Jesus' Nativity

 

I noticed every little flaw in my decorations for this year’s Advent Tea table, but it still got rave reviews. The theme was nativity scenes, and the centerpiece was a set that I crocheted many years ago. Then I surrounded it with photos I had taken in other settings.

But the focus of the decorations was a 2006 photo of the creche that shows up in our church’s fellowship area every year. Since you can’t really see it in the photo at the top of this post, I am including it below.

I highlighted the creche in three ways, using the same photo for all of them. First, I had Shutterfly make placemats from it. Unfortunately, it must not have blown up well. It looked fine on my computer screen but wasn’t sharp on the placemats. Even so, people liked them.

Second, I used it to customize plastic coffee/tea cups. I bought some cups with a clear exterior and a white interior that were built to come apart so someone could place a paper design between the two pieces. I made the design by printing a copy of the photo on one side and “Advent Tea 2022” on the other. I was disappointed that they didn’t snap together more permanently, but as long as you don’t lift them by the top, they work.

Finally, I made jigsaw puzzles of the photo for the favor, although the women at my table got to take their placemats and cups, too. The puzzles didn’t work quite right, either. I printed the photo on one side of card stock and a puzzle pattern on the other and cut one out using the interlocking pieces in the pattern. Unfortunately, there were two problems with it. First, it took forever to cut out. I could have handled that, but when I put it together it didn’t want to lay flat and stay in position. So I ended up cutting the puzzles into rectangles instead.

Even with all the issues, people liked my table and appreciated the work I put into it. More importantly, the program and the food were excellent, and so was the company.

Because I can’t help writing, I did create a very elementary poem to go along with the puzzles, and I’ll leave you with it.

A Jigsaw Puzzle World

The world was in pieces,
     Broken by Sin,
Then Jesus came
     To put it together again.

He Comes at Advent . . .

 

I decorated my third Advent Tea table in 2014 using the seasons of the year as my theme. That  sounds like a stretch. After all, what do the seasons of the year have to do with Advent? But the actual theme, listed on a note card at each place, was “Jesus is the Reason for Every Season.”

The centerpiece had four vases displaying items such as branches and dried flowers reminding us of each of the seasons. and they were surrounded by photos taken during spring, summer, winter, and fall.

But the highlight of the decorations—and that year’s favors—were the placemats. When I went through my pictures, I picked out four other seasonal photos and had Shutterfly make two placements from each one.

Then I tied it together with another poem, which was included on the note cards. This one was written specifically for the occasion. Here it is.

He Comes

He comes in summer
In thunderstorms and showers
Cleansing the earth.
 
He comes in autumn
When trees proclaim his glory
With blood-red leaves.
 
He comes in winter
As white blankets cover seeds
Soon to awake.
 
He comes in spring
When a tiny robin’s egg
Brings forth new life.
 
Jesus comes all year
Into the hearts of Christians
Saved by His grace.

 Next week I’ll tell you about this year’s table.

Advent and Lighthouses

With scheduling conflicts and years when I was a simple attendee, it was 2012 before I decorated my second table for an Advent Tea. My theme was lighthouses, and that is my table in the photo at the head of this post.

The centerpiece was topped with a ceramic Big Red, the lighthouse at Holland, Michigan, which is displayed year-round in my living room. It has a light inside it, but I had no way to plug it in. For the tea, I surrounded Big Red with photos of other Lake Michigan lighthouses that I had taken on a sailing vacation the year before. I used my best dishes, and I suppose the set-up came close to being elegant, although that wasn’t my intent.

It was easy to tie the theme in with Advent since Jesus came as the Light of the World. To emphasize it, my favor that year was a laminated copy of my poem “The Lighthouse,” which I wrote in 2011. The poem follows:

The Lighthouse
 

A light has come to save the world,
            A lowly baby born,
It shines its beam on rocky shoals
            From evening until morn.
 
When storms of life beat on my boat,
            And winds begin to blow,
The beacon shines across the waves
            With its resplendent glow.
 
Mist and haze may hide the reefs,
            Clouding up my sight,
But though they blind my eyes at times,
            They cannot veil the light.
           
As lighthouse keeper I must go
            And rescue those in danger,
For one in peril on the sea
            Can never be a stranger.
 
The harbor light beams steady on
            Wherever I may roam,
A welcome blaze when life is done
            To guide me safely home.

