Finally heard about my YA novel in the contest- it didn't win.  But surprisingly, I"m ok with that. I will start writing the marketing pieces and collecting rejection slips for it. It's one more book I have complete and it's my best at this point. It took a month longer than last years to get rejected. I tend to feel that means it got closer. But every year I submit a book means that every year an editor (or two or more) have to read it. I just have to write a book that is compelling enough that they remember my name- right? And like the book... duh.

I've decided that there are too many issues in this year's book and I've already know what I'm writing about next year... being a young homeless teen. So... I'm collecting stories about homelessness- antidotal tales. Do you have one?

Be warned though... if you tell me, I may use it, change it, adapt it, rework it, etc. So don't tell me if you want to keep it a secret. I know my main character's story already, but I was thinking about the stories she'd hear during her own journey.

So... share away! Tell me a true story about homelessness... and in the next year, keep your ears open for stories for me, ok?

Finished my third screenplay this morning. I woke up at 4 am with the problem spots visually dancing in my brain, so I got up and wrote until the sun came up. If I can't see the scene, I can't write it. I knew exactly what was wrong with the climax (there wasn't one- everyone stood around talking... ok for a play- bad for a screenplay), but I couldn't see how it was supposed to go down. The Love of My Life (TLOML) read it and had a few suggestions but I couldn't figure out how to make them work. I had specific things I needed to accomplish and I was missing the mark.

The hardest part about this was making it feel real. A friend who read it talked about the world I created, but I don't want it to feel like I created a world. I want the world to really exist (ah yes... the Creator factor... most writers have the feeling that they are playing God when they write).

EEWALIZR is an adaptation of my first novel (the one that will never sell- not unless I rewrite it completely- it's that bad!) and it's a different story. That's the thing most writers/readers forget.

A screenplay and a novel are different formats with different goals. Once you treat a screenplay like you're just retelling an old story, you lose that which makes a screenplay powerful. In order to write a good screenplay from a novel, you have to figure out what is the best way to SHOW the story (not tell the story). Novels are rich in details, descriptions, thinkings and ponderings. The characters have pages and pages to naval gaze and the story can be multilayered. In a screenplay, you have 119 minutes to tell a story from beginning to end- without the navel gazing, thinkings and ponderings. This is why it's hard to like a movie if you loved the book. We think it's just a visualization of a favorite tale, but it has to fit into the new format.

For this one, I switched main characters. I made a secondary character the lead and let the story become revealed through his eyes. It meant leaving out huge chunks of my favorite scenes, but it's a richer, more powerful tale- more intense and visual. When I was stuck, TLOML said that I needed to let go of how I wrote it in the book and rethink it in the new context. He was absolutely right. In the book, having people stand around and talk about their feelings of betrayal worked. The screenplay required action. Letting go was difficult. I'd come up with the original scene in the book after much personal naval gazing myself. I was attached to it. But it was no longer "real". It was holding back the new story.

Off it goes... to the Nicholl competition (with the reworked screenplay #2 that no one wants to read) and to a young California Christian hip hop artist (and his team) who is looking for the perfect vehicle. It might not be what he wants, but at least someone is reading it!

And me??? I should be working on marketing this week, but I think I'm painting things red and sticking stuff in the paint... at least for a day or so!

From March 2005... Part of a real story... in celebration of the day in which we remember a betrayed Caesar... I'm not sure I'll ever finish this tale. I know I've told several stories from my time working at the Growth Stock Theater Company... but this is about my first day... enjoy!

