writing - Karen A. Chase

Gifts for Writers

November 8, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

The turkey has it right, I know. It’s not even Thanksgiving and yet here I am talking about gift-giving. This year, I’m working on a little something that will run on my blog for six weeks leading up to Christmas, so this is my only chance to share a fun holiday shopping list with you. I’ve gathered a few non-traditional ideas for gifts for the writers in my life. Yes, I see this is a little self-serving but I’ve given a couple of these before, and they were well-cherished.

Jane Austen Society Membership: Magazine, certificate, and more.

Turn a book cover into a charm at Artistry for Authors. Though I doubt Dan Brown would wear it.

An i-Tunes compilation of songs from the top 10 songs from famous authors. For $36 you can give a commercial-free membership to Pandora–nothing stalls the pen like being interrupted by a “Now just $5.99!” commercial.

For those of us who write at home, and it is unclear to our loved-ones whether we are outlining our plot or looking in the fridge (often done simultaneously), I give you the perfect t-shirt.

For other tangible items, just type in the word “author” in the search bar at Etsy. Or pick anything from this Pinterest Ideas for Writers. Coffee of the month, and spa certificates for neck massages are always welcome.

FYI, here is also what not to give–pretty self-explanatory: Alcohol. Cigarettes. Cable subscription. Books about how to write better. A journal full of blank pages.

Ciao 60: Fun

October 25, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

From the posts of the last few days, you could say that our trip through Italy was serene and moving. It was. However, as this entry shows, it was also blissfully fun. The photos below feel like a series of out-takes or bloopers from a holiday, but they’re not. This is how Ted and I behave on vacation together. I would be remiss if I did not mention a huge part of the reason why. It’s the same reason we took this Ciao 60 trip in the first place. Ted.

Traveling with Ted is romantic, like driving a convertible top-down through Italian villages. However, the car also has no brakes, is constantly in top gear, and only slows down for photographs, love, food and wine. It’s crazy fun. Silly. Playful. He’s like that at home and not just on vacation. Thank goodness. Ted displays what he often encourages in others: curiosity and openness. It allows him to try new things, constantly learn, and share a laugh with complete strangers (even Italians who don’t speak English). The result? We all want to come along for the ride.

For a man now in his 60s, it’s impossible to guess his age. When most men are becoming grumps (research shows it’s because their testosterone levels are falling) or languishing in retirement, Ted faces each day as if life is merely beginning. That, on holiday or otherwise, is easy to love. We should all be striving saying Ciao 60! the way he does. Laughing. Loving. Joyful.

Fun is in what he sees, does, and encourages. Click to enlarge and scroll through the photos.

Ciao 60: Feasting

October 23, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

Paris has cafés and bread shops. New York has bagels and pizza. But there’s a reason the world over loves Italian food. Italy has it all. Between the gelato shops, cafés, butchers, fisheries, and pasticcerias (pastry) it’s enough to make you want to move there and fall face first into a pizza pie. Each Italian day also begins with a frothy, perfect cappuccino.

“How,” I asked Ted, “are we going to return to American coffee?”

“We’ll be ruined,” was his only response as he gleefully picked up his cup. I love a man who knows he’s headed for trouble and goes there anyway.

A meal in Italy begins with your eyes. Fresh ingredients hang from the trees–olives, grapes, limes, and lemons. Tomatoes and herbs are nestled in baskets and bins, artfully arranged inside spotless kitchens. Then ingredients are stacked, tucked or puddled into works of art like the fish soups that clunk into the bowl.

Along the Riviera from Cinque Terra to Genoa, the region is known for pesto. Made with tiny leaf basil grown in ancient salty air, it’s a richer flavor than ours. They heap it onto hand-rolled gnocchi that makes you wanna die! North, into the Lake District, I swear the Perch comes right out of Lake Como coated in parmesan and lemon. Wine flows as cheap as water. However, feasting has consequences.

At the airport we weighed our bags and then ourselves. Despite our walking and all those stairs it was… well… Let’s just say it was amoré.

Click to enlarge the photos.

Ciao 60: Views

October 22, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

In a scene from An Affair to Remember, Deborah Kerr jokes to Cary Grant, “If the view is so lovely down there, why did you bring me up here?”

