, patient power. Its insistent, dependable, constant whssshhh communicated comfort to me. I will wash away, wash away, wash away, all. Just let time flow. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 222: 71 words, TOTAL = 36,153; 23,847 remaining If I were a speculator, I’d be thinking hard right now about investing in a weight-loss business like Noom or Weight-Watchers. With all this quarantining at home, I’ve been devoting unprecedented amounts of time to culinary creativity. I’ve also been watching my weight – watching it rise up to forbidden heights. I know I’m not alone. As of this morning there are 5404 members of the new Facebook page, “Kitchenquarantine.” Everyone’s posting these gorgeous food photos, which of course means that everyone’s eating all this gorgeous food. Add to that our limited physical outlets and our days in sweatpants, and who knows how rapidly we’ll all grow over the coming weeks? A reckoning will have to follow, eventually. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 221: 117 words, TOTAL = 36,082; 23,918 remaining All day I overhear Jonathan and his colleagues untangle the technology of computer conferencing. “Can you hear me?” “Can you see me?” The questions strike me as more than technological inquiries; they could be poignant expressions of our shared global distress. Social isolation works its insidious torments quietly. Never has the world been forced so abruptly and completely to stop seeing each other, and like Romeo and Juliet, the prohibition only piques the yearning. Even introverts are beginning to feel the pinch. Even those whose work lives have risen to unprecedented screech levels prefer video conferencing over voice audio. Even those who have the company of family are missing the crush of the people on the subway, a serendipitous encounter in a grocery store aisle, the anonymity of getting lost in a crowd, the collision of bodies on a playing field, a chorus of “Amens,” a touch on the shoulder, a warm handshake, a high five. We crave connection with each other – auditory, visual, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, physical. Media images are nailing it. Being alone is not a natural human condition, and we are hurting from it. Can you hear me? Can you see me? My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 220: 195 words, TOTAL = 35,965; 24,035 remaining |
AuthorRobin Clifford Wood is an award-winning author, poet, and writing teacher. She lives in central Maine with her husband, loves to be outdoors, and enjoys ever-expanding horizons through her children, grandchildren, and granddogs. Archives
January 2024
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