My Dad spent his entire working career in small non-union shops, trying to scrape enough money together each month to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. He worked long hours under verbally abusive bosses who took advantage of his need to survive and take care of his family. Sometimes, his bosses would cheat him on pay day and laugh at his inability to make them pay him what they owed him. Mostly, they just underpaid and overworked him in unsafe environments.  Vacations were unheard of. If he took a day off, it was without pay, and I never remember him staying home sick once. He couldn’t afford it. There was no dental coverage for his kids, much less health care. We didn’t go to the doctors unless it was a life or death emergency. Extra for overtime? Are you kidding? If he didn’t like the hours, he could quit. Dangerous conditions? Don’t like it? Quit! And he would take the grief, the frustration, the abuse until he couldn’t stand it anymore and he’d move to another small non-union shop where the abuse was the same- even if the boss was different. We were poor, dirt poor, growing up in a drafty house with cars that barely ran. Our clothes were hand-me-down hand-me-downs or my mom sewed them from remnants she found at the Goodwill. I can count on one hand the number of times I got new shoes, and the first time my brother had new shoes that fit his feet was for our mother’s funeral.  I worked at one of my father’s non-union shops the summer before I left for college and left each day slightly sick to my stomach, wondering how my father put up with it day after day after day with no end in sight.

A friend of mine’s father was in the same line of work at a union shop. He worked regular hours at decent wages. If the press broke, they brought in a mechanic and didn’t expect the printers to risk their fingers fixing it. He got medical benefits and sick days and vacation days. They drove a fairly new car on their week long annual vacations.  When he retired, there was a pension waiting for him. But mostly, he didn’t complain about the nasty verbal abuse my father took daily because that wasn’t allowed in a union shop. There were ways to deal with employees and trashing and belittling them wasn’t one of them. My friend’s family lived in a nice home, ate out after church on Sundays, wore new clothes, and was a solid working middle class family.

The first school I taught at was a small private school, run by a board of directors whose children attended our school. There was no negotiation of wages or raises. You got whatever they felt like giving you and they tried to make it fair- but making sure the kids had everything came before providing teachers with a living wage and benefits. If you had a board members’ child in your class, you had it made- the best equipment, assistants, and therapists. If a board member liked you, you had your pick of the classes, and while they tried to make sure things were distributed fairly, they weren’t really.  There was no one to complain to when others were given undeserving plum positions because they “partied” with the board members at the private golf course. If the Principal had a complaint about how you ran your classroom, you changed your teaching practices or left. There was no other choice. You were required to donate time to the school, to fundraise, and to participate in after school events- without pay, of course.  It was part of working at this underpaid position. You had no voice and little say in how to improve things, and I tried- for seven years I tried at that school. The year after I left, they finally offered a small retirement package that you could pay into- in place of a raise, if I remember correctly.

The Principal at the public school I went to after my seven years at the private non-profit school was a tyrant. Verbally abusive and scary, he targeted one or two teachers a year to make their lives miserable. But they never had to face him alone- they always had a union rep besides them at every formal confrontation, documenting his behavior and holding him responsible for his words and actions. I was lucky- he liked me and my class of Downs Syndrome babies. But even his liking me wasn’t enough to get the supplies and materials I needed to teach and it took a long time before I had appropriately sized tables and chairs. But I was being paid more than twice what I made at the private school, and I had reasonable hours and demands made on me. I had to pay union dues, but even with those dues subtracted from my check, I was still making a lot more money- with benefits. My kid could go to the dentist and it didn’t cost me a paycheck. I could buy prescription drugs at reasonable rates and his ear infections didn’t take all our spare money anymore.

Unions have their problems and issues, but give me a union shop setting any time over a privately owned and managed one. As states get tired of paying for their public workers, they are doing everything they can to break the unions. People forget what it’s like to work in unfair, unsafe non-union shops and they blame the public workers for the financial issues in the state. They don’t remember the time when it was cheaper to give benefits to teachers, firemen, and police officers than it was to pay them so now that benefits are a major expense, they want to strip them away. 

