Today I'm taking a moment to invite all of you to check out my (relatively) new blog/website:

Wordsworth and the Dragon

Banner Design by Christina Wald

Like many writers, I have a number of manuscripts that I have submitted to all the publishers and agents I can find, without receiving an acceptance. The reasons for rejection are seldom spelled out or even expressed in any terms at all.

During the submission process for my chapter book Wordsworth and the Dragon, a few editors did request a "full" based on the first three chapters. One editor hung onto the whole manuscript for almost two years (as I continued to submit it elsewhere). She loved Wordsworth, but her publishing company was in the process of "changing direction" and she was eventually laid off. One agent I contacted also loved Wordsworth -- until she found out I had already sent it around to a bunch of publishers. She immediately lost interest.

I did some research on self-publishing and decided I wanted to take that route with Wordsworth and the Dragon.  My enthusiasm for the project increased tenfold a few months ago when illustrator Christina Wald offered to do some illustrations for the book. There will be a cover illustration and probably one illustration per chapter.

My web site Wordsworth and the Dragon offers an opportunity for children and adults to witness a chapter book in the making. Christina is providing preliminary sketches, and I am posting chapters from the book, one at a time, with discussion questions. Several educators have expressed interest in having their students follow along, and I hope to start hearing from them soon.

I hope you'll join us on this publishing adventure!  (And yes, I have already started on a sequel!)

Are You Under-Stressed?

Dear Readers,

I came across this marvelous article that I thought many of you might find interesting: 19 Ways to Get More Readers for Your Author Blog

When I saw #4 on this list, I perked right up: "Do something different."

What follows may not be what those folks meant, but I already had it ready to post today, so I retro-fitted it to match their list. (What?)

It's a quiz that I crafted many years ago. I guarantee that it's every bit as useful now as it was then. Leave a comment and let us know your score!

Are You Under-Stressed?

The Quiz

Studies have shown that many people in our society today are under-stressed; that is, they do not receive enough stress in their day-to-day lives. Such a condition can render a person incapable of dealing with emergency situations when they arise. In fact, the under-stressed person may not even recognize a real emergency when he or she sees one! To determine whether you undergo sufficient stress in your life, take the following simple multiple-choice quiz.

(1) Awakening in the middle of the night, you think you hear a burglar in the house. You fumble for the phone. Intending to press 9-1-1, you accidentally press the keys you programmed as a shortcut to your Great Aunt Harriet's number. When Great Aunt Harriet answers, you:

(a) Tell her to bring the squad car around the back.
(b) Reply, "Sorry, I have the wrong number," hang up, and scream loudly to frighten the intruder away.
(c) Ask Great Aunt Harriet how much the china hutch she gave you weighs and how long she thinks it would take one or two men to carry it outside in the dark.
(d) Inquire after Great Uncle Mortrud's lumbago and promise to visit them when you are finished going over details of the theft with your insurance company.

(2) Your son's soccer coach calls, telling you that you need to provide all refreshments for the end-of-the-season cookout (the team will reimburse you for your expenses, of course). The cookout is day after tomorrow. Your commitments for the week already include helping your daughter with her science project, tilling your mother's garden, working overtime at the office, and visiting eight shut-ins for your church. You tell the coach:

(a) @*%&#)(*@_&#$*(#
(b) "No problem. How about radishes and half a pot of day-old coffee?"
(c) "I would be delighted" -- chuckling to yourself over the fact that neither you nor the food will appear at the cookout. That'll fix 'em.
(d) "Excuse me... [click click click] ... I think we have a bad connection... [click click click]... Can you hear me? [FAKE STATIC] [LOUD BUZZ -- followed by yanking cord out of wall and leaving it out for three days].

(3) Your boss has written a letter to an important client. You feel sure the client's name has been misspelled, but your boss insists you are wrong and tells you to mail the letter. The client calls, complaining that his name was misspelled. You hear your boss blaming "my crazy assistant." You:

(a) Quickly reprint all your boss's rolodex cards, deliberately misspelling every name and/or changing one digit in each phone number.
(b) Order a commemorative plaque for Boss of the Year (at company expense) -- misspelling your boss's name.
(c) Immediately prepare your letter of resignation (misspelling your name), stick a flaming arrow through it, and shoot it into your boss's office.
(d) Laugh silently to yourself for the rest of the day because you actually are crazy and it's a relief to have it acknowledged by someone in authority.

(4) You have been awakened at least once every night for the past week by your neighbor's barking dogs. The dogs (German Shepherds) also bark continually while you mow your lawn or work in your garden. Since you own a Bassett Hound (who barks when disturbed but settles down quickly), you try to be tolerant. However, the police have just called to inform you that your neighbor has filed a complaint about your dog's barking. You:

(a) Make midnight phone calls to your neighbor, panting and whining pitifully when he answers.
(b) Contact your neighbor and attempt to make peace, explaining that you have just acquired three Great Danes trained to leap the fence and jump on top of your neighbor's Porsche whenever they hear a German Shepherd bark.
(c) Invite your neighbor to a backyard barbecue, smiling sinisterly when he expresses concern that his dogs have been missing all day.
(d) Sit down with the German Shepherds over a bowl of kibble and sauerkraut and discuss the situation with them, emphasizing their responsibility to their close acquaintances and society as a whole.

