I’ve been helping my mom find a new house for the last few weeks, and it’s been an eye-opening experience. Where my mother goes from room to room finding something wrong with every place she looks at, I look around and catalogue what I could live with, what could be fixed, and what is ‘right out’. The funny thing is, both of us have valid points! As a writer, I have to recognize when to go with ‘good enough’ and when not to.

‘Good enough’ is important when I’m getting the first draft of a scene down. The amount of detailed description, the flow of action, the rhythm of the dialogue may not be exactly what I want, but it’s good enough to show character motivations and conflict. There’s enough background information. I know when the scene is finished what needs to happen next. As I am blessed (or cursed) with a detail-oriented brain, it goes against my nature to leave a scene in its rough form, but sometimes I have to just so that I can keep moving forward.

I have learned to appreciate ‘good enough’ in day to day life as well. It’s liberating to look around, say “This is nice!” and not obsess over every aching detail. ‘Good enough’ allows me to prioritize the big picture. The patio set that almost but doesn’t quite match the trim on the house, but it’s on sale? Good enough for me. The small gradation in color won’t keep me up nights and I’d rather have the cash. The dress fits correctly and flatters my figure and coloring? I’ll take it and be on my merry way, instead of going through racks again and again looking for a better price or the absolutely perfect dress. (By the time I hit the dressing room, I’ll have gone through the sale racks already, lol.) I’ll take extra care shopping for my mother of the bride dress, but I know I’ll find something I’ll like. ‘Good enough’ gives me a lot of options.

I don’t look for the perfect anything, to be honest, except for shoes. I have a small foot and it’s hard to find shoes that fit right. Finding cute shoes that fit right is even harder. I can buy them online, but sometimes sizes don’t match up or the color is off. I hate bad shoes because I’ve had to settle for so many pairs of them over the years.

Footwear aside, I learned a few decades ago that ‘perfect’ is my enemy. Perfection belongs to the Divine; us humans aren’t going to measure up. I’ve known a few perfectionists in my time, and all of them were terribly unhappy people. They expected the perfect mate, the perfect body, the perfect job — and doomed themselves because no human or place is ever perfect. No one gets every single thing they want all the time! Perfectionists make everyone around them pretty miserable too, since their friends and family have to listen to their complaints.

This is not to say we shouldn’t try our best! When I revisit those first draft scenes, there are plenty of things to fix. On the second pass, and the third or fourth, the thesaurus and dictionary come out, so I can find the exact words needed. I close my eyes to visualize precisely what I want the reader to see or feel. I pull out research notes to check historical details. Then I show it to my critique partners so they can identify weaknesses I missed. The ability to write is a gift, and readers who pay good money for my work deserve the best I can give. My best writing shows my true voice, for better or worse. It won’t be perfect, but it will be MY best.

And as for Mom? She’s just looking for her best, too. After all, she’ll have to live with her decision for years. Nobody wants a house that makes them cringe every time they walk into it. Where I can make allowances for small issues, she wants to find something affordable, where she’ll feel secure and comfortable, with room for her furniture and pictures and knickknacks. Once she finds the house that is her best option, she’ll stop fussing and settle in. It won’t be perfect, but will be her best choice.

What are the things you can shrug off and say ‘good enough’ to? What do you really need to be as good as humanly possible? What do you love to do your best at?

Remember, all comments that aren’t from Moonlighters go into the drawing for April’s gift card!

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight.

For the end of Being and ideal Grace…”   — Elizabeth Barrett Browning

An appropriate start to a post on a romance writers’ blog, right? Not only do those lines begin one of the most famous love poems in the English language, its author lived quite a romance with her husband, fellow poet Robert Browning.

Today, however, I’m not so much interested in their romance than in their preferred form of writing. April is National Poetry Month, and while I am not a poet – not unless dirty limericks count – I believe that all writers and readers can do with a bit of poetry in their lives.

I know, I know – for most of us, poetry was that dreaded unit of English class where the teacher would throw a sonnet or two at you and talk about iambic pentameter. (Huh? I didn’t find out until I studied drama that Shakespeare customarily wrote his plays in that meter because it is the one most natural to spoken English. Writing is hard enough when you don’t have to make the lines match up!!) If you were lucky, they’d throw in some free verse by e.e. cummings or maybe Lawrence Ferlinghetti. And then you’d be done and wouldn’t have to think about boring-ass poetry till next year’s unit.