 May His light shine on you this week

Not an Elegant Advent Tea

 

My church holds an Advent Tea approximately every other year, although COVID interfered with that schedule. It’s a women’s event where each hostess decorates a table. She can invite friends to join her at the table or let the organizers fill in the empty seats, or it may be a combination. Some years I’ve had conflicts or simply attended, but I’ve hosted a table four times, and the first received mixed reviews.

The first time I hosted was in 2006, and most of the women at my table had been assigned by the organizers. There was one elderly woman I didn’t know, and, although I’m sure we introduced ourselves, I still don’t know who she was.

I had chosen “Children’s Christmas Books” as my theme. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photo of my table. I probably used my nice dishes, but the centerpiece was composed of books that matched the theme. The favor I gave out was also inelegant. (More about that later.)

Most of the women at my table loved the creativity, but the elderly woman mentioned above complained rather loudly because she hadn’t been placed at an “elegant” table. My decorations from subsequent years would probably have disappointed her, too, because I don’t aim for elegance. I do aim for creativity, however, and this month’s blog posts will discuss those subsequent tables.

That first year, each of the participants at my table received a typed story compiled in booklet form. In keeping with the theme, I had written a children’s story about Christmas. Looking at it now, I would probably have done a few things differently, but I’m going to reprint it as they received it. Here it is:

Susan’s Christmas Holiday Christmas

            “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”  Susan muttered under her breath as she entered her father’s store. She was playing Mary in the Sunday School program, and she wanted to get it right.

            “Watch out!” Her father’s voice brought her back to the present. She looked up and stopped—just inches from a plastic snowman.

            “That wasn’t here last year,” Susan said.

            Her father sighed. “No, it wasn’t. I changed the holiday display this year.”

            Susan’s eyes grew wide as she looked around. Snowflakes hung from the ceiling, and there were plastic figures everywhere. Plastic snowmen. Plastic reindeer. Even plastic candy canes.

            But something was missing.

            “Where’s the manger scene? And why does that banner say ‘Happy Holidays’ instead of ‘Merry Christmas?’”

            “I don’t want to offend my customers,” her father said. “This is when I make most of the money we live on the rest of the year.”

            “But Dad, last year you said Christmas was the best time to tell other people about Jesus. Don’t you want to do that any more?”

            Her father looked down at his feet. Then he took a deep breath, looked straight at Susan, and smiled.

            “You’re right. Who cares what other people think. God is the only one who matters, and He wants us to tell everyone about Him.”

            “Good.”  Susan smiled too.

            “Let’s get the manger scene and the ‘Merry Christmas’ banner out of the back,” her father said. “But first, let me change the music coming over the loudspeaker. How does ‘Away in a Manger’ sound to you?

            “Perfect.” 

            And it was.

If you sit at my table at an Advent Tea, I can make you this promise: It won’t be elegant.

But it will be creative.

__________

I took this photo at the 2012 Advent Tea and am using it to show an example of an elegant table. Unfortunately, I don’t know who decorated and hosted this table, so I can’t give her the credit.

Old Time Vocabulary

 

Slang and even formal vocabulary change over time. As a writer of historical fiction, my challenge is to stay true to the period without confusing my readers with words they define differently.

Some slang is practically timeless. “Okay” has been around since at least 1840, and “kids,” as in little children, was in use as long ago as the seventeenth century. Since my characters and my readers have the same understanding as to the meaning of these words, I don’t have to think twice about including them in a manuscript.

Other words aren’t as clear. I ask my middle-grade beta readers whether there are any words they didn’t know and couldn’t figure out from the context. When I got back the evaluation forms for a novel set in 1925, one fourth grader included “fast” on that list. At first, I was confused. Who doesn’t know what that word means? But when I searched the manuscript looking for it, I came across a scene where my protagonist asks her mother if she can get her hair bobbed and the mother responds that short hair makes women look fast. Now I understood the beta reader’s comment, and I found a way to rewrite the scene using language today’s children are more likely to know.

Then there are the slang words that need careful handling. Historically the word “gay” meant cheerful or merry, and all of my characters would have understood it that way. Defined that way, it was in frequent use during the periods covered by my novels, so avoiding it seems a little stilted. But because my readers would give it a different meaning, “gay” doesn’t occur in any of my middle-grade manuscripts.

