Reading My Way to Portugal!

By the time you read this blog, I will have arrived in Portugal. Needless to say, I read ahead.

 

reading way portugal monica ali alentejo blue
This is a book of short stories set in the Alentejo province of Portugal. I started it at home and, if I didn’t do so on the plane, will finish it on site.  Monica Ali is an award-winning author whose work has been translated into thirty languages. I like what I’ve read so far, and am sure the remainder of the book will be equally gripping.

 

Each chapter features richly drawn, complex characters. Some of the families have lived in the village for generations, some are ex-pats, and some are just passing through. Their stories weave together making the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

 

All the ex-pats and tourists are disenchanted with their lives, and moving to another place doesn’t help them. Meanwhile, the local Portuguese have very little, and many yearn to be someplace else—e.g., Cape Cod or London—but live their lives as best they can day to day.

 

The great hope is that Marco Alfonso Rodrigues will come back home and bring prosperity to the district. He is rumored to be “a very big name in the tourist industry… Luxury resorts in Thailand and Singapore. So I have been told.” (p. 45)

 

In fact, when he does return, villagers, tourists, and ex-pats come together, their jealousies and disappointments colliding. It is not a happy book (although there are touches of humor). Why read it? Because the writing is excellent!

 

my portugal george mendes
My other do-ahead reading was cookbooks. Eating is one of my favorite travel activities! I enjoy eating fish that have no comparables in the U.S. I relish identifying traditional seasoning patterns for various countries. Sometimes I even eat ahead, so to speak.

 

reading way portugal tomato tuna salad
This tuna, tomato, and onion salad from My Portugal was great—though my creation didn’t look quite so picture-worthy! I am looking forward to Portuguese port and other wines, and to learning to love salt cod!

 

learning love salt cod
One thing I especially look forward to is tasting the differences between Portuguese and Spanish cooking.

williams sonoma savoring spain portugal joyce goldstein

Watch my Facebook page for photos!

The “O” in OCD

the o in ocd
Strictly speaking, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a serious, often debilitating mental health problem. But for writers, acute or situational OCD is a valuable tool too, and more flexible in its application.
 
Consider weather as a trigger for an acute attack of OCD: September 2017 was the most active month on record for Atlantic hurricanes. Harvey, Irma, Maria, and Jose had millions obsessing about the weather and doing everything possible to ensure their own safety and/or connect with loved ones in the affected areas. In such situations, the focused thoughts and actions do not constitute mental health problems, though they might interfere with other aspects of a character’s daily life. Another acute trigger in your plot might be a murder, a terminal illness, huge financial loss, new love—virtually any discrete, one-off situation that consumes your character’s thoughts and affects actions.

 

the o in ocd dinner party
Situational OCD is when the same, repeated situation triggers obsessions and compulsions. Again, the situation could be almost anything that is a discrete event or situation that repeats. Throwing a party—or attending one. Hosting might well trigger obsessing about the menu, table decorations, house-cleaning, etc. Attending might trigger obsessing about what to wear, food allergies, or what topics of discussion to introduce—or avoid. It could be public speaking or doing performance evaluations.

 

Travel always triggers my own obsessiveness. For any trip I check weather, consider activities, and try to prepare for the unexpected. Women friends with whom I sometimes travel joke that if you need anything, just ask Vivian. Need a bandaid? Got you covered. Crochet hook? Not a problem!

 

As you know, in two days I am leaving for Portugal and Spain. Travel abroad is the worst trigger for me. I want to travel light, a carry-on and one checked bag for my husband and me. I can’t count on replacing something forgotten or lost. I want to be prepared for various activities but also keep it simple. So I spent weeks thinking about the trip and making mental lists. And then I got down to concrete actions. Three weeks ago, I started experimenting with hair styles that don’t require a curling iron.

 

the o in ocd vivian lawry
For this trip, I decided the basic color is black: pants, shoes, socks, jacket, hat, handbag, umbrella, and gloves. I went so far as to pack only black jewelry!

