Caucus!

Had a lovely time playing with democracy (and Democracy) yesterday, when our little town participated in the presidential caucus. A hundred Dems showed up at the elementary school gym (not bad for a town of 900). We voted 75 Obama to 25 Clinton, thus anointing three Obama delegates and one Clinton delegate.

Somebody said the Republicans only got 13 voters last week. This used to be a Republican town. Everyone I know has a story about some dyed-in-the-wool Republican who's left the party because of Bush.

Interestingly, quite a few households were divided--husband for Obama, wife for Clinton, or vice versa. Everyone was cheery about it, though. I think we'd all be pleased either way. A woman sitting in front of me on the Obama side was a Republican until four years ago. Her husband, who changed parties when she did, was on the Clinton side.

It can take courage to vote with your entire body in a small town. This came home to me when the woman next to me gasped and said, "Why, John Smith!" (Fake name.) Turns out John was over on the Clinton side, when he might have been expected to be an Obamite. He probably had to explain himself later. You don't have to do that with a secret ballot. You can even lie about your vote if you want to.

The speeches were interesting. Pro-Clinton: It isn't every day you get to vote for another woman; She's got more experience and knows the foreign leaders; Clintonites know what to do about the economy. Pro-Obama: He's energizing young people; I haven't been this excited since 1960; It's time for young people to lead. Head vs. Heart, mostly.

Standing in line to sign in, one point of view was unanimous: Everyone was leery of the super-delegates deciding the nomination. The state party chair, who is from our little town, has said he will cast his super-delegate vote with the majority of Maine voters, which turns out to mean for Obama. The people around me thought that was a fine idea.

Lizzie Bright

Yesterday at 4 p.m., I finally sat down to read Gary Schmidt's "Lizzy Bright and the Buckminster Boy," a Newbery Honor book published in 2004. I took a long break to watch two kinds of news, eat dinner, and watch "Survivor," but then refused to go to sleep until I'd finished it.

The book takes off from the actual history of Malaga Island, Maine, at the turn of the century home to several black families. In the book, the business community of nearby Phippsburg wants to clear the island of its shantys and inhabitants to make way for a resort. Young Turner Buckminster, son of the new Phippsburg minister, befriends Lizzie Bright Griffin, the daughter of the Malaga preacher. Turner tries to save Lizzie and her neighbors, one way or another. Tragedy ensues, but also beauty.

It was the character of Turner, of course, who pulled me in on page one and held me to the end. I loved Lizzie, Turner's parents, the evil townspeople and the two old ladies (especially Mrs. Cobb, who evolves). But Turner--such a slave to his better nature, so forthright and brave in the less noticeable ways--is the reason the book is such a prize. It's in first person so you're in his skin from word one. And it's tragic yet uplifting, and funny in an understated way. (It is, after all, set in Maine, where the understated humor can just about kill you.) Those Newbery folks know what they're doing.

Snow update: It's been coming down all day in lackadaisical fashion. I'm going to try skiing around the yard later. Better than nothing.

Pros and Cons

Good news: It snowed some more. Bad news: It's still not quite enough to ski. One more like this and maybe we'll talk business.

Good news: Today was a writing day, after a century and a half of frigging around with lesson plans and symphony reviews and copy edits and maps and volunteer projects biting me on the ankle. Bad news: I had a bad case of First-Day-Back-itis, and wrote as if I had claws instead of fingers. I did get some thinking done on various plot holes, though, and tomorrow will be better.

Good news: Since the Democratic race is so close, all of a sudden Maine means something. Yesterday, half the newscasts forgot our little caucus existed. Today, Obama and Clintons-squared announced plans to come to Maine over the weekend. Obama will be in Bangor, which is tempting but I'd rather have a writing day. Bad news: Regardless what we do in Maine, we risk a brokered convention and angst aplenty. And McCain's going to be hard to beat.

Good news: Hey! I blogged two days in a row! Bad news: I did it so I wouldn't have to write.

Snow and Other Stuff

After two days of rain and yuck, this morning's drizzle finally turned to snow. Nice to look at (the photo's from my office window) but useless for any recreational purpose. I suppose I could build a snowman or sculpt something. But I'd rather ski or possibly even skate. Weather gods take note.

At noon I mushed through the slush to the opening meeting of the weekly writers group I run at the town library for a small group of elementary school kids--five kids this year, sixth through eighth grades. One was sick, so only four today. MUCH different from last year, when I had eight kids. Should be easier to give everyone the attention they deserve. The noise level will be better, too.