Then there is the question of when a particular slang word entered the American vocabulary. Would my character have used a particular word at the time of the story? Fortunately, about two years ago I found a used copy of the 3^rd edition of the Dictionary of American Slang by Chapman and Kipfer. If I look up a word, that dictionary may tell me whether it was in use at the time. If it doesn’t have dates, or if the word is not included, then I’ll do an Internet search for “[word] origin.” And if I still can’t figure out when it became popular, I won’t use it.

Writing historical fiction is always a challenge.

But it’s rewarding to get it right.

__________

For more on this subject, you can read my January 25, 2021 and February 1, 2021 blog posts.

"Please Sir, I Want Some More"

 

I was going through some old blog posts and found one from Thanksgiving 2011 that is still perfect today. So here is the reprint.

“Please Sir, I Want Some More”

Oliver Twist asked for more gruel because he was hungry—and because of peer pressure, but that isn’t the subject of this post.

I get hungry, too. If I haven’t eaten for four or five hours, I become so crabby that nobody wants to be around me.

Of course, Oliver’s definition of hunger was different from mine. He was near starvation, and I’m used to a full stomach.

Oliver held out an empty bowl and asked the cook for what he needed.

I hold out a full bowl and ask God for what I want. After all, why would I ask for what I need when He’s already given it? A loving family, good friends, a comfortable home, plenty of food for the table.

So when I say, “Please Sir, I want some more,” am I being ungrateful?

Still there are some things I do need more of. I need more contentment with what I have and more thankfulness to God for giving it to me.

That’s why my Thanksgiving prayer starts with “thank you” and ends with, “please God, give me more contentment and thankfulness.”

And that’s my prayer for you this holiday, too.

__________

The picture is George Cruikshank’s illustration for the first printing of Oliver Twist. The book appeared as a monthly serial in Bentley’s Miscellany, and this illustration probably accompanied a March 1837 installment.

Time Changes Travel

 

 All historical fiction travels back in time, but matching the story to an exact time can be tricky. The overland routes to the California gold fields changed quickly as more and more people followed them. Furthermore, no two routes were exactly the same since pioneers and prospectors explored different cutoffs in their attempts to reach California as quickly as possible.

So how much can I rely on personal experience stories from several years before or after the one I am writing or that take slightly different routes? Then there is the additional problem of how the writer views the world. One of the most helpful memoirs I have is A Frontier Lady by Sarah Royce, but that tells the story from the perspective of a young mother. The diary of fourteen-year-old Sallie Hester is a closer fit, but she is still a female. My twelve-year-old male protagonist just isn’t going to think the same way as either Sallie or Sarah.

Having several journals and memoirs to rely on gives me a fuller perspective. Besides, some things don’t change. The sight of Chimney Rock had the same effect on travelers in 1865 as it did in 1844, and it’s easy to assign the same reaction to my protagonist.

Still, if I want to be as historically accurate as possible (and I do), I must be sensitive to the author's status as well as to the year and the route in each journal and memoir. Dealing with the inconsistencies. required me to make some judgments, but that’s a necessary part of the process.

Because time changes travel.

Standing Out

 

I’m working on a trilogy that covers the three main ways people traveled to the California gold fields during the middle of the 19^th century. The first two routes (around Cape Horn and across the Isthmus of Panama) haven’t been written about much, at least not for children. However, the third route is from Missouri to California over the plains and through the mountains. This overland route has been almost done to death when you include the stories of pioneers who took the route looking for farm land rather than gold and the similar stories of those heading to Oregon rather than California.

As I’ve said before, I have two main criteria when choosing the setting for a historical novel. The first is that there must be enough personal experience resources so that I can sense the atmosphere (emotional, moral, and physical) of the time and place as well as gathering the dry facts. All three routes to the gold fields meet that condition. But the second criteria is that it must not have been done so much that people are tired of it or think there is nothing to add.

The overland book appears to fail this second criteria because it has been done many times. But if I want a complete series about traveling to the gold fields, I have to include it. So what am I to do?

Notice I said people think there is nothing to add. Although there is nothing new under the sun, there is always a different way to tell it.

Fortunately, I have some ideas about how to do that.

First, most of the children’s books about the California and Oregon trails have protagonists who travel with their family. The children may be orphans before the trip is over, but it starts out as a family adventure. That isn’t the case with my protagonist. Joshua runs away from an abusive stepfather and stows away in a wagon. That isn’t a spoiler because it happens at the very beginning of the story. Then he spends the entire trip looking over his shoulder and worrying that his stepfather or the law will catch him.

