Tag: Inspiration

Vanity, vanity

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

New Hampshire and neighboring Maine seem especially prone to vanity license plates. Their quirky inventiveness and self-expression make our trips around town and the wider region a lot more interesting. Often, they have us smiling or chuckling.

This example starts a weekly series drawn from JJW’s auto plate archive. Please come by again for the next.

Ten big events in my life during the past year

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
  1. Completing my “final” book of fiction. The middle novella and end pieces are entirely new and quite a departure for me. The other two-thirds are major revisions of two novellas now linked by Jaya’s imagination. Look for The Secret Side of Jaya at Smashwords, available for preorder now.
  2. New wheels. I probably jinxed the old one by a Tendrils posting early in the year, but my Camry fell victim to rusting serious enough to keep it from passing state inspection. There were enough other problems to make me concede it was time to move on (and downsize) a bit before the odometer rolled over to 300k miles. Wound up with a three-year-old Chevy Sonic I call the Scooter.
  3. Recovering my swimming distance and time. I try to swim a half-mile every weekday, but one of my cardio meds kept taking a toll. Getting to a quarter-mile was an effort, and my speed was way down. But at the checkup on my one-year anniversary of the stent implant, my doc decided he could switch to something less potent. Hallelujah! I’m back to normal, or something like that. The nosebleeds and bruising have lessened, too.
  4. Downeast, Maine. We got away for an extended weekend in May and were astounded by the desolation and poverty of much of the easternmost corner of the United States. But we’re also enchanted by the natural awe and community and have been returning. Somehow, it reminds me of the Pacific Northwest, where I lived for four life-changing years. I’ll be posting a lot of photos in the coming year that reflect our discoveries. Hey, it’s still New England and far less well known than Boston. And, oh yes, we bid on a piece of property with an ocean view, though the sellers turned it down and still have it. Please stay tuned!
  5. Beekeeping. Yes, you’ve been reading about it.
  6. And the rabbits. This time, I took the lead in our pet situation. They’re evermore cute and entertaining.
  7. Backing off from the choir. I’m a charter member of an amazing community chorus in Greater Boston, but the weekly commute to rehearsals is getting too demanding. The trip to and from occupies a half of a day, for one thing, and keeps me up later than usual, for another, plus the mileage and tolls add up. When my carpooling buddy’s new job meant he could no longer fit our music-making into his schedule, the time for change had arrived. Still, I had an opportunity to sing behind Noel Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame at an outdoor concert in September.  That said, I really do miss the group and our shared high. We’ll see what happens ahead.
  8. Shifting into “author” mode. With my books now in place, my focus should be shifted away from drafting and revising new work, which is essentially solo time, and into more presence in the literary world. At the beginning of summer, for example, I started reading and reviewing ebooks at Smashwords that touched, one way or another, on subjects in my novels. It’s been refreshing.
  9. Closing out my IRA and getting serious about downsizing. It’s not like there was a huge amount, but it had grown to the equivalent of two years’ salary at my maximum income. We realize the house (and barn) are really too much for two people to sustain, and some costly work is needed before we put it up for sale. After all, we’ve accumulated a lot over the years, especially in our two decades together. And we’ve taken on a lot to manage, sometimes too much, as I often feel about the garden, or at least its weeds. If we relocate to another house, it will have to be somewhat smaller and definitely more economic to heat and maintain. We realize something has to go sooner or later, so we’ve started. Unlike a diet, this brings us to stages of reflection, not always easy. Many of the items are infused with memories or dreams.
  10. Our younger daughter’s engagement. Saving the best for last, we finally get to call him “son” officially. Yay!

~*~

What’s been a highlight of your year?

 

Not every first draft is going to require tons of revisions

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I recently discussed the travails of revising my centerpiece novel What’s Left over a 3½-year period. I should mention that most of my other novels required more years to compose start to finish, but they faced far more interruptions than What’s Left did.