Then I went to college and studied The Iliad and The Odyssey under a wonderful professor, Gregory Carlson, S.J., who loved classic literature so much he made his students love it too. Those are two of the oldest poems in Western literature, developed orally over centuries before they were written down.  They speak of love, war, friendship, rivalry, cruelty, devotion, fear, courage, humor, fidelity and betrayal – the gamut of human behavior, good and bad. After that, I looked at poetry differently.

Consider this definition of poetry from www.merriam-webster.com: “writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience, in language chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm.” A basic grasp of poetry benefits writers because it helps our awareness not only of precise word choice, but also of rhythm, metaphor, and sentence structure. As a reader, there are few things more pleasurable than finding a verse or phrase that sings through your soul.

So while I sincerely wish everyone who celebrates them a blessed Passover and blessed Easter, I also wish you a happy National Poetry Month. I ask all of you to do just one of the following things in April:

1. Read a new poem or reread one you already like.
2. Read a poem you like aloud. Remember The Iliad and The Odyssey?
3. Post a poem or excerpt of one on your blog for Facebook page. Remember to include the author’s name!

And I tell you what! Anyone who leaves a comment on today’s post that includes at least two lines of a published poem, along with the poet’s name, will be entered into a drawing for a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, (ebook or hard copy, winner’s choice) which includes the entire poem excerpted above. I’ll announce the winner on April 1^st.

I’m closing with a more modern take on love, from Gregory Corso’s ‘Marriage’. I have to love any poem that includes the phrase ‘penguin dust’.

“God what a husband I’d make! Yes, I should get married!
So much to do! like sneaking into Mr Jones’ house late at night
and cover his golf clubs with 1920 Norwegian books
Like hanging a picture of Rimbaud on the lawnmower
like pasting Tannu Tuva postage stamps all over the picket fence
like when Mrs Kindhead comes to collect for the Community Chest
grab her and tell her There are unfavorable omens in the sky!
And when the mayor comes to get my vote tell him
When are you going to stop people killing whales!
And when the milkman comes leave him a note in the bottle
Penguin dust, bring me penguin dust, I want penguin dust—”

Who are some of your favorite poets? Here’s a great link to explore: www.famouspoetsandpoems.com

Till next month,

Ann

Ritual. The word conjures up wildly different images. It can refer to the regulated church services of liturgical churches like mine, or bloodthirsty scenes of sacrifice. Do an online search and you can find rituals to attract love, or to sell your house, or even to attract aliens. Often dismissed as superstition, ritual nevertheless keeps a hold on the human mind.

This isn’t the same as habit. Habit is an automatic series of actions that doesn’t require thought between steps. It’s value is that it enables us to do useful and necessary things quickly, without stopping. Nurses and EMTs train and re-train to use lifesaving techniques and equipment automatically so that their minds are free to analyze emergencies and think ahead. They cannot afford to pause between steps. Habit is what gets me in front of the keyboard to write.

Rituals always have a symbolic meaning, a way to remind participants and observers that of what they have in common. We tend to think of them as being public or collective events: marriage ceremonies, singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ before a baseball game, the swearing in of an official.

But ritual can also be intensely private. There, its value is in mindfulness, the quality of focusing the brain on task at hand. I read of one woman who likes to light a candle when she gets home from work. It lets her switch gears from the day she’s had, good or bad, to the evening ahead, with its duties and (hopefully) pleasures. The candle doesn’t make her day better or worse, it simply reminds her to focus on what’s next. I’d like to try that, except my version would probably involve picking the candle up off the floor before lighting it because the cat knocked it down.

One of my personal rituals is to take a few minutes after the alarm goes off and before I get out of bed to visualize my day. Not in detail, or I’d never get up! But I think about where I’m supposed to be and when, what needs to get done, what REALLY needs to get done. This will not prevent interruptions or other events from sidetracking me on occasion. But for me it is easier to face even bad days after doing this. Another is rewarding myself for meeting or exceeding word counts. I keep track of them in a desk calendar (habit) but when I meet my goal, I put a silver star by that day’s entry. Gold stars are for when I exceed my goal. It’s not a big action, but it symbolizes an accomplishment that I value.

Psychologically, rituals can provide humans with the comfort of knowing what comes next. Our ancestors developed rituals to give a sense of control in an unpredictable world, and ten thousand years later, we still use them for the same reason. Like language and personal names, ritual is what anthropologists call a ‘cultural universal’ – something every human society has.

I say ‘let the rituals begin’! We can all use comfort and more mindful moments in our lives. What do you think?

I had a wonderful opportunity to see the Ladies Short Program of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships last night. As a former skating mom, yeah, I was reminded of a few things I don’t miss: the Carpool Circle of Death getting skaters to the rink and home again, with trips to the dance studio for my long-suffering younger daughter thrown in. Long evenings at the rink while my skater practiced on and off the ice. Club politics so hideous that the recent fiscal cliff disputes in Congress look like friendly poker games in comparison.

My experiences, and those of my former skater, are common in the sport. To the untrained eye, Ashley Wagner, Agnes Zawadzki and Mirai Nagasu appear to be sweet young things who look pretty as they glide across the ice in their sparkly dresses. That’s not an entirely misleading image, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. Don’t kid yourself. To make the climb to the top of Senior Ladies, a young woman needs discipline and determination, along with a large helping of grit and the mental toughness of a Marine.

I’m  not down on the sport, but I’d be lying if I said it was all easy or fun. I’ve sat in rinks from Philadelphia to Dallas watching my daughter compete. I’ve celebrated birthdays at skating competitions and fretted over coaching bills, ice costs and the realization that she’s outgrown both her boots and her blades. My husband got up for years before dawn to take her to the day’s first practice. (As a coach, my daughter still does.) My daughter practiced on holidays and took as much extra time as we could afford during school breaks, all while keeping her grades up. She had to put in that much effort because in the United States, ladies singles is the most competitive of all the disciplines of figure skating, simply because of the sheer numbers involved.

Hundreds of Juvenile Girls compete in the nine regional competitions every year. I did the math once. Those girls have a better chance of being struck my lightening than they do of stepping onto the podium as a Senior at the U.S. Championships. By the time she reaches the Senior level of the sport, a girl will drag herself onto the ice when she’s tired or sick, and sometimes when she’s injured. She’ll have experienced more than the average share of rejection over her competitive career, as judges downgrade jumps and spins she’s worked on for months and years. Or she’ll puzzle over how an identical jump or combination spin can magically gain two levels within 24 hours. Those are the bad days.

Hopefully Ashley, Agnes, Mirai and their fellow competitors have many good days to cherish. My daughter has said more than once that when she competed, skating brought her peace and joy. She was lucky, or her dad and I did something right – she hung up her skates on her own terms and left competition for coaching with few regrets.

All of the young women you’ll see if you tune into the US Figure Skating Championships on television have struck their own balance between the sport and the rest of life. I hope they have families who love and support them whether they win or lose. They probably do – the result of a family who insists that their skater wins every competition is a broken girl. I hope they are eating right and getting enough sleep. I hope they have friends who don’t care whether they land their triples this weekend or not. I hope they have friends among their competitors, because no one else understands in their bones the toll the sport can take on bodies and psyches. Most of all, I hope they value themselves and their accomplishments on and off the ice.

They are all heroines, with grace, guts, physical strength, perseverance and fortitude — qualities that will carry them far in life long after they step off the ice for the last time.

PS: All the ladies in this year’s championship are a credit to their sport, but I’ve watched Agnes Zawadzki skate since she was a Novice Lady. I’ve only ever seen her demonstrate good sportsmanship as well as outstanding programs, so I’ll admit to having a slight bias in her favor. Go Agnes!

What female athletes do you cheer for? Why do you like them?

Mary Preston! Mary, you get the pashima I’m giving away — contact me at AnnStephensRomance@gmail.com so that I can mail it to you!

Happy New Year!

The cold tail of December is upon us. That’s what I call that last week of the year between Christmas and the New Year. Christmas 2012 is a memory, 2013 is a future fraught with fiscal cliffs and the aftermath of two major snowstorms and some of the most horrendous news stories of the year. A lot of us feel like we’re digging out or hunkering down, physically and mentally.

Although shutting down emotionally may be a successful short-term coping mechanism, in the long run it doesn’t do us or our loved ones any good. One of the reasons I write romance is because I believe in the power of love. It may not pay the bills, but love gives us hope and strength, comforts us and keeps our hearts warm in an often cold and scary world.

Honest love doesn’t blind us to another person’s faults. We do ourselves a disservice when we lie to ourselves in the name of romance. Love enables us to see another person’s faults clearly, but helps us cherish them anyway — just as we hope to be cared for despite our own flaws.

Each of us has our own set of strengths and weaknesses. The things we love are a key to why we are here. Our passions can direct us to do a lot of collective good in the world. For me, writing is a gift, but it requires me to honor it by committing to improve it and work with it for hours each day. Writing is a way for me to help myself, my family and readers. It’s my way of throwing a little warmth into the world.

In 2013, I’d like to make my little part of the world a bit better, and I’d like to challenge ABM readers to do the same. It can be anything. If you love the environment, can you plan to run your errands on one route to use less gas? If you’re an animal lover, can you donate old clean towels or blankets to a shelter? Even something as simple as offering to pick up groceries for a relative or neighbor, when you go for yourself, will make their lives a little easier. I love to get good deals with newspaper coupons, so in 2013, I want to do that for the benefit of my local food pantry.

In the spirit of keeping our hears warm (and looking great while doing so), I’d like to give away a black, beige and silver shawl to one commenter on this post. Leave your comment  below, up to midnight Saturday, December 29th. I’ll announce the winner Sunday night between 11 p.m. & midnight, using Random.org.

Till next time,

Ann

As a child, I always thought that ‘fall’, the alternate name for autumn, was used because it referred to the fall of leaves from trees at this time of year. Turns out I was right. Referred to as ‘harvest’ through most of the Middle Ages, the months of September, October and November became known as the ‘fall of the leaf’ around the 16^th century. This differentiated it from summer, winter and the ‘spring of the leaf’ during March, April and May.

Fall, or autumn if you prefer, is a season of transition. For most of human history, it has been a time of gathering crops from field and garden, starting with haying in late summer and continuing through pumpkins and beans at the end of the season.

September means state fairs and football, as the green disappears from leaves and vivid foliage brightens each day. The Harvest Moon harks back to the days when farmers struggled to bring in crops without the help of modern equipment, and the Hunters Moon recalls the time when putting meat on the table required days and nights of tracking animals for food.

By November, the trees that were garbed in gold and scarlet a month before stand with their bare branches raised to gray skies as if in supplication. Small wonder that the Celtic holiday of Samhain was sometimes referred to as the gateway to winter!

Late October and early November were marked in the Middle Ages by Christian holy days, developed to encourage conversions by Celts. All Hallows Eve on October 31st replaces the Celtic belief that the veil between the lands of the living and the dead thinned enough to allow passage back and forth between them for one night. Still, plenty of little goblins and witches threaten us with ‘Trick or Treat!’ every year. Fortunately, Hubby and I keep plenty of chocolate on hand to ward off danger.

Many Christian sects hold services for All Saints’ Day on November 1^st, and All Souls Day on November 2^nd. Prayers for souls of saints and deceased loved ones are offered in special services on both days or on the nearest Sunday. The end of November marks the start of Advent, the beginning of the liturgical year in some churches.

The Mexican Dia de los Muertos is celebrated at this time as well. It is very much about the lives of the deceased, as their favorite foods and beverages are brought to graves and festively dressed skeletons adorn private altars in homes. The hope is that the souls of the departed will visit and see that they are still loved and remembered.

Whether you enjoy Halloween, Samhain, All Saints Day or the Dia de los Muertos – or all of them – the best lesson to take away from observing the ‘fall of the leaves’ is that the seasons follow a cycle of life, death and rebirth. The bare trees and brown grass are not dead, only dormant, as they sleep and gather strength for next year.

What does fall mean to you? Harvest? Preparation for Thanksgiving and Christmas? School days? The Great Pumpkin? We’d love to know!

Till next month,

Ann

Goal, Motivation & Conflict by Debra Dixon. Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. Vogler’s Writer’s Journey. Three act structure. Getting to the Midpoint and finding the Black Moment. Swain. Egri. Maas. The Chicago Manual of Style.

There are a plethora of truly excellent books and blogs for writers, on every aspect of the craft: How to free your muse. Plotting and character development. Or alternatively, how to pants better if that’s how you work. Everywhere you look, someone is offering a workshop to attend, either in person or online. I’ve signed up for a plotting workshop offered by my local Romance Writers of America chapter next January, in fact. And I keep an eye on the offerings at RWA University to see if there’s anything coming up that I can use. But at the end of the day – or at the beginning, or whenever you schedule your writing time, you have to stop reading and plotting and worrying if you have a good balance of internal and external conflict in this scene. Because none of what you learn will help you unless you write the words.

Real life has been busy, mostly in a good way, so far this year. One daughter settling into college, the other picking her wedding date… the nest may be empty, but it ain’t dull! It’s also been entirely re-carpeted and had major surgery on the trees in the front and back yards. (My advice on getting your whole house re-carpeted: Don’t. Even if you pay the installers to move your furniture, like we did, you still have to schlep most of your possessions into the basement. And then bring them back up again. Get one floor done at a time – less stuff to carry at one time. Your knees will thank you.) And I’ve had some good opportunities come my way that I didn’t expect for leading discussions and picking up income.

With all that going on, blogs and social media went on the back burner. Writing did not. I’m not a fast writer, so it’s imperative that I keep at it and produce pages. Setbacks, emergencies and opportunities alike can all distract us from focusing on what we want to accomplish. I love a good book, blog post or workshop that revs my writing engine, but that’s not enough.

If I don’t keep squeezing the words out, and focus instead on the how-to books, self-publishing blogs and workshops, I’ll be wasting my time and money. Whether it’s losing weight, remodeling, or writing, we all want to find a magic bullet to shorten the process. Unfortunately, those don’t exist. More exercise and fewer calories. Writing a first draft, then fixing it. Those are basics nobody can escape. Writing is like any other skill — you won’t get better unless you actually do it.

So are you moving forward toward your goals – whatever they may be – or feeling a bit stuck in the mud? What new things have you learned how to do (or gone back to after a long hiatus)?

Most of the time, my interest in sports is limited to NCAA football, and to a lesser degree, figure skating.  I don’t go mad in March, and when the Stanley Cup came to town several years ago, I didn’t have my picture taken with it.

But once every four years, athletes in summer and winter sports come together for the Olympics. Until August 12th, I will join billions throughout the world to watch track, swimming and gymnastics, both men’s and women’s. But what I like best about the Olympics is that the lesser-known sports will also be highlighted — the ones whose top athletes you’ve never heard of, and that you may not watch again for another four years.

While the Olympics are on, however, I will get up early to watch things like the equestrian events, rhythmic gymnastics and water polo. Mind you, I don’t ride, I could make two (at least) of the young ladies who compete in gymnastics, and I am an average swimmer. Yet there I’ll be in the wee hours of the morning, looking for live broadcasts.

Part of the attraction of the Olympics for me is that behind the monolithic stadiums and the cheering crowds are a thousand individual stories. We’ll never hear more than the tiniest sliver of them. Each is unique, and we’ll be reminded again that some of the athletes walking into tonight’s Opening Ceremonies have had to travel more than physical distance to get there.

Some have come to London from war zones. Some have battled poverty, prejudice, or both to find a way to train. Seeing someone attain a major goal inspires all of us. In spite of cynicism about commercialism, nationalism, and IOC politics, the Olympics are still A Very Big Deal. Athletes will compete through mental blocks and physical injury because they won’t be stopped from achieving the dream of competing in this unique world arena.

And I will be getting up at 3 a.m. to cheer them on.

Ann

What are your favorite Olympic events or stories? There are plenty to choose from, aren’t there!

Springtime for parents of school-age kids, particularly those in grade school, brings thoughts of how nice it would be to have a clone. When my kids were young, April and May were months I endured rather than enjoyed. With end-of-year school concerts and field days, the last skating competition, the skating show, the dance recital, and spring activities for youth group at church, capped by a late spring birthday party to plan each year, by the time June rolled around all I wanted to do was spend two consecutive weekend days with an empty calendar.

Grade school days are long gone at our house, but this spring has a particular air of finality. Our daughters are graduating from college and high school next month, and we are performing the rituals of spring for the last time.

Yes, there will be another college graduation another year, God willing, and more than likely weddings and christenings, as the cycle begins for our girls. And I look forward to life unbounded by August to May and nine to three-thirty. But the role of Mom as my children grew up brought me more joy than not, and there is much I will miss: dinners together, and the pleasure of watching my oldest skate and my youngest dance onstage. Hilarious discussions of what would be the best way to fend off a baboon attack . (No, I’m not going to explain. You sort of had to be there.)

We can never be sure what the future holds, but I am encouraged. My daughters are ready to embrace life as college graduate and college student, respectively. I anticipate the freedom to attend conferences and maybe take an occasional road trip with my sweetie. I will always be Mom, but the role is changing. It’s sort of like stepping away from being chairman of the board and acting in an advisory capacity.

You don’t know how well you’ve raised your kids until they leave. I learned that with my oldest. As my youngest now plans to leave home and go to school several hundred miles away, I can only hope that her dad and I have done a good enough job preparing her for life outside the nest. We’re sure she’ll be okay, but there is always a worry that we missed something. In case of a real emergency, I’ve already noted which airlines can get us to her college town the fastest.

Our spring rituals will change after this year. I don’t know for certain what they will be, but renewal is the cycle of nature. Meanwhile, thanks for joining me as I reflect on a part I’ve loved playing for most of the last twenty-five years.

What are your best memories of spring? Something that happened once or a custom you enjoy every year? Let us know! Comments will be entered in the drawing for this month’s e-gift card!

Till next month,

Ann