Second, most of the stories out there take place in a wagon train. Mine will start that way, but before long two wagons split off, and Joshua goes with them. While it wasn’t unusual for one or two wagons to travel by themselves, few children’s books cover that situation.

At this point, all I have is a short outline. As the story develops, I’m sure I’ll find other ways to make it stand out.

__________

The drawing at the top of this post is in the public domain because of its age.

A Prolific Author

 

Many churches celebrate October 31 (or the Sunday before) as Reformation Day—the anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 93 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The church door was the town bulletin board, so he probably chose that spot for practical reasons rather than as an act of defiance.

Although October 31 is the day chosen to commemorate the start of the Protestant Reformation, that was just one day. Like most movements, the Reformation began gradually and gained momentum as it went along. And part of that momentum came through Luther’s writing.

Luther was a prolific author who wrote hundreds of books and articles during his lifetime, many of which are still in print. He also translated the Bible into German to make it accessible to the less-educated populace. You can read more about that in my June 27, 2016 post. 

And to repeat the ending from that post, Luther wouldn’t have taken any credit for his writings. He would have said, “Ad Dei gloiam” (Latin) or “Zu Gott die Ehre” (German).

To God be the glory.

__________

The photo shows the study at Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German. I took the photo during a 2016 trip to Germany.

The Missing Ingredient

 

Two weeks ago I attended a nephew’s wedding. We weren’t sure we were going to make it because the location could only be accessed by crossing a railroad track. A freight train was stopped at one of the two entrances, and we had no way of knowing whether the train was long enough to block the other entrance, too.

Fortunately, we were stuck behind other cars also headed to the wedding. Eventually the front one turned around, the next one followed, and so on. I assume that somebody in the front car heard via cell phone that the other entrance wasn’t blocked. In any event, we followed, too, and we made it with a few minutes to spare.

The bride is a geologist whose previous job involved environmental work on Lake Michigan, so she wanted to hold the ceremony in a gazebo overlooking it. The weather cooperated, and the traditional secular ceremony went well. But I was disappointed because it was missing what I consider to be the most important ingredient in any marriage. There was no mention of Christ.

Congratulations Mike and Amanda. I wish you a long and happy marriage. But even more, I wish you a Christ-centered one.

That’s what helps the best marriages survive.

__________

I didn’t get any photos of the ceremony itself because there were too many heads in the way, so the one at the top of this post was taken by my daughter, Caroline Camp Ill.

Travel Isn't Just for Fun

 

Actually, travel can be just for fun. That’s the purpose behind Roland’s and my international vacations, although they are educational, too. But when I’m researching a book, it is serious work. And I usually get the story idea first and then do the traveling for research. This time it may have worked the other way around.

I just returned from a trip to Pennsylvania for a cousins’ reunion. It was a good time, and we enjoyed each other’s company. But while there, I began to wonder whether it was fodder for a story. The battle itself has been worked to death, but there is less about the civilians who lived in town or on local farms and were caught up in those events. I have ideas for two other books to write first, but Gettysburg is on the list of settings to think about.

The second day of the reunion centered more on the Amish. We drove around an Amish area in the morning and saw several typically Amish sights, including two schools with children out playing. Then in the afternoon we went to a production of David at the Sight and Sound Theater.

I’m not tempted to write an Amish story, however. That was done well by Beverly Lewis and followed by a flood of other authors, some better than others. I don’t see a need to join them.

But I haven’t ruled out Gettysburg.

__________

The first photo shows a section of the Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama, which is a painting by Paul Phillippoteaux. It was painted in the 1880s to depict Pickett’s charge during the third day of the battle. The second picture is an Amish school during recess (or maybe physical education), taken from the window of the car I was riding in.

No Travel Logs, Please

 

Last week was filled with a cousins’ reunion and a nephew’s wedding. I will write about them in the next week or two, but for now I am reprinting a post I wrote for the Indiana Writers' Consortium blog on June 3, 2015. 

No Travel Logs, Please

In March, I attended IWC’s Paper Fields workshop and took two sessions on travel writing from Kenneth Tressler. One of the points he made was that travel magazines don’t want travel logs.

Consider these two opening paragraphs.

Our trip to Utah began on September 2, 2014 with a flight into McCarran International Airport at Las Vegas, Nevada.

or

As I stood in the middle of the Sevier Desert, I drowned in the bleakness and isolation of the parched terrain. How could 8,000 Japanese Americans live crammed together in this one square mile of desolate landscape without losing their sanity? Yet, somehow, they did just that.