Public workers are easy targets because your tax dollars pay for their salaries and benefits. We can point at the bus driver making 100K because of overtime, but forget to look at why he/she has so much overtime. We talk about what teachers make for working nine months a year, but forget that most teachers work eleven or eleven and half months (some of that without pay). We point fingers at the bad teachers and surly state employees but forget that every work place has bad or surly employees. The real question is what is left after you strip collective bargaining away from people. I’m all for smaller government, for doing more with less, with paying your real share of benefits, but to take away the right to have a voice and a say in your workplace isn’t good. It leads to unfair, abusive work patterns without protection for the little guy who just wants to go to work, do his job, and get paid a fair wage at the end of the week without groveling for it. The true cost of the atmosphere of blaming public workers for the mess our current government is in is yet to seen, but I’m sure that the real problem remains hidden and unsolved. Strip away collective bargaining, destroy the unions, blame, belittle and abuse the public servant, and when that's done and the problem remains... then maybe, we'll start focusing on solving the real problems causing our shortfalls... maybe... but we'll be a sadder, uglier nation irregardless.

It's seven years this month that I've been blogging on xanga. There've been times when I've blogged twice a day and times when I've blogged twice a month, and there've been times when I've maintained several accounts for different topics. I still have my Asian media and short stories accounts although I use them infrequently. I've seen bloggers come, go, and return. I've seen top bloggers ebb and wane and I've been "friends" with many of them. I've made "Real world" friends here- people I'd trust with my heart and soul and I've had my share of "enemies". This is what I've learned about blogging in the seven years.

1. Play nice. It's not the real world, but it's real people on the other side of the screen.
2. Give credit where credit is due- tell us where you got your pics, your sayings, and your stories. If they're not original, we won't care as long as you respect the originator enough to share the credit.
3. Communicate- respond to people to take the time to respond to you. I'm not always good at that. Sometimes, I'm too rushed or preoccupied, but I always regret it when I don't take the time to say thanks or to visit someone else's site.
4. "Don't Feed the Monkeys"--- EVER. This saying comes from a friend of mine who found that there are some people who thrive on chaos and the more attention you give them, the worse they get. The best advice is to ignore them. Block 'em and forget them. I usually apologize for whatever set them off, even if I don't feel at fault, because making peace goes a long way in a rough world. 
5. Write about what you care about- but remember Xanga is open to the world. What you put online, stays online... forever. So use your common sense. Don't post pics of your kids for predators to drool over, don't write anything you wouldn't write for the front page of your town's newspaper, and don't share private things publicly. 
6. Learn from your readers. Part of blogging is meeting people from around the world who have different experiences and opinions. Listen to them. Ask questions. Agree to disagree. Disagree without being rude or hateful. Talk politics if you must, but be prepared to learn more than you teach. 
7. Don't worry about your readership. It is what it is. Write about what's important to you. Share pictures that touch your heart. Isn't that more important than how many people read you today or left you a comment. Besides, less than 5% of my readers comment and I think that's the average for most of us. I'm ok with that. If you're not, rethink your purpose for blogging. 
8. Keep blogging. Take a break if you need to, but don't close down your account. You'll wish you hadn't at some point! 

I'm sure there's more, but the grandbaby is waking up. Nap time over. What have you learned during your time here?

It seems like all I do with my writing lately is wait, and wait, and wait for rejection. I've gotten a bit desperate so I sent a copy of my screenplay Desert Trash to an actor's restaurant in hopes that he'd get tired of washing dishes and read it. I contacted a director via LinkedIn and begged him to read it as well. I have a novel in a YA contest and I don't even check the mail yet. Last years rejection didn't arrive until March sometime. I waited for months to hear that my first version of Desert Trash didn't make the quarterfinals of the Nicholl Foundation contest. It's had a major rewrite and I'll spend the $45 to resubmit it this year along with my new work that has no name yet -- if I finish it in time. It's fighting me tooth and nail and I keep finding myself writing about beheading snakes in it. (I know... I GET the symbolism, but it works on several levels... plus Indiana Jones and I have one in common... our hatred/fear of snakes.)

The hardest part of the waiting is knowing that I'm not pushing the marketing hard enough- not courting enough rejection, not putting my work out there to be rejected in hopes that I'll find an agent who believes in me and a publisher who'll take a risk on a new writer in a dying market. 

And so... I wait... and I write... and I push myself to be strong enough to accept the rejection that is part of the writing process...

