Excerpt from motherdaughterbookclub.com/ December 1, 2011
by Nancy S. Kyme
My mother died eleven years ago and I still miss her. After I had reached my twenties, Mom had become my best friend although five states and hundreds of miles separated us. I could always pick up the phone and receive her guidance and wisdom. My daughter had been fifteen at the time of her death, on the verge of those turbulent teenage years. She grieved for her Gramsy, but she couldn’t really understand the level of my sorrow. She was entrenched in the self-absorbed years, just as I had been at her age, when it took all my focus and energy to keep up with a popular crowd while trying not to compromise my values through a land mine of peer pressure.
For many, many months after Mom had passed, I would pick up the phone to call her, to share my pain and sorrow of her passing, or the latest trial of parenting, only to set it down again, knowing she would never again be on the other end. How keenly I had felt the paradox of recovery; the one person who could lift me from the suffering was the reason for it. Somewhere along the way, I had begun to hear my mom without the telephone. As my daughter’s high-school years wound down, I would hear Mom say, “You have to let her go. No more hovering about, arms wide-open, issuing gentle warnings and ultimatums.” When it came time to send her off to college in another state, I would hear Mom say, “Put on a smile, though you least feel like it, and send her off with encouraging words and a prayer for success.”
During those turbulent teenage years, I had hoped the kind, compassionate adult I had glimpsed at times within my daughter would return to stay and we would be the best of friends, as I had been with my mother. Now she is twenty-six and I marvel at the beauty of my mom’s wisdom and the power of prayer. I recently traveled overseas, beyond the range of emails and cell phones. My daughter was experiencing life as a newlywed, in a strange state, with a new job, and desperately needed to talk. Unable to reach me, she began to envision a world without Mom. Inexplicable pangs of worry assaulted me across the miles, and I sensed an overpowering need to phone her immediately upon my return. Full of tears, she said, “Mom, now I know how you felt when Gramsy died! It must have been awful to think you could never talk to her again!”
An entire country now separates us, but my daughter frequently picks up the phone to call me. I hear laughter and tears on the other end, the budding wisdom of a future mother, and I hear my own mother, speaking through me saying, “It will be all right, this too shall pass.”
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Nancy S. Kyme is the author of a novel-memoir, "Memory Lake: The
Forever Friendships of Summer", Vantage Point Books, winner in the
Inspirational category of the 2012 Next Generation Indie Book
Awards. Kyme is also a military wife, the mother of two grown children,
and for the past twenty years she has been CFO of a small corporation
in Northern Virginia.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Don't Miss "How to Market Your Book"
“How to Market Your Book”
A panel discussion with local members of Write by the Rails
Saturday, September 8
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Trinity Episcopal Church
9325 West Street, Manassas
Panelists
Carol Covin, Who Gets to Name Grandma
Nancy Kyme, Memory Lake
Tee Morris, Phoenix Rising, Morevi and The Case of the Singing Sword
Ross Murphy, You Will Never Dance Alone, Dancing with the Devil
Dan Verner, Biscuit City blogger, master of ceremonies
Leigh Giza, Found and Lost, workshop coordinator
First in a Series of Writing and Publishing Workshops
For more information:
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Notes from the July 23, 2012 Write by the Rails Meeting
Present: Cindy
Brookshire, Chip Deyerle, Leigh Giza, Linda Johnston, Marv Josaitis,
Nancy Kyme, Sheila Lamb, Barbara Peacock, Yvette Soliz (new!), Dan
Verner
By-Laws: Chip Deyerle drafted a constitution and bylaws; they are attached to this e-mail. Anyone is welcome to look them over and make changes or suggestions and direct them to Chip.
Survey for Members: Claudia
LeFeve is willing to do a survey of members so we can use your input to
plan our direction. If you have a question you think should be on the
survey, contact Claudia.
Possibility of Becoming Prince William Chapter of Virginia Writers Club: Local
writers are encouraged to check out the Northern Virginia Chapter of
the Virginia Writers Club, which meets Saturday, July 28 from 1 to 3 pm
at the Herndon Fortnightly Library, 768 Center St, Herndon,
703-437-8855. The speaker is Richard Krevolin, who has taught screenwriting classes at the USC School of Cinema/TV as well as UCLA Film School, Ithaca and Pepperdine.
The Virginia Writers Club is hosting “Navigating Your Writing Life 2012” on Saturday, Aug. 4 from 9:30 am to 4 pm at The
Dickinson Fine and Performing Arts Center, Piedmont Virginia Community
College, 501 College Drive, Charlottesville, VA. Featuring Charles J.
Shields, New York Times Bestselling Author of And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life and Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Cost is $85 and deadline to register is July 30. Details at www.virginiawritersclub.org.
Anthology: The
anthology is on track with a deadline of submissions of August 31.
Cindy Brookshire has set up a bank account. Any deposits must be made
out to Cindy Brookshire with Write by the Rails in the memo line. Bank
will NOT accept deposits made out to Write by the Rails.