Both openings are true, but I’d rather read—and write—the second one. Good travel writing is creative non-fiction and should tell a story. Yes, give pertinent information about the trip, including your favorite places to eat and stay along the route. But don’t bore your audience. Write the story you would want to read if it were written by someone else.

Good travel writing also proves the cliché that a picture is worth a thousand words. Consider this picture, which I took through the windshield while driving along U.S. 89 in Utah. (No, I wasn’t behind the wheel.)

I could have said that the blue sky accentuated the red rock formations striated with tans and browns. Or I could have used many more words in an attempt to describe the landscape. But the picture says it better than I ever could.

Travel magazines want photos to go along with the story. So if you want to sell an article about your trip, take along a good camera. For use on the Internet, a cell phone might do. But if you want to submit a feature article to a print magazine, you need a camera with high resolution and interchangeable lenses.

As you vacation this summer, go ahead and take the logbook along. It’s good for notes that aid your memory.

But it makes a terrible travel article.

Workshop Poetry

 

I was going through some old papers and found a haiku and a tanka that I wrote at an Indiana Writers’ Consortium workshop held at Gabis Arboretum on June 8, 2018. Since they were just on a handwritten sheet, I thought I’d preserve them here.

Haiku:

Blue heron flying
Green stagnant waters below
Blue heron swimming

Tanka:

Fairies dance about
Unseen among their houses
Hiding from the eyes
Of curious school children
Who still believe in fairies

__________

I don’t have a photo of a blue heron, but the one at the top of this post shows a juvenile yellow-crowned heron that I saw in Costa Rica earlier this year.

The Best Laid Plans . . .

 

As Robert Burns said, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice and Men gang aft agley” (often go awry),¹ and last week’s blog post reminded us that we can’t predict the future. Put those two together, and you have a roadmap for our latest international travel adventure.

The plan was to spend six days traveling on our own in Iceland and then fly to Ireland for a two-week tour. After doing our sightseeing in Iceland, we headed for the airport hotel for our next-day flight to Ireland. The tour company wanted a COVID test before joining the group, so we took that when we got to the hotel. Unfortunately, Roland tested positive. (I never did.) We ended up cancelling the tour (which we have since rescheduled) and spending six days living in the airport hotel before coming home.

Fortunately, while life calls for constant adjustments to our plans, the changes don’t always have to be devastating. The hotel was relatively comfortable, the food was decent, we had plenty of reading material, and both the airline and the tour company rolled over our payments so that all we were out was the hotel bill and meals while living at the airport. More importantly for me, I had several manuscripts in the cloud and managed to get quite of bit of work done.

And we did get Iceland in. Here are a few photos. The one at the top of this post is the Northern Lights from Hotel Anna in the countryside. The next one was taken flying over Greenland, and the following two are Hallgrims Church in Reykjavik and a view of Reykjavik from the tower of Hallgrims Church.

These photos were taken at the Arbaejarsafn Open Air Museum. The first is a church, and the second shows Roland standing in front of a separate vestry building.

The next two are scenic pictures taken while traveling through the countryside following a route called “The Golden Circle.”

These three were taken at Thingvellir National Park. (Actually, the Th is a funny-looking P.) The first shows the Almannagja, where North America and Europe meet, the second is Oxararfoss (foss means waterfall), and the third is the foot of Oxararfoss, which you can’t see from the top.

Our second day on The Golden Circle was a water day. Not water sports, but natural water features. The first is Stokkur Geysir, which was across the street from our hotel. The others are all waterfalls: Gullfoss, Seljalandsfoss, and two of Skogafoss. You can see the long walk to the top of Skogafoss, which neither Roland nor I took.

We saw the sunset and the Northern Lights from the grounds of the Hotel Anna on The Golden Circle near those last two waterfalls.

The next two photos show buildings at the Skogar Folk Museum and a nearby cave house, which does extend back under the mountain. It was probably used for storage rather than living in, but the early Icelanders took advantage of the caves and built entrances on them.

Finally, I must close with a photo from our airport home. This art is called “The Nest” and shows a jet being born from an egg.

__________

¹ From “To a Mouse” by Robert Burns.

Predicting the Future

 

Several things have happened lately to remind me how hard it is to predict the future.