All I want to do is write.... and get paid a little by it once in a while! 

Coming home from a quasi-frustrating writer's group two weeks ago, I had a bad accident. When I left the bookstore, it was snowing fluffy white flakes and we had to brush off the snow off the cars before we left. By the time I was on the interstate, it had quit snowing and traffic was moving swiftly- even through the ever present road work. Eager to get home, I pushed a little harder and forgot about the imaginary dividing line between our home and Cinncy. There is a place where the weather changes instantly- it gets colder, wetter, snowier, or in this case, icier.

I was going the speed limit in the middle lane of a heavily traffic area when my tires slid out under me as I hit a patch of black ice. I made the mistake of breaking and my car began spinning, and spinning, and spinning. It felt like time stopped as I tried to straighten it out, but I was in all three lanes, driving backwards at some part, and then the guy behind me thought I had it together and tried to pass me as I keep going in circles on the interstate. I clipped the rear end of his white pickup truck hard which jolted the car out of the spin and landed me headfirst into the guard rail. Bang! He skidded sideways to a stop blocking the road and I kept my grip on the steering wheel long after I could let go.

Someone called 911 and the rescue squad with firetrucks, police cars, tow trucks, and ambulances started arriving. They couldn't believe I wasn't hurt. The guy I hit went to the hospital via ambulance, but the people telling me he had hurt his back nearly rolled their eyes when they said it. I filled out all the paperwork, waited for the love of my life to come rescue me, and noticed pennies were everywhere in my car where they had been thrown out of their cubby hole storage place and had flown around the cabin of the Forrester while it was spinning. I couldn't quit shaking inside and out.

$4,600 damage to the car, a ticket for failure to control the vehicle, and severe body aches and two sprained thumbs- that was it. The guy I hit turned over no insurance or driver license information which my insurance company found interesting.  

The whole accident probably lasted a few seconds but it felt like hours. It's an odd phenomena- time stopping like that. As I drove the Forrester away, I wondered why I wasn't hurt worse. It's that thought that lingers. The Forrester is home from the repair shop looking all shiny and new. My ticket has been paid. My thumbs only ache a little, and still I can't let go of the fact that it should have been worse. So why wasn't it? It's the reverse of the question people usually ask. While I believe that God was protecting me, I have to ask, "Why? Why me? And why not those other people- the ones hurt so badly that they are never the same?". 

Emotional damage is always much worse than physical damage as far as I'm concerned. I've not driven the Forrester since that night and the first time I rode it after we picked it up from the repair shop I was a wreck. I'll drive it tomorrow down to see Cordelia and that night I'll drive it home on the same stretch of road where I couldn't quit spinning forever.

We talked about free will, lessons learned, the painful cost of repairs (and tickets), and the fact that it will probably never happen again while I dealt with the aftermath of the accident. All I know for sure is that when the car was in its freefall spinning motion that it changed me in ways others may never understand, ways that don't show on the outside, and left behind questions I want answered. As the old guy on Hill Street Blues used to say as his guys left the debriefing room... "Stay safe out there". Not every major accident has a few consequences as mine- for whatever reason! 

For Christmas, my father gave me a slim used paperback book entitled "The No Plays of Japan" by Arthur Waley. Overjoyed to see a book with translated versions of the No plays, I jumped right in-- to the 60 page introduction--- which is where I am today. I'm a good reader, with good reading strategies and a fairly extensive vocabulary. Before this book arrived in my life, I'd done some historical research on the development of storytelling in the No play format. I had read a couple of novels written about the men who carve the masks used in the theater productions. A friend's sister's father-in-law was considered one of Japan's national treasures for his life work in No theater and his son has spent his entire life walking in his father's footsteps so I'm familiar with the personal investment and cost.

But I've not seen a production- not live, not on TV, not on youtube. My knowledge was about how the plays were developed, a few of the greatest actors, and how the role of the mask tells the story. None of that prepared me for this book. The new terminology is extensive and in Japanese (a language in which I can barely say "hello" and "sorry" and "wait" in). The stage design impacts the story telling and I find myself constantly flipping to the diagram to figure out where what happens when and why when I encounter a description. 

