Research is DAUNTING! But it can be so rewarding, and it always breathes life into fiction. I am researching North American railways for my Jupiter Lighthouse story, and I’ve become lost and in love with life on the rails in the early 20th century! The top is a photo of women on the Oriental Limited, a train that ran from Seattle to Chicago from 1909-1929 on the Great Northern Railway. The middle left photo is the Oriental Limited itself. The middle right is a 1920s advertisement for the “Dixie Route” which ran from Chicago to Jacksonville. You can bet these trains will be appearing in my next story! I love when I find what I’m looking for!
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I want everyone to agree with my opinion of what makes a good book. I want all those readers with their talking money to support the kind of stories I write. I want art and quality as I see it to trump grungy ol’ entertainment and commercialism. But, of course, that’s not the way the world or the publishing industry (traditional or independent) works. So what can you do about it? Well, to begin with, you can write the best book you’re capable of writing. Write a book you know you would be thrilled to read.
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Happy Independence Day! Jupiter Lighthouse (shown above) played monumental roles in the Civil War, WWI, and WWII. During the Civil War, the head lighthouse keeper was pressured by the Confederacy to put out the light, since they thought the beacon was aiding Union ships. But the keeper was determined to keep the light lit for the safety of all the ships at sea. Confederate sympathizers—one being the assistant keeper—raided the lighthouse, dismantled the lantern, and buried the mechanism so the light could not turn. Captain Armour eventually found the missing apparatus and took it by boat to hide in Key West. The lighthouse was put back into service after the war in 1866.
During the second World War, Jupiter Lighthouse was home to a very important classified operation. During the war, the lighthouse grounds were code named “Station J.” A building right next to the lighthouse was a US Navy and Coastguard Supplementary Radio Station. German U-boats had been sinking merchant ships (usually carrying valuable supplies for the Allies) off the Florida Coast. Fortunately, the U-boats would emit radio signals when they would surface to charge their batteries. The purpose of Station J was to intercept these signals and inform the US allies of the U-boat positions. With this information, the US was able to attack the U-boats from the air, and the damage was enough to end the German presence in the western Atlantic. The radio building—“Station J”—still stands at Jupiter Light!
I am honored to live in a country where I have the freedom to write and speak, and I pray that I never take that for granted. I am blessed that I can choose to write about these real-life heroes! God bless and Happy Independence Day!
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Home in Belmar, NJ for the 4th of July week
end. I’ve discovered the key to finding time to write on summer vacation: rise with the sun. Get those 500 words in before everyone else wakes up for prime beach hours!Photos: Bill McKim Photography
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Today’s writing music!
My character is running away to South Florida. There’s something so haunting about Joy Williams’s voice, like her heart is just bleeding into song. Perfect falling music.
Source: Spotify
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Learn to live on air… Avoid all messy and needy people including family; they threaten your work… Once you’ve truly begun, slow down. The difference between publishing two good books and forty mediocre books is terribly large.
Sarah Manguso’s advice to young writers on how to have a career, in Work in Progress (via fsgbooks) -
Today’s Writing Music!