I recently watched a 2013 rerun of Shark Tank where an entrepreneur pitched a cell phone app that interacted with bar codes and QR codes. Mark Cuban passed on it partly because, as he put it, “QR codes are on their way out.” Fast forward nine years, and he was so wrong.

This past September I received an assignment to write the February 2025 devotions for a devotional magazine called Portals of Prayer. Yes, you read the date correctly. I submitted an outline earlier this year, and the devotions themselves are due in January 2023—two years before they will be published. Scripture doesn’t change and a good devotion should be timeless, so that part is okay.

Unfortunately, writers are not as timeless. I was asked to submit a short biography with the devotions, and who knows how much will change before the publication date. I could even be dead by then. So I assume they ask for an update shortly before the devotions are published.

Knowing how far in advance the devotions are normally assigned, I was surprised in July to notice references to COVID-19 and its aftermath. My best guess is that the person who was originally assigned those devotions didn’t meet his or her deadline for some reason so the publishers had to look elsewhere—either by making a rush assignment or by moving up devotions that had already been submitted. Regardless, it appears that something happened that the publishers hadn’t predicted.

In this world, there is very little we can count on. Even death and taxes have their uncertainties.

But one thing is predictable. This world will end and then the judgment. Those who know God will go to heaven, and everyone else will go to hell.

I’m glad I’ll be in the first group.

__________

The image at the top of this post is Michelangelo’s “The Last Judgment.”  I took the photo on a 2018 trip to Rome. The original is in the Sistine Chapel, and no photography is allowed inside. I didn’t have to violate the rules to get this picture, however. The Vatican had placed a reproduction in the courtyard for visitors to photograph, instead.

A Tribute to My Grandparents

 

My calendar says that yesterday was Grandparents’ Day.

Both of my paternal grandparents died before I turned seven, so I didn’t know them well. I mostly remember the cookies in Grandma Page’s cookie jar. Even so, I loved to hear my father’s stories about growing up with his parents, and I cherish this photograph of my older brother and me with them in the front room of their Fruitport, Michigan home.

I have more memories of my maternal grandparents. They lived on the Iowa farm where my mother had grown up and, although it was several hours away, we visited as often as we could. No matter how late we arrived, Grandma Wagner always had food on the table. She had long hair that I loved to comb, but she criticized the length of my bangs and claimed that I would lose my eyesight because of it. Grandpa was the stereotypical farmer and spent much of his time outside long after he had “retired” and turned most of the farming operations over to my Uncle Wyman. Grandpa also enjoyed photography, and we spent many pleasant hours looking through his pictures.

Grandma Wagner died when I was in college. Then Grandpa moved to Arkansas to live with my Aunt Phyllis and I didn’t see him as often.

I was fortunate in both sets of grandparents, but I appreciate them most for modeling their Christian faith to my parents, who in turn modeled it to me.

And I will be forever grateful.

Labor Day Origins

 

As mentioned in my last post, one of my as yet unpublished stories takes place during the Pullman Strike of 1894. My research for it uncovered some history about Labor Day, so this is a good time to share that information with you.

The first known celebration of Labor Day in the U.S. was organized by labor unions and occurred in New York City on September 5, in 1882. In 1887, Oregon was the first to make it an official state holiday, and other states soon followed. But it took the Pullman Strike to turn it into a national holiday.

In July 1894, President Cleveland ordered federal troops in to break up the strike, which was disrupting the U.S. mails. People still argue about his motives and whether it was the right response, but that isn’t the subject of this post and I won’t accept any comments on that issue. In any event, President Cleveland felt the need to smooth things over with the labor unions. He apologized by making the first Monday of September a federal holiday.

And we have been celebrating it as Labor Day ever since.

__________

The photo at the top of this post shows an early Labor Day parade. I couldn’t find an exact year or location for the photo, but it is in the public domain because of its age.

When to Make Changes to a "Finished" Manuscript

 

As I’ve mentioned before, perfection can’t be achieved, so I don’t wait for it before sending out a manuscript. I try to write the best book I can at the time, get it edited, and make a few final changes before moving from the production to the submission stage. But once I start submitting, my practice had been to keep my hands off the text and concentrate my writing skills on the next book. If a publisher or agent accepts the manuscript and wants changes, I’ll do that, but the initial writing process is done. At that point, second-guessing myself takes up valuable time without making the manuscript noticeably better.