This fall, I’ve had an experience of writing a novel that was quite the opposite. It’s the fourth and concluding book in an independent series, one that won’t appear under my name, and its 52,000 words came together in just about three weeks. The manuscript required only a few minor revisions and tweaks afterward.

Essentially, I started at the beginning and wrote it step by step over a simple chronological plot line to the end. The previous novel in the series presented the traumatic event that prompted this book and its theme, so I wasn’t starting from scratch. On the other hand, that approach always includes some limitations, too.

No spoilers, I’m not giving details. But there were earlier specifics and, in addition to the protagonist, four characters to weave into the advancing tale. If you’re a NaNoWriMo aspirant and looking at reaching that minimal word count, having boilerplate like this to work from helps.

I did have a separate Word file where I could develop specific morsels to insert into the manuscript itself as the story emerged, but doing so proved fairly seamless. Cut and paste from one file into another. So, technically, you could argue it wasn’t quite a straight-through writing, though for me, this is as close as it gets.

Crucially, a rhythm was set. My, that really does help the drafting!

One thing that helped immensely was the creation of tight character profiles (in that second file) for the nine new individuals who populate the book, including notes of how they connect with one another. Those summaries were then backed up by photos I collected online for people they might resemble and for residences and neighborhoods that would fit them. Much of the color in my narrative arises in these specifics built on their social milieau. Often, the images took me well beyond what I would have envisioned in my own smaller world. Look close!

If you’re doing NaNoWriMo and getting stuck, try this. Trust me.

While I had an overarching idea of the plot line, I was uncertain about the ending. That crucial bit came to me while sitting in Quaker worship. When I got home, I entered a note at the end of the manuscript and returned to the spot much earlier in the timeline where I was keyboarding.

A week or so later, as I dug down to that note, I was startled. I had been building the crisis to a different character, not the one I had noted. Which do I choose? I elected to stick with the note, in part because of its surprise in the plot line. It still makes sense from the earlier developments. And I definitely now think that was the right decision.

So you NaNoWriMo aspirants, take heart.

You really can make that deadline on your first draft. Go, team, go! You can make it in the next two weeks.

What would you eat in Kittery Foreside?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments
The square where it’s happenin’.

Kittery, Maine, is a few miles downstream from where I live. It’s also across the Piscataqua River from Portsmouth, which is loaded with eateries – maybe as many per capita as Manhattan.

For much of its existence, Kittery has been pretty blue-collar. It’s home to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard – the U.S. Navy’s oldest continuously operating yard – and now tasked with the upkeep of nuclear submarines. It’s also home to a lot of lobstermen.

When I first came to New Hampshire, the Kittery Grange Hall was the scene of a monthly contradance – both the grange and the event now ancient history.

Oh, yes, and its strip of discount outlet stores along U.S. 1 is a major tourist attraction. Seriously. As is the adjacent sprawling Kittery Trading Post.

But with Portsmouth booming and the cost of its retail space skyrocketing, Kittery has been undergoing a transformation. Nowhere is that more apparent than in Wallingford Square, which used to be a gritty cluster of bars around one of the shipyard’s two gates. Today it’s been rechristened Kittery Foreside and is the center of some enterprising fine dining and food sellers.

Here’s what you’ll find.

The keystone restaurant.
  1. Anneke Jans. Upscale trendy dining with a devoted following. It’s the culinary anchor.
  2. Rudders Public House. Specialty: Kittery Fried Chicken.
  3. Lil’ s Café. Crulers, anyone?
  4. AJ Wood Grill Pizza. Get the picture?
  5. Anju Noodle Bar. For that Asian touch.
  6. Wallingford Dram. Artisan cocktails in “that walk-in closet, timeless gem of a bar,” as one critic describes it.
  7. The Black Perch. Duck-gravy laden pontine.
  8. Festina Lente. Rustic Italian.
  9. Authentic India. As it says.
  10. Tributary Brewing Company.

~*~

Nearby is the Beach Pea bakery, the best baguettes around, and Loco Coco’s Tacos, with its wonderful fine Mexican cuisine.

Naval shipyard viewed from the square.