Butterflies

 

I’ve been enjoying the butterflies all summer, including the Eastern tiger swallowtail that perched on the flowers on my balcony while I took the photo at the head of this post. As summer draws closer to the end—especially for schoolchildren and their teachers—I’ll be concentrating my blog on the signs of summer that will be ending as well.

This week’s post is a poem about butterflies that I originally wrote in 2012, although I added the verse about the swallowtails this year.

                         Butterflies

Common Buckeye

A buck’s eyes prance across the wings

That hover low above the ground

From gravel path to grassy verge

And roadside park.

 

Red Admiral

 

A ring of fire encircles him

When wings are spread apart,

Or underlines the white and black

When raised in victory.

 

Clouded Sulfur

 

Alfalfa fields a common haunt

For your night-feeding frenzy,

A pretty sight to untrained eyes

But no friend to farmers.

 

Monarch

 

Milkweed stalks with silken heads

Become a Monarch’s throne.

Then winter comes and orange and black

Aims south and flies away.

 

Swallowtails

 

Black outlined in yellow

Or yellow outlined in black,

Two delicate tails

Set them apart.

 

I’ll end this post the way I started, with the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.

Join me next week for flowers I see along my walking trails.

The Importance of Titles

One of the hardest parts of writing a book is choosing a title. Last week I mentioned my current work-in-progress using the title Burned Out, but I had actually changed it by then. As I got farther into the book, I realized that the title wasn’t appropriate since my protagonist was only burned out for the first third of the story. It is now titled Agamiing after the fictional village where most of it takes place. That may sound like a strange title, but many women’s fiction novels are named after their settings.

I usually consider several options and choose a working title before I start writing. That working title often becomes the final one, but not always.

My first middle-grade historical novel went through several title changes. My protagonist is a half-Japanese girl living in California when Pearl Harbor occurs, and it follows her as she is temporarily confined at the Tanforan racetrack before moving to more permanent quarters at the Topaz War Relocation Center in the Utah desert. My initial title was “Topaz” since that camp takes up more pages than any other location in the book, but I wondered if that was too dull. As I mentioned above, fictional settings are often used in women’s fiction titles, but they are less frequent in children’s novels. Besides, Topaz was a real place and there are many books written about it.

Then I tried “Topaz Blue,” trying to capture the mood of the camp, but I wondered if that was too obstruse or too depressing for my young audience. By the time the book was published, the title had changed to Desert Jewels. Its meaning is explained by one of the teachers in the camp, who calls the children precious jewels and compares them to the topaz found in the desert.

Then there is the middle-grade book that I have coming out in October, which tells the story of a girl whose father takes a job as an assistant lighthouse keeper and moves his family to a remote island. I named the fictional island “Lonely Rock” and used that as the working title for the book. Although it fits the island, it’s a boring title for a book, and I am looking for a better one before the book is published.

My latest thought is to use “Surviving the Storm.” It isn’t one long storm, as in a disaster story, but there are storms in both the book and the protagonist’s heart. The picture at the head of this post is a mockup of a possible cover, using a negative image of a photo I took in 2021 of Portland Head Light in Maine. Although that lighthouse isn’t identical to the one described in the book, it’s close enough and is the best of my own photographs for the purpose. I still have a little time to decide, though, so both the title and the cover could change before publication.

But I’d love to know what you think of them both.

Writing a Book Within a Book

 

Last week I wrote about using a story as a means of recommending books to readers. This week I’m going to talk about how to write a story within a story.

The Arabian Nights is a classic example. To keep her husband from killing her, Shahrazad entertains her husband with story after story, always withholding the ending until the next night. That is the story that frames 1001 others, including the story of Aladdan.

Then there is Shakespeare’s famous play within a play, where Hamlet hires a group of roaming actors to tell the story of his father’s death.

Among my favorite modern examples are Anthony Horowitz’s novels about editor Susan Ryeland. In Magpie Murders, for example, she edits a murder mystery for publication while a real murder mystery unfolds around her. The contents of the book she is editing are an integral part of the plot and are included in the text.