But there are rare occasions when I have revised a manuscript after sending it out. The most recent came a few days ago. My latest story takes place during the Pullman Strike of 1894, and one of my protagonists and his friends watch the Labor Day parade in Chicago. As I was looking for a good photo to go with my Labor Day post for next week, I came across a historical article stating that it was raining in Chicago that year. My description hadn’t mentioned the weather so it wasn’t wrong, but it was incomplete. Since I like to be as historically accurate as is possible without losing my reader, I revised that chapter to include rain. A few small changes were all I needed.

My changes to Desert Jewels were more extensive. My first middle-grade historical novel was about a Japanese-American girl interred during World War II. Wonder of wonders, I got one of those rare rejection letters that was actually personalized. Although the publisher passed, the letter stated, “we felt that the delivery of historical information was a little too didactic, and that the story itself was a little too spare.” The letter confirmed my own unease about the story, and I ended up making significant changes. That was the first of only two times I broke my rule and revised a story after submitting it.

I needed some photos for the top of this post, so I decided to use photo-editing to show the difference between good and (maybe) better, although that characterization depends on the observer. If you look closely at the first phot, you will see some natural imperfections—a metal appendage on each side of the tower and a few thin branches (primarily in the upper right-hand corner) that appear to be scratches but aren’t. I could leave it natural or I could clone those “imperfections” out, as I did in the second photo. I’ll let you decide which is better.

The point is that some changes improve the manuscript or the photo but others don’t. The writer or photographer has to make that call. But even when changes are made, the result will never be perfect.

So don’t overdo it.

__________

I took the photo of Sabylund Lutheran Church during a trip to Wisconsin in 2010.

Dealing with Ambiguity

 

As I said in my last post, I enjoy choosing photographs for the Lake County Fair. The rules say they have to have been taken in the last three years, and that limits my options. As a result, there are many categories that I simply don’t enter.

Then there are those times when I have several photos I like for a particular category. Since I can only enter one, I have to make a choice. Color and black and white are separate, so sometimes the discarded photo can be used in the other category. But not always. Just because something looks good in color doesn’t mean it works in monochrome. And after I make my choice, I often second-guess myself and wonder if the other photo would have done better.

But the worst part is the ambiguity in several of the categories. Here is the list:

Domestic/Farm Animal

Artistic Effect/Collaging

Floral

Human Interest

Nature – Scenic

Portrait

Lake County Fair

Insect

Architecture

Wildlife

Sports

Weather  

Most are self-explanatory, but three involve some ambiguity.

First, the very words “Artistic Effect” are subjective. Do they include the everyday art that we see around us, or must those objects be manipulated into something else? Fortunately, past winners indicate that what the eye sees can qualify, so I entered these snaking benches in the black and white category. It didn’t win anything, but I love the artistic effect created by the subject.

Second, I have no idea what “Human Interest” means. I didn’t enter in that category this year, but my past entries have always included people who were not looking at the camera, such as the sand artist from 2018. Looking at past winners, however, people don’t appear to be a necessary element. In fact, Human Interest appears to be more of a catch-all for those photos that either don’t fit anywhere else or would double-up in a category where the photographer already has an entry.

The final category that confuses me is the Nature – Scenic one. I can tell from past winners that it can include manmade structures, such as bridges, but how much must the nature element predominate? This year I tried it both ways, as you can see from the photos at the top of the page (neither of which earned a ribbon). The first is Boukes Luck Potholes from South Africa, and the second is Portland Head Light in Maine. Even the Portland Head Light is mostly setting, however. Would it have qualified if I had used a close-up? I don’t know.

The subject categories aren’t the only source of ambiguity. Photographers are separated into two classes: beginner and advanced. The definition of a beginner is “less than 5 years of experience and/or 5 juried showings.” A juried showing is one that the photographer has to apply, and often compete, to participate in, so that is an objective measure. But how do you define 5 years of experience? Some members of my photo club define it by adding the words “at the Lake County Fair” after “experience” and entering in the beginning group even when they have competed at the club level for many more than five years. Since I am in the advanced group, that is to my advantage since it means I don’t have to compete against them, but it doesn’t seem fair to true beginning photographers. But without more clarity in the definition, it is hard to argue with their interpretation.

I get it that the Fair’s Family Arts and Crafts Department (which runs the photography exhibit) has very little room to explain the rules and the categories, and I’m not sure how they could make it clearer without using more space. Sometimes you just have to live with ambiguity.

But it’s still frustrating.