Tea With the Black Dragon

Starting over

2009-06-26T11:19:00.000-07:00

I really intended to keep up this blog, but there were always other things clamoring for attention. So I'm starting over, and will endeavor to do better.

Today I updated the home page of my writing web site and followed up with announcements on Facebook, Myspace, and LiveJournal. I think I could easily spend all my time communicating and not get anything else done. How do people manage? Maybe they think and type faster than I do.

I'm looking for suggestion on jazzing up all my sites, the better to publicize my books. Suggestions would be welcome, keeping in mind that I'm not a teenager and feel a bit intimidated by modern communication methods. I want a family-friendly site that will attract more kids and their parents.

The latest news on books: The Door in the Sky should be out next month, The Mirror Door is at the publishers, and book four in The Hall of Doors series is underway. Anita and I finished the "Bless This Home" book and we're starting to look for a publisher.

The publisher said yes!!

2008-05-09T21:20:00.001-07:00

The publisher (Windstorm Creative) got back to me in record time, with an affirmative answer. The Door in the Sky has been accepted!!! Not only that, but they want my son, fantasy artist JW Kalin, to illustrate this book as he did The Mountains of the Moon. Needless to say, I'm excited.

I won't give away all the details, but the magic door they go though this time is the one featured on the cover of The Mountains of the Moon, and they'll be traveling by dragon.

I guess I'll have to forgive them for cancelling my Christian Daily Scheduler that I worked so hard on. Publisher's are on a very tight profit margin, and the current economic trends are taking their toll. So what do I do with 365 short, uplifting thoughts for the day? I can't believe how hard it was to come up with so many, with a 30-word maximum for each. As you may have noticed, writing "short" is not my easiest mode.

Book three of The Hall of Doors is in progress, and will include a tribute to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I remember helping my younger sister learn her lines for a short play based on a scene from Looking Glass, and driving her nuts for years afterward, quoting the lines which I had memorized in the process of prompting her. I thought it would be fun to have Sammy and her friend Kerri in a similar situation.

In other authorly news, my future daughter-in-law who lives in China says she likes my stories, and that they are helping her to improve her understanding of English. I've been sending her a story, poem or essay nearly every day by email. And my five-year-old granddaughter in Alaska wants to have her pictures in a book, like her cousins who posed for the illustrations in The Mountains of the Moon, so her Mom is going to send me photos and I'll make her a picture book. Maybe I'll self-publish:-)

How cool is it when your kids and grandkids are also fans? I feel so blessed.

Mother's Day Poems

2008-05-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

For many years, I wrote a poem for my mom every Mother's Day. A lot of them wound up in a little work-for-hire gift book I put together for Barbour Publishing. I was supposed to be mostly compiling quotes, so I figured I might as well quote myself. Mom was drifting into the haze of Alzheimer's, but she still was proud of what she felt was "her" book.

My friend, Anita Donihue, recently asked for a copy of one poem, as she had misplaced it. She discovered several years ago, that the poem could be sung to the tune of "Jesus Loves Me," and uses it annually with her Sunday School class at Algona-Pacific Church of God in Washington. So I get my annual dose of "fifteen minute of fame." Actually, most of my Mother's Day poems have been read at least once in one church or another, and several have been published as well. Since I still hold the copyrights, I decided to share a few. Feel welcome to pass them on.

This is the one Anita wanted. She added as a chorus, "Yes, we love Mom (3 times) and Jesus loves her too."

Moms

Wife, companion, sweetheart, friend,
One on whom we all depend,
Chauffeur, laundress, cook and baker,
Casserole and cookie maker,
Seamstress, skilled in many arts,
Mending clothes and broken hearts,
Girl Scout leader, Sunday School teacher,
Confidante, advisor, preacher,
Bargain hunter, tutor, nurse,
Keeper of the family purse,
Neighbor, cousin, daughter, niece,
Making beds and making peace,
Always smiling, always giving,
What a busy life they're living,
Feeding children, dogs and cats,
How do they wear so many hats?

Janice Lewis Clark May, 2000

Actually, I think this one is my favorite.

Life: With Safety Net

Life is an ocean the sailor must cross
In a boat with threadbare sails:
Riding the billows from trough to crest,
Braving the fearsome gales.
And the waves roll up, and the waves roll down,
And the breakers roar and foam,
But the beacon light of a mother’s love
Will guide the sailor home.