Source: Spotify
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![I am an individual greatly affected by space and place. I can’t write in a messy house, I require a specific type of music, and white walls are the bane of my creative existence. This is often my excuse for retreating to south Florida from the Jersey Shore—freezing temperatures and overcast skies send me reeling into human hibernation with a hot water bottle and the first four seasons of How I Met Your Mother, with little hope of motivating myself to work on my own writing. I did read once that a writer must learn to write anywhere, anytime. I have not reached that pinnacle of writerly discipline, but it is definitely a goal I aspire to. Inspiration is everywhere, if we can possibly pry ourselves out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. Regardless, I am still a writing space hunter. I thrive off of driving through small beach towns in search of cozy coffee shop nooks to curl up with my notes and laptop. A few weeks ago, a number of my closest college friends rambled into West Palm for some nostalgia and sunshine, and for their last night in town, we decided to eat at the Italian restaurant at the famous Breaker’s Hotel on Palm Beach. After dinner, we took a walk around the hotel and courtyards. This place really is a sight to behold. A rule when visiting any of Henry Flagler’s landmarks: If it looks like gold, it is gold! And the history behind the hotel is even more interesting. For most of my time living in West Palm Beach, I have always kind of held my nose up at The Breakers. “Oh yeah, that’s where the rich, old Palm Beachers go to spend all their mountains of money that they could be using to help the poverty stricken areas right over the bridge…yada-yada-[more self-righteous remarks]-yada-yada…” But I have to admit, I was overcome with the elegance and beauty of the architecture of this hotel. It’s truly a work of art, and while I will usually prefer the homey and coziness of a family owned coffee shop, the flowering courtyard (right next to the coffee/giftshop) of the Breakers was where I decided to write my 500 word minimum for today. Not only was this a great spot aesthetically, but it was also a GREAT people watching locale. I’d recommend this spot to anyone who needs a quiet, but interesting, place to study, read, or write. And the best part is, you don’t have to pay for parking (like EVERYwhere else on the Island).Lesson learned: don’t cut yourself off from interesting places because of class prejudices.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m63c2nL62e1rxja6io1_500.jpg)
I am an individual greatly affected by space and place. I can’t write in a messy house, I require a specific type of music, and white walls are the bane of my creative existence. This is often my excuse for retreating to south Florida from the Jersey Shore—freezing temperatures and overcast skies send me reeling into human hibernation with a hot water bottle and the first four seasons of How I Met Your Mother, with little hope of motivating myself to work on my own writing. I did read once that a writer must learn to write anywhere, anytime. I have not reached that pinnacle of writerly discipline, but it is definitely a goal I aspire to. Inspiration is everywhere, if we can possibly pry ourselves out of the mundane and into the extraordinary. Regardless, I am still a writing space hunter. I thrive off of driving through small beach towns in search of cozy coffee shop nooks to curl up with my notes and laptop. A few weeks ago, a number of my closest college friends rambled into West Palm for some nostalgia and sunshine, and for their last night in town, we decided to eat at the Italian restaurant at the famous Breaker’s Hotel on Palm Beach. After dinner, we took a walk around the hotel and courtyards. This place really is a sight to behold. A rule when visiting any of Henry Flagler’s landmarks: If it looks like gold, it is gold! And the history behind the hotel is even more interesting. For most of my time living in West Palm Beach, I have always kind of held my nose up at The Breakers. “Oh yeah, that’s where the rich, old Palm Beachers go to spend all their mountains of money that they could be using to help the poverty stricken areas right over the bridge…yada-yada-[more self-righteous remarks]-yada-yada…” But I have to admit, I was overcome with the elegance and beauty of the architecture of this hotel. It’s truly a work of art, and while I will usually prefer the homey and coziness of a family owned coffee shop, the flowering courtyard (right next to the coffee/giftshop) of the Breakers was where I decided to write my 500 word minimum for today. Not only was this a great spot aesthetically, but it was also a GREAT people watching locale. I’d recommend this spot to anyone who needs a quiet, but interesting, place to study, read, or write. And the best part is, you don’t have to pay for parking (like EVERYwhere else on the Island).Lesson learned: don’t cut yourself off from interesting places because of class prejudices.
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Today’s Writing Music!
Source: Spotify
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Beginnings and Light
I have procrastinator in my blood. Growing up, my mother had a key phrase she would roll of the tongue anytime I whined before sitting down to practice my violin, finish math homework, or clean my room: The hardest part is getting started. Those words have never ceased to be true, and my mother’s voice still rings in my ears whenever I sit down to write. Any writer or artist, great or unknown, will tell you there is nothing more paralyzing than the scalding white glare of a blank page. The blinking cursor and tapping pencil eraser only provide a soporific rhythm to a voice that speaks, That’s not a plot at all! You’re not intelligent enough to write about that. Every word you write sounds pretentious. You only have cliches inside that head! You use TOO many words! You can’t write anything worthwhile. And these lies are usually enough to get me to minimize the Word document and check Facebook (the ENEMY of creativity!), get a glass of water, pick up a broom, fold the laundry, check my email, make a Spotify playlist, take a bike ride, pay that parking ticket, mow the lawn, clean out the car… anything that might seem more important or pressing than writing the first sentence to my new story. I will even go to the extreme of organizing and beautifying my writing space, documenting it, and posting it to a clever CreativesuckBook status in the effort to at least appear productive and artsy (see sepia photo below). And yet, this is not new or revelatory information for writers. We’ve all been here in one way or another. We know we must push past those anxieties and lies that push against the inspiration to finally scrawl that very first line—a line that, more than likely, will ultimately be scrambled, chopped up, pasted, or completely [deleted] from existence. And then of course, comes the moment when we have to sit down again to continue writing the story. Oh, the horror! But we all have our different methods of beginning—getting all the sludge out of our veins before the red blood flows onto the page and the real work begins. And so this blog was created as a starting point—not only to pour out some sludge and keep my writer muscles from turning into flab, but to also give my far away friends, loved ones, and fellow writers a chance to follow my summer project.