Marketing Workshop: This is how the marketing workshop is shaping up:
“How to Market Your Book”
A panel discussion with local members of Write by the Rails
Saturday, September 8
12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Carol Covin, Who Gets to Name Grandma
Nancy Kyme, Memory Lake
Ross Murphy, You Will Never Dance Alone, Dancing with the Devil
Dan Verner, Biscuit City blogger, master of ceremonies
Leigh Giza, Found and Lost, workshop coordinator
First in a Series of Writing and Publishing Workshops
Library
conference room is being used by another group at 2 pm. So we need to
wrap up at 1:45 pm. Tentative format: 30 minutes for intros and each
panelist’s key points. Remaining 45 minutes is Q& A. MC will
facilitate to keep conversation going. Lisa & Dan will work with
panelists by e-mail. Panelists are encouraged to create their own handouts – marketing tips or any other great take-away.
Winery at La Grange’s 2nd Annual Fall Arts &Crafts Festival:
This is still on for Saturday, October 13. No fee to participate. Write
by the Rails will have a presence there. Contact Nancy Kyme at nskyme@gmail.com.
NEXT MEETING: Monday, July 30 at Cindy Brookshire’s house, 8908 Fort Drive, Manassas.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Advice for Writers--Better by Half
by WbtR Member Dan Verner
Sometimes, revision means discarding a particular word that doesn't "ring" and finding one that does. Other times it might mean going through and looking for passive voice. Or the same words used in close proximity to each other. I wrote something recently and used the word "personal" three times within two sentences. Sometimes I can substitute a synonym. Sometimes I have to reconstruct the sentence(s). All these things come about when I am throwing down a first draft. Just get it down and fix it later.
For this post, I want to consider cutting parts of writing. I know, none of us wants to discard a single precious word that flows from the ends of our fingers (or however else you might produce writing--I don't want to limit anyone here). Most of the time, though, making something shorter makes it better.
I have had the good fortune to write a column for two local papers in the past four years, and typically, those columns run to about 750 words. I can write more, but I don't want to irritate my editor by forcing her to rework a piece to make it shorter. That's my job. You probably recall the inverted triangle (pyramid) structure of a news story. Important stuff in the lead paragraph (but punch it up!), other stuff in order of decreasing importance. That's so if the poor long-suffering editors needs to cut your deathless prose, they can lop it off at the end with little lost. Columns, not so much since the last sentence where I put wisdom of the ages (or a really weak pun, whatever).
So, I had a story I had written a few years ago and had never published. Yes, I sometimes write things for the fun of writing them. I know that's an odd practice. This wonderful story ran to 1500 words, and I needed to cut it down to 750 for the column.
My practice is first to go through and eliminate paragraphs that can depart. There are usually two or three.
Next, I see if I can cut out some of the dialogue. I like to use dialogue because it speaks to me (there's your weak pun!).
Then, I chop out sentences that would enjoy a respite.
And finally, we get down to it when I cut out words that aren't necessary.
That's how I cut the story in half. Actually, it took longer to edit the column down to size than it would have to write a fresh one. But I liked the approach and message of a piece and it's worth taking the time to make it right and to make it shorter.
And that's the long and short of it.
Sometimes, revision means discarding a particular word that doesn't "ring" and finding one that does. Other times it might mean going through and looking for passive voice. Or the same words used in close proximity to each other. I wrote something recently and used the word "personal" three times within two sentences. Sometimes I can substitute a synonym. Sometimes I have to reconstruct the sentence(s). All these things come about when I am throwing down a first draft. Just get it down and fix it later.
For this post, I want to consider cutting parts of writing. I know, none of us wants to discard a single precious word that flows from the ends of our fingers (or however else you might produce writing--I don't want to limit anyone here). Most of the time, though, making something shorter makes it better.
I have had the good fortune to write a column for two local papers in the past four years, and typically, those columns run to about 750 words. I can write more, but I don't want to irritate my editor by forcing her to rework a piece to make it shorter. That's my job. You probably recall the inverted triangle (pyramid) structure of a news story. Important stuff in the lead paragraph (but punch it up!), other stuff in order of decreasing importance. That's so if the poor long-suffering editors needs to cut your deathless prose, they can lop it off at the end with little lost. Columns, not so much since the last sentence where I put wisdom of the ages (or a really weak pun, whatever).
So, I had a story I had written a few years ago and had never published. Yes, I sometimes write things for the fun of writing them. I know that's an odd practice. This wonderful story ran to 1500 words, and I needed to cut it down to 750 for the column.
My practice is first to go through and eliminate paragraphs that can depart. There are usually two or three.
Next, I see if I can cut out some of the dialogue. I like to use dialogue because it speaks to me (there's your weak pun!).
Then, I chop out sentences that would enjoy a respite.
And finally, we get down to it when I cut out words that aren't necessary.
That's how I cut the story in half. Actually, it took longer to edit the column down to size than it would have to write a fresh one. But I liked the approach and message of a piece and it's worth taking the time to make it right and to make it shorter.
And that's the long and short of it.
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