 

True to the meaning of my name, I like bright, vivid colors.

 

the o in ocd
So I selected numerous multi-colored scarves. Each scarf must go with at least 3 different shirts.
the o in ocd
I chose shirts in two basic styles and bright, solid colors. Shirts must be able to dry overnight in my hotel room. These choices were packed last week, along with nutritional supplements, prescription, and OTC drugs.

 

the o in ocd
With two days left, I am obsessing about quantities of toiletries, underwear, sleepwear, and miscellaneous items. Should I take a battery-powered toothbrush or just a manual one? Do I need a converter as well as an adaptor for my phone and Kindle? (Adaptor only.) Where did I put the soap flakes for hand laundry? And my passport? What must go into my roll-aboard to survive if checked luggage is lost?

 

the o in ocd
Why am I telling you all of this? Because it is a rich, detailed picture of situational OCD AND because it’s on my mind!

 

the o in ocd

Books, Travel, Life is Good!

spain book
In a few days I am leaving for Portugal and Spain. For the modern traveler setting off on such an excursion, the expected reading is likely to be a travel guide. In that type of book, I highly recommend the Lonely Planet guides. They are clear, accurate, and comprehensive.

 

virginia is for mysteries vivian lawry
But those are not the only books people turn to for travel guidance. At one point, Virginia Is For Mysteries was ranked #3 in the Amazon list of travel and tourism—presumably because each story was set in a different Virginia location. People at book signings have said they actually used the book to decide where to go on vacations. One woman said she and her friend were in the process of visiting all the places written about!

 

charlaine harris malice domestic mystery most historical
A similar volume is likely to appeal to the armchair traveler. My story in this volume is set in Civil War Richmond, but other authors chronicle death and destruction from Puritan Massachusetts to post-WWII settings, and from Buffalo to Wales.

 

bill bryson books
Although not always writing of travel, when he does, Bill Bryson is one of my favorites. He has a slanted view that appeals to me, along with rich detail, humor, and a fresh take on familiar places.
Perhaps you read Blue Highways when it first came out in 1981. It was a bestseller. And it has staying power, for it was reissued in 2012! William Least Heat Moon traveled what one might call secondary roads or scenic byways—the ones shown on road maps as blue lines. He has an amazing voice for taking one off the interstate!

 

Bottom line: Travel reading is good, and travel is made even better by reading!

Use and Abuse of Passive Voice

elements of style william strunk eb white
[Source: Pearson]
Basically, passive voice is when the noun or noun phrase that could be the object of an action becomes the subject. Passive voice permits permits subjects to have something done to them by someone or something. For example, an active sentence would be “Our team won the trophy.” A passive one would be “The trophy was won by our team.”

 

In general, authorities urging good writing advise writers to use the active voice as often as possible. Among other things, in order to convey the same amount of information in the passive voice requires more words. In the example above, the passive voice required 7 words rather than 5. Using the passive voice is often labeled as flabbier, less direct, and wordier writing.
[Source: Andertoons]
But there are several reasons to use the passive voice. As writers, we should use all the tools at hand to achieve our ends.

 

[Source: Amazon]
Bryan A. Garner identifies six ways in which the passive voice is acceptable or even preferred.

 

—When the actor is unimportant or not worth mentioning (in the context). Cheering crowds were barricaded all along the race route.
—When the actor is unknown. Overnight, Thanksgiving food baskets were left on 205 doorsteps in low-income neighborhoods.

 

[Source: Almeida Theatre]
—When you want to hide the actor’s identify. This is the classic: Mistakes were made. When no agent is unidentified, no responsibility is claimed or allotted—passive voice can erase who or what performs an action.  On October 11, Anthony Ekundayo Lennon posted a powerful comment illustrating this aspect of the psychology of language. In part, he said, “We talk about how many women were raped last year, not about how many men raped women. We talk about how many girls in school district were harassed last year, not about how many boys harassed girls. We talk about how many girls in the state of Vermont got pregnant last year, rather than how many men and boys impregnated teenage girls.”
 
