Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their
 sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870.

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by 
irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking 
with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be
taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach 
them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another 
country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From 
the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
 It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance
 of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. 
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons 
of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a
great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women,
 to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the 
means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each 
bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
 but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a 
general congress of women without limit of nationality may be
 appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at 
the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the
 alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement
 of international questions, the great and general interests of 
peace.

Julia Ward Howe
, Boston 
1870

Julia Ward Howe was a prominent American abolitionist, social activist, poet, and the author of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic".

A Funny Thing About Shopping

There are few things in life I loathe more than shopping. It doesn’t matter what kind of store—supermarket, furniture, clothing, knickknack—it still grates on my nerves.  I detest having to choose one thing when there are hundreds of options. On those few occasions I have to buy something, I know what I want before entering the store, I go right to the item, and I get out of the store as quickly as possible.

Luckily, my husband is fine with doing all the shopping for us. It’s one reason we get along so well; he gets to buy whatever he wants, and I could care less what he buys as long as he doesn’t drag me along.

There is one exception to this rule (isn’t there always at least one to every rule?) I have always been fascinated while browsing through hardware stores. Not shopping, I rarely go there to buy anything, but I enjoy checking out all the useful gadgets cramming the shelves.

When I was much younger, I would tell myself, “If I were stranded on a desert island, what would I take with me?” and then I would meander through the aisles, picking items that would be useful. I would imagine how my life would be, all alone, with all those tools and hammocks and seeds and whatnot. Sometimes it was an island, sometimes a cabin in the Alaskan wilderness, sometimes a deserted Buddhist temple deep in the jungle. It was always fun to imagine how different my life would be, and how comfortable I could make it with whatever I found in the store.

Now, of course, I have expanded that game. I create a pretend world in my novels, and then populate those pretend worlds with characters and events and situations that I see in the world around me. So I still wander around, picking and choosing who/what will be in my invented world. And I still find great joy in doing so, as long as I don’t have to buy anything. 

Writing Tip - The Real Work of Writing—Editing

I completed the first draft of my latest novel, First Exposure, earlier this year. It’s a story I’m a bit wild about, and now I’m slogging through the trenches, doing my least favorite writing task, editing.

For years I hated editing, but I’ve come to enjoy it. I love playing with words and the rhythm they make. I make a game of seeing how many words I can delete without negatively impacting the story. So even though editing is not nearly as fun as creating new prose, it’s still enjoyable.

My process for editing starts by putting the manuscript down for at least a month, usually two to three months, while I work on something else. When editing, I want the story fresh, as if I’m reading it for the first time. It takes time to get that story out of my head.

Next, I read each page, slowly and carefully, three times before going on to the next page. I look for words/sentences/paragraphs to cut, different ways to say the same thing, places I’ve repeated myself (I seem to do that a lot), cut out most words ending in ‘ly’,  turn passive verbs to active, and insure I have a good mix of sentence structures and that the prose flows effortlessly. Why read each page three times, you ask? Because it’s amazing how many things stick out on the second and third pass that I gloss over on the first one.

When I finish a scene, I examine the scene as a whole. I actually have a checklist I follow for each scene:

1. What are the emotions the reader should feel? (which is different from what the characters are feeling)

2. Whose scene is it, and what do they want from it?

3. What can you show that is now in dialog?

4. How can you punch up the dialog, give it more attitude!

4. What can you show that is now told?

5. What can you cut, is it all needed? What purpose does it serve?

6. Cut the melodrama, telling internal dialog, metaphors. Just tell the story in plain English.

7. Most importantly: Where is the conflict leading to emotional growth in each scene?

Following this method, I strive to edit six pages per day. The next day, I start out by reading those six pages once more before moving on to the next six pages. When I finish a chapter (usually about 10-15 pages) I have my computer read it back to me. It’s amazing how many errors I catch by having the computer read it. I keep having the computer read it out loud until I can make it through without making any changes (normally 3 to 4 times.)

So for each editing pass, I read each page a minimum of six times, sometimes as many as ten times. Then the process begins again. I put the manuscript away for a month or two, and repeat. I normally make three to four editing passes. 

EXCERPT: Island Song by Alan Chin

Tuesdays are the days I showcase my own writing on this blog. Today I like to share an excerpt from my first published novel, Island Song. It’s an enchanted story that takes place on the big island of Hawaii.

My favorite fan, Fausto Unamzor,  made a video trailer for Island Song, so I thought I’d share: : http://tinyurl.com/yjfnl5n

Buy Link: http://tinyurl.com/4l2oxlc

The blurb:

After watching his lover’s long and painful slide into death, there is no peace for Garrett Davidson. Grief eats at him. In a desperate bid to survive, he flees to a secluded Hawaiian refuge. There he intends to write a memoir about his relationship with Marc, hoping the process will bring closure, restore his sanity, and kick-start a career in writing. 

He meets a captivating island native, Songoree, who offers promises of enlightenment and spiritual healing—but Garrett can only achieve it by abandoning his personal history. Can Garrett endure an excruciating journey that will tear him to pieces, wreak havoc among his friends, and break his despairing heart? Is it possible to attain fulfillment, even love, by surrendering everything you cherish? To survive, Garrett must find the answers.

Excerpt:

Garrett slept through the night undisturbed until light bled through the open window. With the growing light came the dream. Within the universe surrounded by his skull, he relived an experience that he and Marc had had several years earlier while scuba diving off the coast of Baja, Mexico.

They swam in a blue-green world thirty feet below the surface in the Sea of Cortez. Garrett loved to swim facing up so he could watch their bubbles float away, mingling together as they raced to the surface. It seemed magical.

The freedom of weightlessness brought a joy so intense it was agonizing.

They darted around the hull of a sunken freighter like sea otters until a giant manta ray glided up from beneath them, serene and graceful. The manta spanned fifteen feet across, dark gray on top and virgin white on the underside. It flew up to and around them, performing a slow-motion ballet.

Caught in a vise of fear and awe, Garrett’s hair prickled while an electric charge ran from his brain to his testicles. He had never been that close to any creature so large or so incredibly beautiful.

Marc, the bold one, kicked his legs and glided to the ray’s back. He grabbed hold with both hands near the eyes and began to soar away, riding the ray like a magic carpet. Garrett struggled to catch them and soon both divers rode the creature, performing unimaginable acrobatics.

The giant saucer winged its way into a school of squid, thousands of glistening milky bodies with flowing tails. The vision was electrifying. Garrett knew that he would never again experience such magnificence until death took him, and in the water, as on his bed, he smiled, grateful for the experience being given to him.

He ascended, floating on the edge of consciousness. His hand reached for his crotch and he began to rub. This part of the dream always reminded him of gliding in an ocean of semen, the squid looked so similar to sperm weaving their way to the one destination that would make them whole and fulfilled. The image never failed to excite him.

Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Dec 1950

I’m starting a new story today; page one awaits, fresh and pristine and virgin white, ready for those dark squiggly characters that I will scratch out. I’m been thinking about this story for years, and even have a high level outline for a starting point.

As I do whenever I start any new story, today I reviewed Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech, where he talks about what is important to write about, and what is not. I find that it always helps me to shape my characters, plots, and premise, and gives me a foundation of principles to help pilot me. So, I thought I would share that speech, as a way to give insight into what philosophies make my stories what they are.

The following is Faulkner's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech Dec 1950:

Ladies and gentlemen,

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work - a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand here where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only the question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.

He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he relearns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

Free Story by Award-winning author Alan Chin

I’d like to remind everyone that I am giving away a free story, Handcarved Elephants, on my Internet site at http://alanchin.net Simply press the ‘free story’ button and enter your name and email address. I’ll email you a pdf copy.

The story is a novella length tale of a man at the end of his rope, fighting for survival, but only finds redemption by putting aside his own needs to help someone else.

It takes place on/near a beach in Thailand that I’ve been to many times, and I have tried to capture the sights and sounds of the Thai culture.

Enjoy.

A Special Day – The Joy of Achievement

Today marks a special day for me. About four years ago, I began writing a short story with the intent of giving it away on my website. The story, Monk For A Month, is about a family, two dads and a six-year-old boy, who live as monks for a month at a temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand—a temple I’m very familiar with.

It became a story that I’m extremely proud of, and once I began giving it away, I received a flood of glowing feedback from my readers. It was such a positive experience for both me and them, that I decided to write a second story, Handcarved Elephants, on the same theme of a troubled American living as a Thai monk. Over the years, I wrote a third monk story, and a fourth, and fifth.

Today, I’ve finished the sixth monk story, which completes the anthology. This afternoon I’ll send it to Bold Strokes Books, who have already contracted to publish these stories as an anthology, Buddha’s Bad Boys.

Yes, there will be for rounds of edits with the publisher, and more work to do before it’s published in February, but for now, it’s exactly the way I want it, the best I can do.

There is nothing quite like the emotional rush when you reach the end of the story during the last edit pass, and you know four years of work is now complete, the best you are capable of. This will be my ninth published book, my Ode To Joy, if you will. (I’m not seriously comparing myself to Beethoven)

But like Beethoven and every other artist, I’ve experienced that moment of total gratification from knowing I’ve accomplished something significant (at least to me) and now I’m ready to leap into an even tougher project, one that will challenge me in different, unimaginable ways.

I say, “Bring It On!” But not until I’ve had a day or two to fully enjoy this uplifting feeling of achievement.