I started the creative writing MFA program at Florida Atlantic University in the fall of 2010. It is amazing how much you can grow and learn in the span of two years. And those two years, when I take a quick glance away from the future and look back at them, seem to have felt like two minutes. In that time, a million ideas for a thesis project have propositioned my mind: Pick me! Write about me! Oh, you know you’re interested in ME! But as graduation drifts closer and closer, I have reconciled myself to the fact that my thesis must inevitably materialize. And it’s funny how the millions of ideas I’ve had since my first day of workshop were thrown out (or put on the shelf) because a random trip to St. Augustine on St. Patrick’s Day weekend, 2012. While I was there, my family and I spent an afternoon at the St. Augustine Lighthouse. Climbing the lighthouse, examining the lens, walking the grounds and beach, breathing the sweet North Florida salt air, awoke something in me that had been dormant for a few years. I have a deep love and appreciation for lighthouses. The first short story I wrote in college was about the daughter of a New Jersey lighthouse keeper—a story I ultimately shelved for the crime of overt melodrama. I attribute this obsession to growing up a 10 minute boat ride from the beautiful Barnegat Light. All year in workshop, I had been trying to experiment, daring myself to write about new and foreign things…writing about earthquakes, Caribbean housewives, martyrs in the middle-east…things I was interested in, but ultimately knew nothing about. That is not to say a writer cannot choose to write about foreign topics and subjects, and it doesn’t mean I will never write about those topics some day in the future. But most of the time, the deepest passions are found in things that are familiar—and if they are not familiar, there is passion enough to immerse ourselves in the tedious job of diligent research. But my climb up the St. Augustine Light re-sparked an old nostalgia and passion for the sea, seafaring communities, and the light towers that shine over them. So I soaked up the ambiance along with all the factual information in the lighthouse museum, and I wrote a short story about a young lighthouse keeper’s daughter and her brother. It was the first story in a LONG while that I actually enjoyed writing! I was beginning to have anxiety that I had outgrown my love for stories, and I would have to pursue a career as a strictly nonfiction writer. But I loved this newly discovered world of 1930s St. Augustine and the characters I was getting to know.
(Tower and Tower Room of St. Augustine Light)My writing finally felt real after a year of still-born fiction. (If you’re interested in reading an excerpt, I’ve posted it below.) From this story, my thesis project began to take shape. I will be working on writing a collection of stories involving on-shore lighthouses in Florida, North Carolina, and New Jersey. My writing always seems to do the leading, so details can always change, but right now I am planning on writing about the light houses of St. Augustine, Jupiter, Key West, Barnegat, Cape May, and Cape Hatteras. Each of these lighthouses already hold personal significance for me, so as of now, they hold priority in my project. Hopefully, this blog will chronicle not only my writing process, but also my excursions to each of these lighthouses! I’m fortunate enough to live about 35 minutes from Jupiter Lighthouse, so it will serve as the setting of my next story—yeah…that story that refuses to allow the first line to be written! But, as Mamma says, The hardest part is getting started! And hopefully this entry hasn’t been too sludgy and overwrought, but at least I am taking the leap to speak this project and these stories into existence and to solidify a BEGINNING. Shine on, writers!Excerpt from “The Mooring of Light and Wind”