Life is a journey to faraway lands,
On a road fraught with perils and care,
Where many a beckoning dead-end trail
Awaits, the unwary to snare.
And the road climbs up, and the road slides down,
Over rocks and through valleys gray,
But my mother set me upon the path
With a map to guide my way.

Life is an acrobat’s balancing act
On a narrow, raveling rope,
In a gusty wind, with slippery shoes,
And a tattered net for hope.
And the rope sways left, and the rope sways right,
And the watchers hoot and call,
But my mother’s waiting with open arms
To catch me if I fall.

Though the sea is wide, and the road is long,
And the dancing tightrope sways,
Still I carry inside my mother’s song,
That will last me all my days.

Janice Lewis Clark, 2001

This is my most requested, and a favorite for baby showers:

Motherhood

Smiles and dimples, sweet delights;
Diapers, teething, sleepless nights.

Creeping, crawling, growing strong;
Into everything ere long.

Toddling, tripping down the halls;
Crayon murals on the walls.

“Mama”, “Papa”, happy laughter;
“No”, “I hate you” follows after.

Bedtime stories, magic rings;
Skinned-up knees from slides and swings.

Halfway grown and off to school;
Teacher’s smart but Mom’s a fool.

Race through lessons, out the doors;
Messy room and half-done chores.

Plans and day-dreams, fits and starts;
Broken bones and broken hearts.

Hitch your wagon to a star;
Need new clothes, some cash, the car.

Graduation, running wild;
All grown up but still a child.

Taste a bit of life and then,
Funny thing, Mom’s smart again.

It’s a calling like no other;
What a joy to be a mother!

Janice Lewis Clark 1996

One more for now, another popular one:

Laundry Musings

Little boys' pockets, full of odd things:
Bubble gum wrappers and butterfly wings
Nails, screws, and washers, a Crackerjack ring,
Pencils and pebbles and pieces of string.

The whole world is changing, each day something new
Cell phones and faxes and microwave stew,
Video movies and games on the set;
Grandma sends e-mail and cruises the net.

Satellites orbit, the shuttle's routine.
Holograms shimmer from each magazine.
Lasers for surgery, robot-built cars,
Telecommuting and photos from mars.

Washers and dryers grow more automatic;
Glass fiber lines give us phones with less static.
Life is confusing, amusing but strange.
Isn't it grand that some things never change.

Little boys' pockets, full of odd things:
Bubble gum wrappers and butterfly wings
Nails, screws, and washers, a Crackerjack ring,
Pencils and pebbles and pieces of string.

Janice Lewis Clark 1998

Enough for now. It's time to tend to other chores. I finally finished my latest review for The Fix, an anthology called The Return of the Sword. I also finished tweaking the manuscript for The Door in the Sky, which is the sequel to The Mountains of the Moon for the Hall of Doors series. Now I need to write a couple of critiques for Critters and then get back to book three for the series. Maybe I'll steal a few moments to get out and enjoy the rare sunshine.

Technology is amazing

2008-05-03T18:25:00.000-07:00

Back in the early 70s, I was learning to program with a computer language called RPG2, I think. It's probably a dead language now. We used it to write programs for a computer that ran on punched cards and probably had less computing capacity than most calculators today.

I had been hired by a steel mill as a keypuncher--equivalent to a data entry clerk. I hated keypunching, but it was a skill I'd picked up, and I was desperate for a job. Running the computer and writing little programs for my friend in the bookkeeping department was fun. Then we had a management shift, and I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to do any programming, not to so much as discuss programming with anyone, even after hours, and was to sit at that keypunch eight hours a day like a good little robot. So I shifted positions as soon as I could, and wound up being a reinforcing steel detailer for about thirty years. I had a couple of other opportunities over the years to get back into working with computers, but there was always a good reason to do something else. I did finally have to learn CAD (computer assisted drafting) but never got back to programming.

So I'm not a total Luddite, but not a techie either. PCs and the Internet just blow me away. I've been a science fiction fan most of my life, but the modern computers available to the average person can do things I never even dreamed of in my younger years.

Now I find myself having an almost-daily slow-moving conversation with my oldest son's fiance in China, via email. I've already met her face-to-face on Skype, but the time difference is an issue. I can exchange pictures with my daughter in Alaska, participate in a couple of international writing workshops, and even keep in touch with an eighty-year-old cousin without waiting on the post office. I can research almost any subject (keeping in mind that some sources are unreliable). I can send manuscripts to my publisher instantly via email (but I still have to wait forever for a response) or print out labels with postage to send packages by "snail mail." I can put together professional-looking little books for my grandchildren.