—When you need to put the punch word or drama at the end of the sentence. In this instance, the agent is identified using a by-phrase. “Can you believe it? Earl was beaten up by his own son!”
 
 
—When the focus of the sentence is on the thing being acted on. The abused child was starved nearly to death.

 

Passive voice is not necessarily limp. For example, “. . .all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” (U.S. Declaration of Independence, italics added)
 
—When the passive simply sounds better—often because of the modifiers creating long phrasesThe wedding was planned by Heavenly Options, event planners who specialize in weddings, birthdays, funerals, and anniversary dinners with a strong Christian theme.
 
use abuse passive voice
[Source: The Writing Rag]
Bottom line: If you want your words to seem impersonal, indirect, and noncommittal, passive is the choice!

Discover Richmond

discover richmond connect
 
Grab it. Read it! When this RTD insert came with your paper a few days ago, you might have been tempted to pitch it. It’s very heavy on ads, especially in the first half. But take a closer look.
discover richmond amy black tattoo
I found several people, places, and things I can already connect to. For example, Amy Black. When I decided to redecorate rather than repair after breast cancer surgery, my oncologist recommended Amy. You may have read my In My Shoes essay about it in October of last year. I can’t praise Amy too highly. She is tough but gentle, accepting, and truly believes every body is beautiful. We both grew up in Ohio, so there is that cultural connection as well.

 

Amy is best known, perhaps, for her work with breast cancer patients, but she is an artist beyond that.
discover richmond back tattoo
I can’t appropriately show you what she did with my scars. I can only say that it was so appealing, I decided to have a “wrap-around” including both breasts and my back. And imagine my surprise when I discovered that during the year my youngest daughter (the only one with tattoos) lived in Richmond, on the recommendation of a Colorado tattoo artist, she sought Amy to create the tattoo honoring her daughter’s birth.

 

Amy is just one of 22 local people highlighted in this issue.

 

discover richmond hollywood cemetery
A place I particularly connect to is Hollywood Cemetery. I love cemeteries and graveyards. Hollywood is the third oldest garden cemetery in the country, inspired by the first, Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 

vivian lawry virginia is for mysteries
I am so taken with Hollywood Cemetery that I set my first short story mystery there (“Death Comes to Hollywood Cemetery”).  Brief as it is, the Discover Richmond article manages to mention half a dozen interesting features of Hollywood.

 

Among the 31 destinations described, some of my favorites are Library of Virginia, the VMFA, and Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. Some of the destination I’d like to visit include Unsung Sites of Black History and Meadow Farm Museum. Numerous neighborhoods are mentioned, including Short Pump and Ashland (The Center of the Universe).

 

discover richmond local neighborhoods
There is a guide to craft breweries, regional wineries and distilleries, and restaurants, and 15 pages of resources, from museums and historic homes to art galleries, music groups, theater and dance groups, hobby and special interest groups (including James River Writers, Sisters in Crime/Central Virginia, Virginia Romance Writers, Virginia Screenwriters Forum, and Virginia Writers Club).

 

This compilation does a good job on things I know well, so I trust the info when  learning about the things I don’t know so well. It entices me to explore and to revisit past pleasures. My point here is that you should read—and keep—Discover Richmond

Do You Need a Gossip?

do you need gossip
In discussing toxic gossips, Lillian Glass says, “They are good at letting the cat out of the bag. They pick up more dirt with the telephone than they do with a vacuum cleaner. They have a keen sense of rumor.” Consider how such a character could advance your plot.
 
S/he could overhear something and pass it along because that’s what gossips do. Depending on your needs, what was overheard could be true or false. Depending on your plot, either could increase tension, and true gossip could provide a vital clue. Enough said.

 

A gossip often makes the hearer feel like a special confidante, getting privileged information—until and unless the hearer discovers s/he is only one of many.

