Recent Reading: Wendell Berry, Esther Ehrlich, and Another One From My Daughter

I dropped this beautiful book and marred the cover with a pronounced crease.  Somehow, though, that seems more than okay. 

I finished Wendell Berry's Hannah Coulter last week and discovered for myself why my friends, when the title comes up, gasp and seem to rise from the planet for a moment as they relive their own experiences of reading it. When they circle back down to earth and are able to speak again, they always mention underlining and highlighting and the lyrical beauty of the writing. 

They are right. And I have joined their ranks. 

Title character Hannah Coulter, now in her 70s, is looking back over the many years of her life. Hannah shares her history with us in prose that is both simple and reflective. I don't think it's a spoiler to share this passage, which comes very early in the book: 

When you are old you can look back and see yourself when you were young. It is almost like looking down from Heaven. And you see yourself as a young woman, just a big girl really, half awake to the world. You see yourself happy, holding in your arms a good, decent, gentle, beloved young man with the blood keen in his veins, who before long is going to disappear, just disappear, into a storm of hate and flying metal and fire. And you don't know it.

My copy, with its creased but lovely cover, is full of such underlinings. I read with pencil in hand, marking passage after passage, ripe plums that I wanted to preserve and remember forever. I read Hannah quickly and slowly: flying through the pages, but savoring the words of a world that has passed into memory.

~~~~~

I read Nest, by Esther Ehrlich, in just the last couple of days. 

Nest, deliciously set in 1972, is narrated by eleven-year-old Naomi Orenstein, nicknamed Chirp, after her love of birdwatching.

Chirp has an awful lot going on at the moment. There's something wrong with her beloved mom, but the doctors aren't sure what. Chirp's older sister, Rachel, is going to weird parties ("Something feels funny; like they're all on one team and I'm on the other.") Chirp's next-door-neighbor, Joey, comes from a family that Chirp's psychiatrist dad says has "significant issues," so he might be scary or he might be nice…it's hard to tell, when a boy has a rock in his hand, just what he plans to do with it. Chirp's haven is Heron Pond, where she goes to look for her favorite bird, the elusive red-throated loon, which can be extremely awkward or immensely graceful, depending on where it is and what it's trying to accomplish.

I loved this book so much. Ehrlich's writing is iridescent; it shimmers like the sunlit water that has been part of Chirp's world since she was born. And that gorgeous writing serves well a story that is full and weighty. Sadness, deep pain, grief, and love mingle with insight and hope. Bring the tissues.

My only caveat is that it's billed as middle-grade fiction -- it could be too much for very sensitive children, as it covers extremely serious issues.

Read it for yourself, because it's worth the grown-up read. Then you can decide who you'll share it with.

~~~~~

Finally, I've mentioned NaNoWriMo before, but who knew the craziness was encouraged in July? Camp NaNoWriMo is November madness in the middle of summer. Betsy, who has completed five NaNo novels in the past, did another one last month. She finished 60,000 words before the end of July, let me read her first draft (that almost never happens), and she made my cry with one of her plot developments. Reading doesn't get any better than that. 

Ramona set herself a goal of a 10,000 word story for July and met it. She hasn't let me read her story yet, though -- not sure when she'll release a draft to me. And Anne-with-an-e is trying a longer work for the first time ever, so I'll keep you posted on future Edmisten-Daughter books, and whether or not they make me cry. 

Poetry Friday: Richard Wilbur

I haven't shared Wilbur's "The Writer" for nearly a year and a half. That's practically criminal. It's time.

Time, especially, since Betsy completed her fifth NaNoWriMo novel last month, and Ramona finished the longest story, at 7,000 words, she's ever written. (7k was her goal, actually, but I've been informed that the story itself is not finished yet. Go, Ramona!)

For my daughters. The writers.


The Writer 
by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
....

(Read the whole poem here, at Poets.org, or listen to it here, at The Internet Poetry Archive.)

~~~~~

The Poetry Friday round up today is at Random Noodling. 

Bits and Pieces of Our Days

* Last week included the final primping of Pumpkindore which -- Ramona was delighted to learn -- won second place in the family division of the pumpkin decorating contest, hurray! On Halloween, Ramona trick-or-treated as Luna Lovegood while Anne and Betsy, (aka Joy and Sadness) passed out candy.

~~~~~

 * We also prepped for our Harry Potter movie marathon (Deathly Hallows 1 and 2) and the accompanying feast, which included owl/pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pasties, chocolate frogs, popcorn (not Harry-related, just a movie-viewing must), Atticus's oven-fried chicken, and butterbeer (actually, the girls decided they wanted root beer floats, and I opted for a Sam Adams cream stout.) We finished the book last month, and that whole experience deserves its own post. First, the fact that we kept so many huge spoilers a secret from Ramona delights me to no end. I really thought we'd have inadvertently ruined the books for her over the years, but we didn't, so, yay for all of us.

And then, there was Ramona's reaction to parts of the final chapters: "It's so Christian!" she said, between sobs at one point. Ah, yes, my dear, in so many ways. As I said, it deserves its own post.