Three out of the four were excited to be there, which I found astonishing and gratifying. One (a returnee from two previous years) actually said he was looking forward to filling out My Main Character forms. This made me feel like one of those Star Trek or Dr. Who episodes when some tired, dying race tries to tap the life force from some younger, vibrant race. Nicely energized, I hope without damage to the young writer.

He will be a writer, if he wants. He exults in the process, and he's got a fantastic sense of humor. Last year, his main character was a boy living in a cartoon world. Confronted by the traditional anvil falling on him from the sky, he asks peevishly: "What are anvils actually for? And who keeps them in their house all the time?"

This year, I'll be asking them to write a short story in third-person, from two alternating points of view. Since I've never done that myself, really, I'll probably participate as writer as well as a teacher. Cool.

Bad Blogger

Oh dear. I seem to have done exactly what I promised myself I wouldn't do, and let Life overcome Blogging.

Here are my excuses:

1. The maps arrived. The Unnameables will have a map of Town spread over two pages, and a map of Island on one page. Very, very exciting, especially the map of Town, which seems like it sprang out of my subconscious. However, there were some problems. Town Hall didn't have the all-important back entrance to the cellar where the jail is. There was no tree for Medford, Prudy, and Earnest to lean against to rest up from carrying the rescued journals to Boyce's house. Merchant's store didn't have a liveable second floor. Much nitpicking and angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin dancing. In some places I changed the text to match the map, because I'm such an accommodating (i.e. freaked out) author.

2. I'm so boggled by Life that I can't remember what 2 is.

3. I rashly told my agent and editor I would immediately work on a proposal for the next book (working title: The Filioli), which I thought I had almost finished drafting. I then realized that the book was lacking a certain oomphiness. So I came up with an idea (not highly original, but what is?) of allowing Durindana the Filiola (kind of like a fairy) short bursts of narration in between chapters narrated by my heroine, Mellie. This sets the proposal back a few weeks, but cheers me up no end.

4. The newspaper I freelance for asked me to review a symphony concert, ignoring my protests that I would be lucky to notice if the piccolo player fell into the tuba. I read up on the pieces and got CDs of them out of the library, hoping this would help me figure out if something went significantly haywire. Went to the concert yesterday and wrote the review this morning. Fortunately, it seemed that everyone else around me agreed that the concert was wonderful. Wonderful I can write about. Mistakes, not so much.

5. Plus my writing workshop for local kids starts Wednesday and I'm having trouble finding good examples of omniscient narration.

I have more but I can see you're getting bored. I'll do better next time, I promise.

Contest!

Feeling bored? Of course you are--it's January. (OK, maybe you're not bored if you're in Florida or Arizona or someplace like that. If that's the case, just try to empathize.)

Anyway, there's a contest going on over at the Class of 2k8--a scavenger hunt, in fact. It looks like a hoot. The prize, you'll be amazed to hear, is books.

We're having one contest every quarter, so this one will end at the end of March. Not a minute too soon to get started!

Ship That Baby Out!

It's finished!

After two weeks of dithering, I just Fedexed my copy-edited manuscript to Harcourt in New York. That's it on the left there, 270 pages of it--the yellow post-it notes are the changes, mostly responses to style questions. I have style issues up the ying-yang because my setting is an island settled 300 years ago, whose inhabitants have renamed plants, animals, and themselves according to function. And modern Islanders still lapse into archaic English. That'll teach me.

So, should the Island name for rockweed be Cropfodder or cropfodder? Does the wood of the Sap Tree have to be Sap Tree Wood, or can we shorten it to Sapwood? Should unspoken quotations from The Book be italicized and in quotation marks, or just italicized? How about words-used-as-words (e.g. "The word of the hour is 'blabber.'")--should they be italic or just in quotes?

Oh, and would some Mainland trader have told an Islander about sweaters for the first time in 1900?

There were only a few content questions like that one (and the sailboat issue I mentioned in my last post). Some of the answers were in my head but some meant I got to revisit a few research sources--such as the Old Sturbridge Village site to find out exactly what the grist mill and sawmill should look like (for the map, I guess).

And just today the Oxford English Dictionary reminded me that "dost" is second-person singular and I twice had it first-person singular. And despite what you may hear on TV, the -eth ending on a verb ("he stinketh") is third person only.

I think I need to get out more.

I also got to check out a brand new library book, which the local librarian discovered and lusted after when I asked for help with the sweater question. It's No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting and it shows pretty conclusively that Americans didn't know about sweaters until the late 1800s.

Ah, the writing life. Glamorous, ain't it?