As I work my way through the introduction, reading and re-reading a passage, I sneak a peek at the plays to come and wonder about going straight to them, but then I encounter a piece of valuable information that is required for comprehension of the play in a deeper, more subtle way. So I keep working at it. 

At the same time, I'm reading another difficult book, a translated copy of "The Travels Of Marco Polo" (The Venetian) - Is there more than one Marco Polo writing about his travels? I think to myself, seeing the subtitle. It's difficult for different reasons. Mostly because its flowery, overly descriptive writing echoes in my brain so I read..."When they draw nigh to his person, they paid their respects by prostrating themselves on the floor." My brain echoes loudly... draw nigh, draw nigh, prostrating, prostrating, etc. It gets very annoying and makes reading slower than necessary. Why does my brain do that? Does it think I need to slow down and cherish each phrase before moving on or am I a bit crazy? Not sure.

I'm reading a couple of easy reads as well, some Jim Butcher adventure series and The Thursday Next series as well thanks to my book club influence. I can read a book a day when I'm reading something simple, but these difficult books can take months. 

It reminds me of the way we introduce books to our kids. Some kids take to books easily, not hesitating when they encounter difficult material while others still choke on new content even when you do a ton of pre-reading to prepare them for the book. Kids without a lot of world experiences have a more difficult time with new content. It's hard to draw conclusions or analogies when you have nothing to compare it to. If you've never ridden a pony on the beach at night, it's hard to imagine what riding an elephant in the jungle is like. You can't paint pictures in your head from the words on the page if you can't imagine what those words mean. I can show you a picture of an elephant, or a 3D model of one, and we can watch clips of jungles and elephant rides, but there's no personal connection to the print. When we go to the zoo, I'll pay extra for the elephant and camel rides and we'll re-read that story. Finally, as if by magic, the story connects and the reader wants to keep struggling with the content because it's personal. 

In this age of funding cuts, field trips are easy casualties. Why pay to take a bunch of kids on a trip to the zoo or the apple farm when you can't make the budget meet? Because if we want a nation of readers, of thinkers, of kids who will fight for their education, we need to make sure we provide them with the resources they need to connect to all kinds of content. And that means every kid- the rich, the poor, the smart, the not-so smart ones. AND we need to convince educators to move the few trips they're allowed to take to the beginning of a unit of study and not at the end as if it's a reward for surviving it. 

Meanwhile, since I nearly totaled my car this week, and am a bit unsure about going out into the big cold world, I'm taking on page 49 of the introduction of the No plays. Because someday, when I go to Japan, we're going to the No theater to see my friend's brother-in-law perform in plays his father and his father before him and his father before him performed in, wearing some of the very same clothing, and I'm going to at least understand the art, if not the words!

I've been writing here since 2004. I began as a way to keep in touch with my Poet Sister who lived on the other side of the world and we were always at odds trying to catch up. She was sleeping, showering, in class, eating when I was working, showering, eating, and sleeping. I've stayed for the community I've found here- readers and thinkers of all ages, mindsets, and character. I have loved being here and I'm probably not going to be able to give it up completely like many of my friends.

However, 2011 is the year we kick my writing up to a more professional level- with a lot more effort made to build connections and in marketing. This means dusting off jerjonji.com, reworking it, and adding a blogging piece to it. The software is installed, the design kits are downloaded, and a rough beginning is at hand. There's a lot to learn and the learning curve is a bit steep. It may be awhile before it's ready to be unveiled.

But the good news is that I think I fixed the main page of my xanga finally, and I'll keep writing here and checking in on everyone when I have a moment, and I'll link you to the new site as soon as it's live. 

Happy New Year! May the changes in your own life be of your volitional. Keep in touch! We've been on this journey together a long time... and to my poet sister who is on her way back from Rome... love ya and see you when you get back!