Of course, the techno-savvy do far more than I do, but I don't expect to catch up with my grandkids, for instance. You can teach an old dog new tricks, but the learning curve's a bit longer, and I'm content with my level of participation in the information age. My current project is to persuade my youngest son to become a computer repairman, so he can keep my computer in good shape:-)

If winter comes...

2008-04-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

...can spring be far behind? Oh yes, definitely. I remind myself that Western Washington is blessed with a mild climate, that we are so much better off weatherwise than many people, including my daughter in Fairbanks, Alaska. But still, here we are half-way through April, and they're predicting snow this weekend. Many local people have warned me not to plant before May 1, and I'm happy I took their advice.

Oh, there are plenty of signs of spring. The trees are blossoming and putting out new leaves, and the daffodils and hyacinths in my front yard seem to perk up again after each frost. And of course the neighborhood deer are out nibbling everything in sight.

Speaking of deer, we've decided that the only way to protect the garden and our baby fruit trees is with eight foot fences. We found they jump six feet easily, when there are tasty green beans or baby apples on the other side. Son Jon is adding poles and stringing wire to get our protection high enough. Maybe we'll get to eat a few apples and cherries this year.

The soil here is rocky, mostly glacial gravel, so not conducive to growing root vegetables. Oddly enough, the ubiquitous moles plow through it with impunity. The plan to solve both problems is to make raised beds--big wooden boxes with chicken wire on the bottoms. We're setting the boxes in the orchard, between the trees. I have a pretty good pile of compost going, and will fill in with purchased topsoil. It seems a lot of time and money to invest for a few vegetables, but I'm hoping that once the system is in place, it can be easily maintained.

I'm already dreaming of crisp cucumbers and vine-ripened tomatoes.

Second Graders are terrific people.

2008-04-15T16:20:00.000-07:00

What an ego trip!! I made my first classroom visit last Thursday, April 10. The kids treated me like visiting royalty, and didn't seem to want me to leave. In fact, I spent so much time in the first classroom that I had to re-schedule the second visit I had planned for that day. After visiting a second classroom Monday and a third today, I can conclude that the teachers in the Rochester (WA) Primary School are doing a great job. The children were polite and attentive, asked intelligent questions, and were in general a delight to talk to.

These children are already learning the basics of writing a story or other composition, as well as becoming critical readers. They're full of ideas and enthusiasm. I can only hope that their great beginning will continue through their school years.

Do it scared

2008-04-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

As you know, if you've visited my web page at www.janiceclark.net, I'm an author currently working on a children's chapter book series, The Hall of Doors. The books are about a little girl (Sammy) who follows her cat (BB, for Princess Buttermilk Biscuit) up a moonbeam to a magical world. Book one, The Mountains of the Moon, is in print, and book two, The Door in the Sky, will go to the publisher shortly.

I have a wonderful online critiquing group called Critters (www.critique.org) that provides me with lots of feedback on a work in progress, but from an adult viewpoint. Wanting to get a child's-eye-view as well, I enlisted the aid of a local school. So today, I get to play "visiting author" in a couple of second grade classrooms. That might not seem like a big deal to some people, but for a shy, reclusive introvert the whole process has been fraught with anxiety. I only managed to set it up by taking the advice of my character, Sammy. When you decide something needs to be done, don't sit around thinking about it, just do it, and do it scared if you have to.

Maybe it will help if I think of it as just a practice run. I'll let you know how it turns out.

An oldie but goody?

2008-04-08T09:44:00.000-07:00

When I set up my personal web page, with much help from daughter-in-law Patty, I intended to start blogging regularly. Needless to say, life got in the way. Besides, I didn't like the way the blog pushed my Amazon hot buttons out of sight on the page. No doubt that's an easy thing to fix, for those who know what they're doing (a category which definitely does not include me), but I decided to simply move that entry to this site instead. So here is my dissertation on sand tables, dish gardens, and other points of possible interest, originally posted Friday, September 7, 2007 at www.janiceclark.net.