Nowhere is that line more repeatable than in Cinque Terre: A set of five villages in the terraced hillsides of Italy along the Riviera, built in the eleventh century to ward off Turkish invasion. As Ted remarked, “They were built to keep invading tourists out. Yet here we all are.”

No cars are allowed, so you must travel by foot, by boat, or by the train that unpredictably runs between the five villages (it’s on time, there is just no guarantee if it will stop at each town). Regardless of your mode of transport, or your position in the towns, the jaw-dropping views are your reward. Each town contains colorful buildings, sea breezes, cats, and a gabillion stairs. Given all the rich wine, bread and pasta, the calves and butt have the chance to work it off.

It was to these five towns, now a National Park, that we came with our friends to celebrate October 2nd, Ted’s birthday. It was here, along the shores of the Monterosso village, Ted waded out to swim in the Mediterranean for the first time in his life–the Italian reconnecting with the water of his roots. Still warm. Salty. And a sweet way to say Ciao 60.

The first five images below are all taken in one of five towns, Vernazza, from different vantage points. At the base of the tower, inside it, and then walking away from it up and out of town.

Ciao 60: Friends

October 21, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

To kick off the five part series on the Ciao 60 trip to Italy for my dear Ted’s birthday, we must first chat about friends. We actually began our sixteen-day Italian adventure in France, where our friends Andrew (a fellow writer) and Christiane and their children now live. There is no better way to get over jet lag than to cook in their Provence home, play with their children, and take naps in a hammock overlooking rolling farms.

A few years ago, Andrew and Christiane took on the immense task of revamping a 17th century farmhouse, amid their work, raising a family, and Andrew’s writing. The house and farm speak to all of it. Work areas mesh with rows of books that line ancient walls, with beams in mid-repair among rooms containing the sound of children’s laughter. For a gal without kids, and for Ted whose grandchildren live far away, time with children reading books (me) or flinging them around (Ted), makes for an incredibly joyful way to begin a break from work.

To help celebrate our visit, they also threw a dinner party (very Jane Austen of them), and as we set the dining table, the late afternoon sun made everything feel like a Rembrandt painting. The light, I’ve written about this before, is incredibly different in Provence. Brighter. Softer. Sweeter. It turns moments into memories. So does sitting at a friend’s table, surrounded by old and new friends and family… what a lovely way to celebrate life. Happy birthday.

Ciao 60: Wordless in Italy

October 18, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

Ciao! We are back from two-plus weeks traveling through France and Italy for my dear Ted’s very special birthday. (Yes, he is in his 60s. Can you believe it?!)

As I outline this week in my monthly column, Will Travel For Words, we made the best of plans to stay online and in touch, and then “hopped the plane, flew over the big blue ocean and promptly landed in an internet troublesome zone.” For all of you who maybe wondered why there were so few posts, please read my ShelfPleasure post on the details of why I disconnected, and what resulted (beautifully).

For those of who had hoped for a post-a-day, all next week I’ll do just that. Starting Monday October 21st, I’ll showcase five topics (food, fashion, views and more) with photos that were the highlights of Ted’s Ciao 60 birthday trip to Italy.

In the meantime, here are a few images to tide you over…

An elegant covered plaza for dining, shopping and people-watching in Milan.

Postcards — Disconnected means finding an old-fashioned way to stay in touch. Hello postcards.

Sailing — The northern Italian lakes (Lake Maggiore) in the early morning.

Vernazza — Italy is chaos. Beautiful, old-world chaos.

Traveling to Sit Still

September 27, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

When at home, I sit. Sit to write. Sit to read. Sit until my legs go numb. While on holiday, as we are now, I like to move. But since we left Richmond Wednesday, I’ve been sitting. Waiting for planes. In the plane (sleeping was even done while sitting). In a car with friends going for lunch and coming to their place. Then dinner. Then breakfast. True, we took a short walk in between. True, we also sat and had some of the best bread I’ve eaten in two years for lunch, and today the nicest tart with coconut and lavender. (Ted thought it tasted like soap, I thought it tasted like heaven.)

However, one cannot complain about all the sitting required to wander around France. It is a luxury. And for a writer, a necessity. Why? Details. When one rushes through life, the world is a blur. When I sit at home in front of my computer writing, the world is out of focus. So I must stop and gather data for the future.