 

Consider how the gossip disseminates the information: word of mouth, in person or by phone; email or text; Facebook or other social media. The spoken word is, of course, the most deniable—also the most vulnerable to alteration or exaggeration in the retelling.

 

do you need gossip
Consider the character of the gossip. The one basic truth about the character of the habitual gossip is that s/he needs to feel important. In addition, the gossip does not truly disclose information about him/herself. But beyond that, what typifies him/her? Some possibilities include insecure, belittling, competitive, hurtful, self-righteous, sneaky, mean-spirited, angry, lonely—and the list goes on. Depending on what you choose, the gossip could be an object of humor, pity, or dislike to your reader.

 

Consider the gossip’s relationship to your protagonist. The likelihood is that a gossip would be a secondary character in your story. Is s/he a friend, neighbor, coworker, family member, employee? Is s/he a one-off or a recurring character in a series?

 

Last but not least, remember that s/he who brings, carries. The gossip could be a great channel for passing information or misinformation among characters by telling A about B and then telling B about A.
do you need gossip
These are only some of the ways a gossip could enrich your cast of characters. Can you think of others?

Books into Movies

books into movies raymond chnadler
[Source: Amazon]
Monday night TCM showed the 1946 movie The Big Sleep, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. That led me to recall that fifteen Chandler books became movies, including Murder My Sweet, The Blue Dahlia, Strangers on a Train, Lady in the Lake, and Time To Kill. 
 
So, consider other books that have been famously made into movies.
 
Add in books that have given rise to TV series.
Which of these book/film pairs are you familiar with? What is your opinion of each? And what can you add to the list?

The Best Soap Opera Ever!

winston graham book series
And you don’t have to take my word for it. Winston Graham’s first four books in the Poldark series were the basis of the BBC series broadcast during 1975 and 1976. The next three books were the basis of a 1977 series. These seven books became a 29-episode drama that was all the rage in Britain and the U.S.

 

I read the books and followed the series with rapt attention, and for a time took to drinking port on Sunday evenings while watching each episode.

 

In 2015, I watched the original series again, wiling away the morning hours while encased in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber five days per week, for six weeks. This series was (and no doubt still is) available from the library. (I also watched two versions of Pride and Prejudice during those treatments, but that’s neither here nor there.) Somehow I remained oblivious to the fact that the BBC launched a remake in March of that year.

 

So, when PBS started airing the new series, I didn’t realize it was new. Having just watched all 29 episodes, I ignored these broadcasts until last Sunday. I immediately realized that the cast, while true to the original characters, was different. Fortunately, I was able to pick up the story line with ease and now I am hooked again.

 

I decided to reread the books, only to discover that they were jettisoned during our 2013 move, so I went to Amazon and discovered not seven but twelve books! I had been oblivious to the publication of five more books in the series! So now I have a treat in store.

 

best soap opera ever winston graham book series

What makes the Poldark saga so great? 

First of all, the excellent writing. Winston Graham takes the reader to Cornwall to see and hear the pounding surf. He lets the reader into the minds and hearts of the characters. And his characters are humanly complex—flawed but lovable, even the  villains are understandable. Then there is the action. For me, he has defined page-turner. Graham also taps all the drama available in love, lust, and sex; struggle for survival; competition and grudges; deceit and deception; lies and murder; birth and death.

 

winston graham book dates
By all means, watch the TV series. But also read the books!

#PubforPR

Due to the overwhelming need in Puerto Rico following the devastation of Hurricane Maria, the publishing community is coming together to raise money for relief efforts.

#PubforPR is an auction put together by hundreds of authors, editors, illustrators, and literary agents, who have donated time and goods for you to bid on in order to raise money for those affected by the hurricane. All funds raised will go directly to Unidos por Puerto Rico and ConPRmetidos, two carefully vetted local charity organizations.

Please consider bidding on some of these items, or simply donating to one of these charities (the link is below). After the tragedies in Texas, Nigeria, Florida, Mexico, and now Las Vegas, it’s time to help in whatever way we can.