Fun stuff for kids, or grownups who still are kids inside

The evolution of dish gardens--Art project, therapeutic play, spiritual aid, or maybe all three…

Nearly six decades ago, my mom brought home a sand table the church didn’t need any more. It rapidly became a magnet for all the kids in the neighborhood. We subdivided it into individual ‘building lots’ with the understanding that we each kept within our own boundaries, unless invited by a neighbor to share a project. We spent many happy hours building our own private worlds, adding accessories such as rocks, twigs, leaves and flowers. Some built raceways for tiny cars; others made mountain or beach scenes or planted fantasy gardens. It was day-dreaming made visual.

Some years past that time, an artistic aunt showed me a miniature ‘bonsai’ tree she had made. She embedded a piece of twisty manzanita in plaster in a little Japanese bowl, sprinkled the plaster with rock salt to simulate gravel, and glued tufts of plastic pine needles to the branch tips. I wanted to make one of my own, and even went so far as to accumulate the materials, but never followed through.

In many years of teaching Sunday School off and on, I had worked up several simple craft projects that would adjust to almost any age group. One, sometimes used for such occasions as Mother’s Day, usually consisted of a bouquet of artificial flowers planted in playdough in a small container, such as a detergent bottle cap. When my daughter joined Girl Scouts and I was asked to lead a craft project, I combined all of the above and we made dish gardens. I furnished containers (mostly margarine tubs), lots of home-made playdough, and an assortment of materials: twigs, rocks, shells, buttons, bottle caps, plastic flowers and greenery, fir and alder cones, aluminum foil, and other odds and ends. I explained the basic concept: choose what you want from the materials provided and make a miniature version of some special place, real or imagined. Then I stood back and left them to their own imaginations. The results were varied and delightful.

One little girl made the heart-breaking pronouncement, “I’m not creative.”

Had her home life or school already stifled her natural creativity at so early an age? I told her, “Of course you’re creative. Maybe you just haven’t been allowed to make a mess. It’s okay if we make a mess here, because we’ll clean it up afterwards. Now just imagine you’re really tiny, and this dish is part of your world. How would you like it to look? It can be anything you want.”

When she proudly showed me her beautiful little garden, complete with a small pebble path and flower beds, I felt like I’d struck a blow for humanity. Not creative indeed!! What sort of dead-from-the-neck-up stodgy adult would tell a child such nonsense?

A few years ago, my friend Anita asked me to substitute in her Sunday School class. I explained to her that I had mostly worked with mixed-age classes, and found the best teaching technique for me was to get their hands busy and then sneak in the lesson. She was okay with that, so we made dish gardens, but with a spiritual twist. We talked about prayer and meditation, and I asked the kids to think of a place where they felt safe and happy, somewhere they could feel closer to God. I told them that when they had problems, when they were having a bad day, they could make things better by closing their eyes, imagining that special place, and pretending they were there for the moment, like a mini-vacation. While they were there, they could talk to God about whatever was bothering them, and He would listen. They could also tell Him “Thank you” for all the good things in their lives.

Special places and memories varied from a fishing trip with Dad to a spot at the beach to their own back yard—or the yard they wished to have. Even the youngest seemed to understand the concept of making a visual representation to help them “be there.” Kids have a special knack for entering into imaginative play. Working along with them, I made an image of a spot at Double K Ranch where I had gone on a women’s retreat, and told them what a special time that had been for me. They all shared their stories as well

Just recently, Anita asked me to do dish gardens again, but with the women’s group she leads. They had just as much fun as the kids, and the ‘play’ atmosphere helped them to open up and share their stories. I showed them the little garden I had made with the kids, which had been to California and back with me, and had helped anchor me as I dealt with my mother’s Alzheimer’s and all the challenges of being so far from my children and grandchildren. One lady made a representation of her baptism in the Jordan River, which was obviously a deep emotional experience for her. She said later that explaining the image to her husband had also helped her communicate her feelings to him.

All that from a little playdough and odds and ends. Try it.

The time has come, the walrus said...

2008-04-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

...to talk of many things, such as why am I blogging and why did choose the dragon title? Tea With the Black Dragon is actually the title of a book by R.A. MacAvoy, featuring a Chinese dragon who takes on human form. I've always been intrigued by dragons, and like the thought of being able to chat with one. I intend this blog to be a collection of my thoughts and experiences, such as one might share over tea with a friend. On the other hand, I do have ulterior motives, such as hopefully promoting my writing.

I had intended to start a blog on the web page my daughter-in-law created for me, but everyone tells me this is the place to be seen, so here I am. Now if I can just get myself motivated enough to keep it up...