Tag: Relationships

Their names are a way of remembering, too

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

One challenge in a large multi-generational story like What’s Left comes in managing first names. Many families customarily name babies in honor of grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, even the parents, but even with nicknames, that’s bound to create additional confusion for readers.

I skirt the issue by introducing names independent of any mention of family connection, perhaps justified with the break from the old country at the outset of their arrival in America and perhaps as a reflection of adapting new customs as well.

Pressed on the point I might respond that Stavros’ three sisters, who remain unnamed in the text, repeated earlier names. And then I wondered about Nicky, a generation later.

Does your family have naming traditions? What’s the pattern? Which names are most popular?

 

Basically

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

do you really like me? I mean, nothing beyond some fool’s hazardous perspective up and by god safe in season, I’m whatever happens lovelier than that canopy maybe fully open lifting into play, hopefully without nonsense spreading

 

Photography just ain’t what it used to be

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my Freakin’ Free Spirits novels, Cassia’s father is a professional photographer who views the world in a unique spirit.

Now that digital technology has made taking pictures so easy and ubiquitous, everybody always seems to be holding their cell phones up for another shot.

Does anyone else miss the sound of the clicking shutter?

How do you find capturing photographic images affects the way you see events around you?

 

Oregon gone

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

soon a dozen frontiersmen, each venturing out from the base camp as far as we can go through swamp and foothill within our own skulls where the bull moose and grizzly bear and horned owl call and sinister tribes compel strenuous rambling if we were to preserve our own thinning scalps, concede the unmarked route will force us to doubt our own skill and remove all excuses to others have beaver pelts or gold dust or speak of cannibals . affectionately

 

Death takes a big toll on a family firm

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

A huge challenge to family-owned businesses arises in the passing of one generation to another. The unanticipated death of the patriarch or matriarch in his or her prime can wreak havoc on the company, even if inheritance tax liabilities aren’t overwhelming. Sometimes the heir apparent isn’t the best option, not all of the heirs want to be part of the operation, or bitter rivalries emerge. Getting through the fourth generation, with a spreading number of family members and interests, can determine the fate of the enterprise. As I saw in the newspaper industry, most nameplates sold out to media chains at this point, losing much of their underlying local connection in the process.

Do you know of any businesses that fit this description? 

Straight ticket

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

uncommonly wanting to spend lots of money, get a new wardrobe, hot sneakers like David’s Hawaiian number, drove to a pseudo-alpine village with its sidewalk cafe, offbeat card shop (guess what I found) and the bookshop where that movie script jumped to my hands, the post office to mail packages and notes addressed and sealed a week ago in Virginia but neglected to send off, at last, then, somewhat poorer, more piles of shuffling, for starters, and a nap before the grocery, dropping off shirts at the laundry, photocopying foliage outside my window in just one day in the life of a bachelor missing you dearly

Margin to margin

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

to various degrees in a free-fall through much of this trip with a few encountering a work-and-worship community much less a fresh voice, at least, oh, well, I get goosebumps every time I reread the final pages and think of all the possibilities we lost . for whatever that’s worth, don’t forget, when storm clouds appear, prime the pump . peace & love, all the same