*From November 2005... bc we need to remember the consequences of our choices on this day of Thankfulness...

“It’s Not Your Money”

In a land where the Bison and other animals were once plentiful but was now barren, the Blackfoot Indians were confined by barbwire and legislation from 1883-1884. They eat the remains of their seed potatoes and wait for the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) to provide the food supplies they promised. By June, they are eating tree bark and watching the white man’s cattle grazing on the land they used to own before they were left to die behind fences. Almost-A-Dog cut a notch in willow stick as his people died, first the oldest and most revered, then the youngest and the most cherished. Notch after notch, and still they waited for eighteen months. By the time the BIA finally responded, there were 555 notches in the willow and the land was marked by their deaths.

 It’s an old story, and it’s one that formed the young girl-child whose family told her the story of her ancestors when they visited Ghost Ridge. She continues the fight for her tribe’s existence today with the same government that has no remorse for their actions of the past.

 The problem started with the Dawes Act in 1887. There was “an Indian Problem” back then, and the solution was easy- out of sight, out of mind. If you gave them a plot of land and told them to farm it, then you could manage to make everyone happy (except the Indians, and they didn’t count). So they divided the reservation land into plots (giving families 160 acres and single adults 80 acres) and sold the remaining land to the white settlers who wanted it (about 2/3’s of the land was sold without the Tribe’s approval). However, the Indians didn’t get a 160 acre plot of land- they got a 50 acre plot here and another 50 acre plot fifty miles away, making farming the land impossible.

 Well, since the Indians weren’t using the land, those “in charge” decided that they were responsible for putting the land to good use. They “rented” out the land, promising the rent funds would go to the Indians. The Indian Trust started losing land almost immediately after the Dawes Act became a law and everyone got rich- except the Indians. Some years they got a check, some years they didn’t, and they never got an accounting of the use of their land from the federal government. Sometimes, the land was taken away under false pretenses (after they found oil on it or needed the timber), and if the Indians complained, they were told the accounting was too complicated for them to understand (as if they were stupid).

 Elouise Cobell asked to see her account when she was 18 and they told her you needed a degree in accounting to understand it, so she got a degree in accounting. Her fight with the Department of Interiors was just beginning. She has been fighting them since then, using their own tactics and legal system.

 Her class action lawsuit Cobell v Norton is suing the government for the billons of dollars they are supposed to be holding in Trust for her people. This isn’t about reparation for all the wrong doings. This is about a legal accounting of what is rightfully the tribe’s that has been in the care (Trust) of the Federal government.

 Therein lays the nasty web of lies and half-truths. You see, the Trust only keeps records for six years, and then they shred them (according to court testimony), and they claim that the problem is that all the descendants of the original Blackfoot tribes are so multiple that it makes the average check about eight cents, and besides, they don’t have the money. They never had the money, they claim, and the Federal government while spending millions to defend themselves against this lawsuit doesn’t have the money. So who has the Blackfoot tribe’s money? The BIA officials since 1887? The tenants who make tons of money and live in nice houses and drive new trucks while their landlords starve and live in hovels without heat? The Indian employees of BIA who were rewarded for not making waves? The Federal government who treated the trust account like a private piggy bank and the payments like a gift instead of a debt?

 It’s 2005 and the Department of Internal Affairs is still acting like there is a “problem with the Indians” and continues to act shamefully toward the tribal members. The judge hearing the case recently ruled that “The entire record of this canes tells the dreary story of Interior’s degenerate tenure as Trustee-Delegate for the Indian Trust… a story shot through with bureaucratic blunders, flubs, goofs and foul-ups, and peppered with scandals, deception, dirty tricks and out right villainy, the end of which is nowhere in sight.”  Still the Federal government stalls and delays instead of attempting to make things right, and in the meantime, the people are caught in the middle.

 But the girl-child is now a powerful woman, educated in the ways of the white man, retaining her cultural identity. Elouise Cobell has been given the designation of Warrior by her tribe, a rare honor for a woman, as she continues her relentless fight against those who persist in harming her people