(5) You have ten minutes to drive across town to the technical college you attend twice a week. A test is being given and if you are late, you will receive an automatic "F". As you pull onto Murphy Street, you find yourself in the right-hand lane behind a car going two miles an hour. The driver sticks his arm out his window, motioning you to come around. Since cars are zooming steadily by in the left-hand lane at 45 miles per hour, this does not seem like a viable option to you. The traffic does not decrease. The car ahead of you does not speed up. You:

(a) Flip on the loudspeaker connected to your radio and imitate a siren, hoping the driver will pull over.
(b) Get on your cell and call your best friend, who readily agrees to impersonate you at the exam (the friend strongly resembles you, lives a block from the school, and took the same class last year).
(c) Take a sharp right into a parking lot, zip through the lot and out the other side, running over two little old ladies and a kid on a bike before arriving in the middle of a major intersection, whereupon your authority is disrespected by a tractor-trailer with faulty brakes.
(d) Turn your car radio to the station that plays heavy metal, turn up the volume, roll up your windows, light a cigarette, close your eyes, and go to sleep.

SCORING

(1)
(a) 3 pts
(b) 1 pt
(c) 7 pts
(d) 5 pts

(2)
(a) 1 pt.
(b) 5 pts
(c) 7 pts
(d) 3 pts

(3)
(a) 3 pts
(b) 5 pts
(c) 1 pt
(d) 7 pts

(4)
(a) 3 pts
(b) 5 pts
(c) 1 pt
(d) 7pts

(5)
(a) 5 pts
(b) 7 pts
(c) 3 pts
(d) 1 pt

TOTAL YOUR SCORE:

35 points: You are definitely too calm and collected. There's nowhere near enough stress in your life. It is imperative that you begin drinking more coffee and soft drinks, start smoking, increase your work hours, decrease your salary, and -- above all -- START WORRYING as much as possible. If necessary, send for our complete "THINGS TO WORRY ABOUT" list, a comprehensive aid for people suffering from your condition.

25-35 points: Not bad, but you still exhibit some dangerous symptoms of peace-of-mind. Refer to instructions above.

10-25 points: Normal

5-10 points: Maybe a little too stressed. Take a chill pill, okay?

*~* HAVE A NICE DAY *~*

P.S. I scored a 2 on this quiz. Not possible, you say? Are you calling me a liar? Would you like to settle this outside?

Bad Romance? Bad Medicine? Bad Poetry?

I know you've heard this saying:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you.

Weep, and you weep alone.

Did you know that these words are the beginning of a poem called "Solitude" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox? The poem was published in 1883. Here is the complete first stanza of that poem:

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;

Weep, and you weep alone.

For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,

But has trouble enough of its own.

The reason I bring this up is because I just finished reading a novel based on the life of Ella Wheeler Wilcox: Ella Moon by Ed Ifkovic (Waubesa Press, the quality fiction imprint of Badger Books Inc.)

I found this book while I was on my way home from a vacation recently. It was shelved with others at a Country Inn and Suites motel, where they often have collections of books that guests can borrow -- with the idea that we will return them (or some other book of our choice) to the next Country Inn and Suites motel we visit. I was almost done with the book I was reading at the time, and thought I might need another book to get me home.

The book jacket blurb drew me in:

She was one of the Victorian world's most popular poets. Her life was a tapistry [sic] of color and melodrama, an epic of rags to riches. This fictionalized account chronicles both the glittering heights of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's life and the nagging fears that accompanied her vast and cherished success.

Ifkovic notes that Ella Moon "is not literary biography: it is how I imagine her. . . In the process I wanted to find a different EWW, the one who existed outside her verse -- the one I carry in my mind."

Much of what is included in the novel comes from Mrs. Wilcox's autobiography: The Worlds and I (1919). Here is a link to a pdf file of that autobiography (available from Google books): http://scotti.cohn.tripod.com/The_worlds_and_I.pdf

I found the story of this woman's life and career utterly fascinating. Born in poverty on a farm in Wisconsin, she became a published poet at age 14 -- primarily because she simply refused to stop sending her work to publishers. To say that she was persistent would be an understatement. She was driven. By the age of 16 or 17, she was basically supporting her family on earnings from her poetry. The nickname "Ella Moon" was given to her by her father, who thought that he saw her pointing at the moon when she was a child. Ella corrected him, saying she was pointing toward Milwaukee, where she hoped to find fame and recognition, a beautiful life far removed from the farm.

I was captivated by the complex nature of Ella's relationship with her parents and siblings, her views of life, and her evolution from a Wisconsin farm girl to a famous poet known all over the world. I was mesmerized by her efforts to communicate with her deceased husband -- successful by her account -- and her journey to France during World War I, which she undertook because he told her to do it in messages delivered by her ouija board.

As for her poetry, it is quite overwrought in most cases (by modern standards, and even by the standards of her day). Yet there is value in exploring her choice of words, the structure of her verses, and the subject matter she covers. When I read her poetry, I feel transported back to my teenage years, when I used poetry as a way to express the depths of heart and soul. Melodramatic? Yes. Predictable rhythm and rhyme? Yes. But I have to ask, if Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poetry is so "bad" -- why does so much of it resonate, touch, delight, and inspire?

The summer is just in its grandest prime,

The earth is green and the skies are blue;

But where is the lilt of the olden time,

When life was a melody set to rhyme,

And dreams were so real they all seemed true?

~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox