Where Real Life and Fiction Intersect (Part 2)

It's day 2 of 7 Posts in 7 Days--and so far, so good!

Over the weekend, I got some exciting news: Finding Grace was chosen as one of three finalists in the Young Adult Fiction category for an award called the Catholic Arts & Letters Award (or CALA). I was a bit blown away by the announcement, never believing when I sent in five copies of the book to the contest reviewers that it would make it this far.  The winner will be announced at a Catholic Writers Guild conference in NJ in a couple of  weeks--and it just so happens that I have already signed up to attend the first two days of the event, having been encouraged by both my husband and an author e-friend of mine that I should bust out of my shell of shyness and fear of all things new and just do it. On Sunday, I was laughing with my oldest son about pulling a Zoolander move--you know, preparing a big acceptance speech, jumping up on stage when they announce another author's title, starting to thank everyone...and then having to slink away in shame.  (Like I would EVER let that happen!) Really, though, winning would just be gravy at this point.  Or frosting.  Take your pick.

The news did make me feel like talking about my baby, though, so I thought today I'd give you another peek into  "The Making of Finding Grace."

In the first installment of this series, I told you that like Grace, I lived right in the heart of Plattsburgh, around the corner from the college, and like Irene, my best friend lived out on the lake in Cumberland Head.  My house was an old two-story with a covered front porch (and a front porch swing!) and my best friend's was a one-story modern ranch.  But aside from where we lived and the type of homes we inhabited--and the fact that we had countless giggle-filled sleepovers--the two girls are not like us at all. Not physically or really in any other way.

The old homestead (note the swing at the porch's far right).  I stopped my car when in town recently and
snapped this, hoping the current owners wouldn't come out and think I was some sort of creepy Internet stalker.

I do share Grace's shyness and lack of confidence, and the way she feels horrified if she knows she's hurt someone's feelings or put her foot in her mouth.  And like Grace, I was not given a middle name (and neither were my two sisters), and my dad's reasons for giving them to his sons but not his daughters were exactly the same as Jack Kelly's.  That first conversation in Chapter One between Grace and Jack was inspired by several similar discussions I had with my father during my formative years.  Particularly after a nasty run-in with my 6th grade teacher, Sister Juliet, who accused me of lying when I told her "Laura Harding" was my full name. "Everyone has a middle name!" she cried angrily.  (I'd go into the gritty details for you, but the incident left a sting that lingers to this day!  I was accused of being a liar in front of all my classmates. Someday I'll get over it!)*

Finding Grace has a definite pro-life message, and so I wanted to show what the possible consequences are when people react in different ways to a teenage/unwanted pregnancy.  I don't want to give away specific details (because I would love it if you decided to read the book, and if you do, that would spoil the story for you). But recently, I was at a family reunion and one of my sisters-in-law asked me if I'd ever known anyone who had gone through the process of dealing with such situations.  The answer is NO.  Those story lines involving two characters in the book are completely fictional.  Since I'd had no personal experience in that area, I read lots of material on the subject (in publications such as Celebrate Life, American Life League's magazine, and Lay Witness).  I went on-line and read the heartbreaking reflections of women who'd actually gone through such traumas. And then I used my imagination to fill in the blanks.  I worried that because I had no close personal experience or professional expertise on the subject, it wouldn't ring true.  So if it did, I'm extremely grateful.  I prayed a lot while writing those difficult sections.

The one true-life experience that I worked into the teenage pregnancy portion of the book was inspired by something that I'd really been involved with.  When I was in high school, my lawyer godfather asked me to come to the hospital with him twice, when he'd arranged private adoptions for unwed young mothers and needed someone to help him carry the newborns from the nursery to the homes of their adoptive parents.   (Yes, I held that precious cargo in my arms as we drove away from the hospital--because this was the 70's, and infant car seats were a thing of the future.)  One of those babies was a boy with a deep cleft in his miniature chin, and if you've read the book you'll know what I'm talking about.

I also prayed a lot when I came to the part of the book dealing with Holocaust victims and survivors. Even after I knew just the story I wanted to write and I'd done lots of research to make the places and dates as accurate as possible, I had about a two-month stretch where I just couldn't sit down and do it.  I was so worried about not dealing with that sensitive material properly.  I'd become fascinated with that dark period during a history class in college and I'd read countless fictional and non-fictional works on the subject, but I still felt nervous about doing that part justice.  The only real-life inspiration I had for the Perlmanns' story was that I remembered my parents saying that a Jewish couple with whom they were friends refused to ride in German-made cars, because they'd lost so many family members in the Holocaust.  That stuck with me over the years, and it was my stepping stone; but everything else about that section is made up (although I did have one of the Perlmann twins afflicted with a club foot, which was inspired by the fact that my mother had been born with one--knowing that such an affliction would have made the girls even more attractive for use in the experiments of the evil Dr. Mengele).  It's sort of eerie that I decided to write identical twin girls into the story, though...because a few years later, long after that part of the book had been written, our oldest son and his wife welcomed identical twin daughters into the world. If I'd been writing that part after their birth, I don't know if I could have made my fictional twins girls.  They probably would have been Abe and Aaron rather than Ruth and Rachel.

So those are some of the true-to-my-own-life inspirations that I tweaked and worked into the story, underlined for your convenience.

When my sister-in-law asked me that question the other day, it made me realize that people must often assume that writers rely on their personal experiences for much of their material. So I'm going to post this meme again, just as a reminder.

So should I continue with this fact versus fiction "Making of" project?  Does this interest anyone at all? Anyone...anyone...?  (Bueller...Bueller...?)

Hey...maybe you should read the book (please oh please oh please) before you answer that question. Right? (Bueller...Bueller...?)


(*Please don't think I'm one of those nun-bashers!  Most of the Sisters who taught me in grade school and high school were lovable and saintly!)

Sundresses from the Hundred Acre Wood

Okay, this is it: day one of 7 Posts in 7 Days.  (Thanks, Jen Fulwiler, for making me get off my tush--well, actually ON it, in front of my laptop, every morning for seven days straight.) I've been having trouble with my mojo lately, so this is exactly the sort of challenge I needed to get back to my roots as a daily blogger.

If you read this blog much, you know that I have two-year-old identical twin granddaughters. You also know that I have a third little granddaughter--who as a matter of fact is exactly five months old today! (Little Gal, like your big sisters, you're growing up way too fast!)

I love to sew for my granddaughters.  I did sew for my sons--way, way back in the day, when they would still allow themselves to be seen outside the house sporting little seersucker rompers and elastic-waisted dinosaur-print shorts.  But with boys, the opportunities for sewing die out pretty fast.  Not so with girls.  My mother made my First Communion and prom dresses for me, and nothing would please me more than being able to do the same for these precious little girlies.

The twins are absolutely in love with all things Winnie-the-Pooh, so when I saw some Hundred Acre Wood-inspired cotton fabric at JoAnn's recently, I just had to buy it.  It was way more than I'm usually willing to spend, at $10 a yard; but when I brought it to the register I was surprised to find out that, although I had been willing to pay top dollar, it was 40% off that day.  (Huzzah!)  So for less than $30, I was able to eek out three adorable sundresses, with no more than a few meager scraps left over afterward.

Here's Little Gals' dress:

And I made two just like this for the twins:

I like to add iron-on tags to the garments I make for my sweetie pies (I can't find ones that say "Grammy," but these will have to do):

I also like to add decorative stitches when I can, because I have an awesome sewing machine that can do them (thanks, best husband ever):

If you like to sew and these little beauties are making you itch to stitch up some sundresses for your daughters/granddaughters/nieces, Little Gal's is New Look #A6578 ("easy," proclaims the package) and the twins' is see & sew #3889 ("Yes!  It's easy," proclaims the package...do you see a pattern here?)

(And did you see what I did there?)

My daughter-in-law told me that as soon as they opened the box I sent, the twins wanted to put the dresses right on.  And when they wore them to Mass and were asked who made them, they said, "Grammy did it." (How tickled do you think I was?)   Last night, Papa and I were able to see our darlings sporting their new dresses on Skype.

Pooh said, "Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon"; but I say nobody can be uncheered with granddaughters like these--especially when they're streaking across the computer screen--"the slowest-moving blurs ever," as one of my funny sons put it--in their matching dresses.

Cutest blurs I've ever seen.  I'm cheered every time I see them.

Happy sewing!  And have a great week!

7 Posts in 7 Days!

Writer/blogger Jen Fulwiler has thrown down the gauntlet: she's challenging bloggers to write 7 Posts in 7 Days--that means every single day, for seven days in a row, starting tomorrow.  This is one of the more interesting blog link-ups I've seen lately.  It's an epic blogging challenge, is it not?  I daresay it will be a bit of a challenge for this here blogger, who once upon a time was so on top of her blog that she had her daily musings posted right about the time the rooster started to crow, meaning her followers (all five of them!) could read them along with their first cup of coffee...but lately, sadly to say, has been playing hooky more often than not.

But that's it--no more slacking!  I mean it.  You've been warned.  (And wish me luck.)

{simple saturday}: Jeepers Creepers...

...where'd she get those peepers?

Jeepers creepers, where'd she get those eyes?

These are the eyes of one of my two-year-old twin granddaughters, Bonny Babe.  And she got them from the Author of Life, of course.  Because who else could create something so beautiful?

What's even more miraculous than the simple beauty of these "windows of the soul" is that underneath those long dark lashes and behind those sky-blue orbs, there exists a complex system that could never have come about by some random process.  If ever there was an argument for intelligent design, this might be it:

Those baby blues of hers enable her to see the world about her--and maybe most importantly [wink, wink], to recognize her Papa and Grammy when they appear on the computer screen during Skype sessions or come through the front door of her house after a months'-long absence (thank you, God, for the gift of sight!).

There is another pair of eyes in the world that is almost identical to this pair, because Bonny Babe has an identical twin sister, Cutie Pie.  By God's hand, one fertilized egg split and produced two precious human beings; they have an eerie resemblance to one another, but are definitely individuals with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, temperaments, and immortal souls.  They are far from clones.  And while their eyes look similar from the outside, these two little girls see the world through their own unique lenses.

So there it is, pure and simple--some hard proof, if you ask me, of the existence of God: the complex inner workings of the eye, and the miracle of the creation of identical twins.

That's all I've got today, but there's more over at Iris'.

The Man Rules

Men are from Mars, and women...well, you know the rest.

The men v. women debate is one that has always interested me.  I've had a lot of opportunities to try to get into the psyche of the male creature, having been surrounded by nothing but men in my house until the oldest of our five sons got married in 2009 and subsequently gave us our first daughter and then three female grandchildren.

Back in 2011, I blogged about the differences between men and women in a post called "Men Are from Mars, Women Love to Talk."  (It's a mildly amusing post, if you haven't read it before and would like to click on the link and check it out.)

Another super hilarious commentary on the differences between the hairier sex and the fairer sex is the YouTube video sensation called "It's not about the nail."  (OMGoodness, watch it if you haven't yet!  Most couples will instantly see themselves in it!  Ladies, your husbands/boyfriends might even say something like, "I can't even laugh.  It's too raw, too true"--as my sister-in-law's husband proclaimed, tongue-in-cheek, when we watched it at the recent Pearl family reunion).

Men really are from Mars, though, aren't they?  They do not have that uncanny ability we gals have to read the minds of others.  They get confused when we skip around between topics without any hint of a segue; they are usually three topics behind and stop us with, "Wait a minute--how did we get on this subject?"   They can't keep up.  I like to say they are simple creatures (and I say this in a slightly envious way, mind you, not a derogatory way--because the complexity of my over-thinking female brain is not something I always love about being a girl).

Yes, we're different.  It's how God made us, and He did so on purpose.  Men and women are equal in value as human beings, with immortal souls, created in the image and likeness of God; but equal doesn't mean exactly alike.  We don't operate the same way, and that's something we can't or shouldn't try to change--and in fact (dare I say it?) it's something that should be celebrated a lot more than it is in our modern world, where it seems there are forces trying to wipe out the very differences between the sexes that make them so complementary, so necessary to one another's physical, emotional, psychological, and intellectual well-being.

I thought I'd share with you today a list that we have laminated and hanging on the side of the bar in our man cave/sports room.  Ladies, if you can laugh at yourselves, you're going to really enjoy these "Man Rules," written by some insightful anonymous Martian.  (Note that all are equal in importance, and therefore each rule is ranked rule #1.)  I posted a few of these rules in "Men Are from Mars, Women Love Shoes" a long time ago, but here is the list in its entirety.

At last a guy has taken the time to write this all down.  Finally, the guys' side of the story.  We always hear "THE RULES" from the female side.  Now, here are the rules from the male side. These are our rules!  Please note: these are all numbered "1."  ON PURPOSE.

1. Men are NOT mind readers.

1. Learn to work the toilet seat.  You're a big girl.  If it's up, put it down.  We need it up, you need it down.  You don't hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1. Sunday sports--it's like the full moon or the changing of the tides.  Let it be.

1. Crying is blackmail.

1. Ask for what you want.  Let us be clear on this one: subtle hints do not work!  Strong hints do not work!  Obvious hints do not work!  Just say it!

1. Yes and no are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question.

1. Come to us with a problem ONLY if you want help solving it.  That's what we do.  Sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1. Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument.  In fact, all comments become null and void after 7 days.

1. If you think you're fat, you probably are.  Don't ask us.

1. If something we said can be interpreted two ways and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the OTHER ONE.

1. You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done.  Not both.  If you already know best how to do it,  just do it yourself.

1. Whenever possible, please say whatever you have to say during commercials.

1. Christopher Columbus did NOT need directions and neither do we.

1. ALL men see in only 16 colors, like Windows default settings.  Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a color.  Pumpkin is also a fruit.  We have NO idea what mauve is.

1. If it itches, it WILL be scratched.  We do that.

1. If we ask what is wrong and you say "nothing," we will act like nothing's wrong.  We know you are lying, but it is just not worth the hassle.

1. If you ask a question you don't want an answer to, expect an answer you don't want to hear.

1. When we have to go somewhere, absolutely anything you wear is fine...REALLY.

1. Don't ask us what we're thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as baseball or motor sports.

1. You have enough clothes.

1. You have too many shoes.

1. I am in shape.  ROUND is a shape!

1. Thank you for reading this.  Yes, I know, I have to sleep on the couch tonight; but did you know men really don't mind that?  It's like camping.

Well, that's all he wrote.  As my granddaughter Cutie Pie would say, "Be end."

What I'm Reading Wednesday: Father Elijah

I just stumbled across another blog link-up, and although I've been trying to break myself of the habit of relying on them to come up with something to blog about, I just love this one because it has to with one of my all-time favorite subjects: BOOKS.  It's called "What We're Reading Wednesday," and it's hosted by Jessica over at housewifespice.com.

I've recently begun to try my hand at reviewing books for CatholicFiction.net; so these days I'd much rather talk about what I read than what I wear (I think I may be out of the fashion blogging business, having modeled most of my Sunday best outfits already and feeling that that sort of thing is best left to the younger set out there in the blogosphere), and here's what I'm reading today.

I have never read anything by Michael D. O'Brien before, and 100 pages into this book I can already see that I've been missing out.  What a writer!  This author was recommended to me by Sarah Reinhard (of SnoringScholar.com), and I'm so glad he was.  His prose is perfection, and the subject matter of this book is extremely compelling.  It's not chick lit--it's just plain lit.  I'm pretty sure when I'm finished I'm going to recommend it to my husband. Click on this link to the book's page on Ignatius Press, if you'd like to get an idea of what Father Elijah is all about.  (Have you clicked on there yet?  Doesn't it sound like a great book?)

When I finish reading it, I'll let you know if it lived up to its promise of greatness. Meanwhile, I'll keep reading.  And I'll head over to Jessica's to see what everyone else is reading.

Fun at the Zoo

My husband and I just returned from our latest jaunt out to Colorado to visit with our oldest son, our daughter-in-law, and their three little girls aged two and under.

It's amazing how much being a grandmother has done to cure my lifelong fear of flying. Nowadays, my overriding fear is that I'm going to have to go too long without seeing my little sweetie pies--and if that means I have to two-leg it by airplane halfway across the country time and time again to see them, then by golly, I'm going to do it!

The last time we were out there was around Mother's Day, and already they have changed enormously.  The twins are talking non-stop, in sentences, and practically reading their little storybooks verbatim (which reminds me very much of a two-year-old boy I used to know who looked an awful lot like they do, only with a white-blond Dutch-boy bowl cut instead of the fine, honey-colored mullets of his offspring).  Little Gal is over four months old now, smiling to beat the band and trying to keep up with the conversational skills of her big sisters in her own inimitable way.

Papa and I took a trip to the zoo with our three girlies and their mommy on Friday, and I got some great shots of them making friends with the giraffes.  They were thrilled to pet them and feed them lettuce and crackers. Unfortunately, the giraffes were the first animals on the tour, and pretty much everything else the twins saw afterward paled in comparison.  (I mean, the elephants were awesome and all, but unlike the giraffes, they weren't close enough to touch.)

Cutie Pie (in yellow)

Bonny Babe (in pink)

"Oh, hi!"

As if the giraffe exhibit wasn't enough excitement for two pint-sized animal enthusiasts, Bonny Babe and Cutie Pie also got to go for a train ride.  (That's them in the back of the caboose, wearing the matching pink sun hats Papa and Grammy couldn't resist buying them at the zoo souvenir shop.)

My hubby assured me that our little darlings would be fine, but I was a bit of a wreck inside as we helped them into the seats and then watched the ride operator fasten the ridiculously loose-looking seat belts that were ostensibly going to keep them from panicking and trying to climb out of the train while it was moving.  (This is how my brain works.  It's almost a miracle that my sons aren't a bunch of timid fraidy-cats--and I know they're not.  As you may recall, my youngest son is training to jump out of an Army airplane as we speak.)

The twins looked happy for the first five or six loops around the track, but then Cutie Pie began to cry and kept her head down for the last two (which ripped my heart apart, practically).  But she didn't try to stand up or get out of the caboose, and I was so proud of the way she bore up bravely until the ride was over.

My husband and I put the twins to bed last night, because we knew we weren't going to see them this morning (they're a couple of early birds, but we knew we'd be leaving for the airport well before their normal wake-up time).  We finished up the nighttime routine of stories, prayers, and songs, turned off the light, kissed them each multiple times, and told them we loved them.  As we were leaving the room, they both said "I wuff you," and that about did us in.

My husband and I feel so blessed to have these three precious girls in our lives, and with another son getting married in December, we look forward to adding more grandchildren to our family tree.  What a joy it is to live long enough to see your children's children!  We get sad when we leave them, and wish they were closer so we could spend time with them every day.  But we'll take whatever we can get!  And if we have to go by car or by plane or by train (or by foot!) to see them, that's what we'll do.