It's the end of an era, though maybe not.  I fully expect to talk to grandchildren about Harry one day.

~~~~~

* Ramona and I are now reading A Wrinkle in Time together, and recently finished The Phantom Tollbooth.

~~~~~

* Betsy and Ramona are both participating in NaNoWriMo. It's the third time for Ramona, and the fifth time for Betsy. And in added writerly news, the two girls in Ramona's weekly writing group have decided to join Ramona in the NaNo young writers' program. I couldn't be happier!

~~~~~

* I spent a chunk of last week going over the final edits to my upcoming book. It's due out in February of 2016, and I'll have more news on it soon!

~~~~~ 

* I just got new glasses. Please tell me I'll adjust to bifocals quickly. Anyone, anyone? I don't care that they make me feel old, I just don't want to get motion sickness from my glasses. Bueller? Bueller?

And...Boom! Done.

The NaNoWriMo Update:

50,000 words in 25 days = Betsy.

50,000 words in 27 days = Me.

Story almost done = Ramona.

Sick of our characters = All of us.

~~~~~

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

And if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go stop thinking about counting my words
and have one of these:

Bits and Pieces of our Nanoing Days

• Yup, still doing NaNoWriMo around here. Betsy and I each have about 35,000 words. Ramona set herself a goal of a 3,000 word story, and she's on track. Her characters were recently spotted in the Swiss Alps. 

• Ramona and I just read The Cricket in Times Square together, and it's the kind of charming and utterly delightful book that permanently endears itself to the unschooler in me. It's a sweet and simple story, but one that's full of such great stuff: rich vocabulary and fodder for discussion, talk of musical genres, and mentions of all sorts of great pieces. When I played the Blue Danube waltz and Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik for Ramona, she said, "Oh! I know these!" Now she knows exactly what they are called, too. And things for her to Google: Johann Strauss, Orpheus ... such good stuff. 

• Advent. It's coming. It will be here in nine days. Did I just say that? Nine days?! Don't panic. It's meant to be full of preparation, people. We're not meant to go into it Advent in full-fledged Christmas mode. It's okay to meander through Advent with deliberate preparation. 

• Ramona is in full-fledged creative mode, and not just with her NaNo story. She's been watching all kinds of YouTube tutorials about making doll furniture and accessories. Tonight she made a lamp and rock candy for her American Girl dolls. I love the internet. 

Top Five Ways You Can Tell That Betsy, Ramona, and I Are Doing NaNoWriMo*

*NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Yes, it's crazy to think that a novel can be completed in 30 days, but I do believe that a lot of great ideas can make it onto paper (or onto the screen) in 30 days. (It was fun to read Rainbow Rowell's pep talk, which affirms exactly that perspective on the process.) Then the real writing starts. Deadlines are my friend. So is revision. 

So, for the month of November, I'm exercising some writing/fiction muscles that I haven't used for a long time. Betsy has completed NaNoWriMo twice before, in 2011 and 2012, but Ramona and I are novices. So, Betsy can often be found these days nodding sagely at us and saying things like, "Yeah, I felt that way my first year, too." 

~~~~~

And now, the Top Five Ways You Can Tell We're NaNoing: 

#5 
I (apologetically and sheepishly) use "NaNo" as a verb: "Dinner's in the oven, guys. I'll be NaNoing and then we'll eat in about an hour."

#4 
I tell the kids that it would be obviously, patently, ridiculous and unacceptable to pad one's word count with sentences such as, "She was very, very, very, very, very, very tired." Then I create a character who says things such as, "I really, really needed to be here."

(Do as I say kids, not as I do.)

#3
I am sometimes caught with a dreamy look on my face, my lips moving as I play around with dialogue.

#2
I am counting the words in this blog post. I'm thinking it's a shame there isn't someplace to log the number of words in a blog post so that I can feel a purely mathematical sense of accomplishment.

#1 way you can tell we're doing NaNoWriMo:
We are focused on sharing an adventure and a goal. We have shared synopses ("Oooh! That sounds compelling, Betsy!" and, "Ramona, that is an amazing idea! And it's so you!" and, "Mom, this sounds cool! And I love your names!") We have guarded works-in-progress. We have emailed each other pep talks. We've checked in on one another's word counts ("Mom! I wrote 4,000 words today!")

We remind each other that although writing is a huge amount of work, creativity is an enormous amount of fun.

We are having a lot of fun.

Betsy Finished Her Novel!

Betsy finished her NaNoWriMo novel early, on Monday night, after a long, productive day (with interruptions for an outside class and homework.)

Her final word count came in at about 50,500, and she logged more than 8,000 of those words on Monday! I'm positive that's more than I've written in one day, ever.

This is her second year to tackle this hyper-speed writing project. She finished last year, too, and in her pre-NaNoWriMo days, she completed two novellas, bringing her total book count up to four.

I'm so proud of my novelist!

She Did It!

Betsy finished!
NaNoWriMo!
She wrote 50,000 words in the last 28 days!

I am happy, happy for her.

The budding novelist was quoted as saying, "I love my characters, but I'm really sick of them right now." (Ooooh, it makes a writing mother proud. )