So today I sat with dear friends sharing stories and wine at one of only four restaurant tables among the little cobblestone streets of Simiane la Rotonde-a charming little village where the cars park above or below the town and you wak in. I sketched. I saw the streets. I saw a man who wandered the town looking for his lost girlfriend, and three minutes later I saw the girlfriend looking for the boyfriend she believed to be lost. I saw friendly people serving lunch amid geraniums waving hello, as an old wooden door up the curving walk tugs at my curiosity.

By sitting, by sketching, I actively slowed down time, and relished in the details that will add to my memory, add to my ability to see. I will save all of it for another story.

Nearing The End

September 20, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

This post is part apology, part celebration. After five years of research, books, libraries and writing, writing, writing, I have at last finished my manuscript about the Declaration of Independence! Five years! In addition to moving, reparing an historic house, running a business and publishing Bonjour 40, I filled in my spare time doing this. I have been weepy all week and thrilled beyond measure. So, yaaaaay!

This post is in part an apology, because in the last month in order to finish the last hundred or so pages, I have ignored many of you. I’ve been delinquent with communication, forgotten to do a few things, and been late to more than one event. For all of you who wondered what happened, I was just spending time 237 years ago, and they didn’t have internet then.

I have been writing the book chronologically, and from page one to the end. So in this last month, these fictitious people have finally been performing my scenes I outlined for them years ago. It’s been joyous. Emotional. Thrilling. As a friend said, “It’s epic. What you’re writing is epic.” I hope so. My characters have at last become who I knew they could be.

Yes, there will be more edits (I’ve already done numerous edits). Yes, there will be plenty of work ahead to find an agent, a publisher, and readers. However, for those who are already asking what’s next… Please just let me swim in THE END until my fingers get all pruny. For just a little while.

English Lesson

August 30, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

800px-Penwriting — Fun coupling of two English words, for fans of 30Rock. Thanks, Tina Fey (and Wikimedia Commons for the photo).

This week, my sister-in-law sent me an email that we both adore. Part of it is from a poem called “The English Lesson.” A little research found it’s not really attributed to anyone, though it does sound similar to an old poem called De Chaos, by Dutch author Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité, published in 1920. Both poems prove that English… ’tis a silly language. Here is her email, read, share, enjoy. (Even if it’s more than 250 words.)

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.

If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?
If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.
We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it – English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren’t invented in England .

We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square,
And a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write, but fingers don’t fing,
Grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?
Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them,
What do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?

We ship by truck but send cargo by ship…
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.
And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.

Oh well, we can all shake our heads as we nod in agreement.

Blogging Guidelines

August 23, 2013 By Karen A. Chase

This Public Domain image is of Anna Brassey (1839-1887). She was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book, "A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months" was published in 1878 and included this illustration. — This Public Domain image is of Anna Brassey (1839-1887). She was an English traveller and writer. Her bestselling book, “A Voyage in the Sunbeam, our Home on the Ocean for Eleven Months” was published in 1878 and included this illustration. Journals were the original blogs.

An important element in a writer’s arsenal is a blog. It proves to publishers we have an audience and we’re capable of communicating with them. It also provides us a pure, unfiltered format for our words.

However, building and maintaining a blog that is consistent, noteworthy and timely can be time-consuming. That simple fact was why I set parameters for my own blog. 250 words maximum. Post on Fridays. Always about “composition.” These guidelines have allowed me to keep it simple, and each week I learn to eliminate excess words. I delete stuff. I simplify.

Even so, I’ve missed a few Friday posts. (Hang head. Shame.) This week an editor and I were chatting about the blog she’s had since 2001. She told me that when she doesn’t post it’s “partly for lack of discipline, partly out of self-consciousness, partly for lack of focus/purpose.” Exactly.

Well, dear editor, I think readers will forgive an occasional blog holiday. Their inboxes need a break from us, too. Yes, I think the “guidelines” are important to give us direction, but we should concentrate more on what we hope to contribute long-term through the life of the blog. Inspiration. Perspective. Information. Sometimes a little entertainment. A blog is a journey, not a destination.

What blog parameters have you seen that are helpful for authors?

(FYI, this post: 226 words.)