The protagonist of my current work in progress is an author, and Burned Out contains passages from the book she is writing about her detective’s last case. That means I have to face the question of how to best weave the inner book into the main plot.

The fact that the book is being written is important to my story, but, unlike The Magpie Murders, the contents of the inner book are not integral to the plot. That means I only need bits and pieces of the book my protagonist is writing, although I will incorporate enough of the manuscript to give the reader the general plot of the inner book, including the solution to the case.

One thing I’ve discovered, however. It can be as much fun writing a book within a book as it is to write the main one.

I just hope it will be as much fun to read.

Writing Book Recommendations Into a Story

 

Whenever I read a book that mentions what the characters are reading, I rush to the computer to read the description and check the “Look Inside” feature. If the book looks interesting, I buy it. If not, I give it a pass. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good book, however. It’s simply that everybody’s tastes are different.

I don’t always get it right, of course. There have been times when I didn’t think I’d like something until I read it. It isn’t only a truism that you can’t judge a book by its cover—sometimes you can’t judge it by its description, either.

Most of my protagonists are big readers, and I often mention their reading materials in my stories. Occasionally there is a reason to create or use a fictional title, but absent that I use real ones. That’s because I like to share the books I enjoy with my readers.

The books listed in the graphic at the top of this post are just some of the ones my current protagonist reads. If you haven’t read them, check them out. If they don’t interest you, that’s fine, but if they do it will give you something to add to your reading list.

Because I’m always looking for ways to encourage my readers to read other books.

Happy Birthday USA

 

Two-hundred-fifty seems like an awesome milestone birthday. For a person, it would be. As a country, though, it means we are still in our infancy. Compare the USA to Egypt, which has existed over 5,000 years since it was first unified, and even to England, which is over 1,000 years old.

Being an infant isn’t such a bad thing. Infants are full of promise. While they are born with some limitations (not everyone has the ability to be a great athlete or a concert violinist, for example), they are also born with vast possibilities. So while it isn’t true to say they can grow up to be anything they want, they do have immeasurable choices. They don’t achieve their full potential on their own, however. They need parents who play an active role in their lives, guiding them rather than criticizing them.

Even for people who approve of the current political environment, few are perfectly happy with the course our country is currently taking. It’s been that way for the last 250 years, and it will continue that way for however many years are left in the country’s future.

Just as with a human infant, the USA has plenty of potential to turn into something great if its parents take their responsibilities seriously, guiding rather than criticizing.

Whether you agree with the current administration or not, the country’s relative youth is a source of hope. But here’s the rub. America’s citizens, both individually and as a whole, are its parents.

Do you take your responsibility seriously?

He Comes at Every Season

 

With the advent of summer, I decided to print a poem about the seasons that I wrote back in 2014. Without further ado, 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.

The Missing Piece

 

Have you ever thought you had finished a jigsaw puzzle, only to find one piece left over? That happened to me this past week.

The leftover piece had been driving me insane because I kept trying to figure out where it fit. It had black on it, and the only areas I hadn’t completed were yellow with minor amounts of blue. Or that’s what I thought, anyway. But after I had finished the rest of the puzzle, I ran my hand over the entire thing and found the hole and a place where I hadn’t been looking. Yes, there was black there, but I had thought everything was filled in.

Obviously, the problem wasn’t an extra piece that was left over but simply one that was left out.

Like jigsaw puzzles, novels must be carefully crafted so that every piece fits.

I was halfway through my current work-in-progress when I woke up in the middle of the night because my subconscious told me my timeline didn’t work right. As I lay there, I came up with what I thought was a good solution, and I got up and went into the office to write it down before I forgot it.

When I looked at it again in the morning, I realized that it solved the timeline issue but created new problems. Now fully awake, I came up with a better solution. Unfortunately, it required me to make changes throughout the manuscript. Still, the extra work was worth it. The new solution fit into the hole exactly, both as to shape and as to color.

Because, like jigsaw puzzles, novels need the right pieces to complete them.