Turkey Triumph

When we realized my mom would soon be leaving this earthly existence, I set about recording her life history on tape. (Many of you already know this..) I asked her every question I could think of and thought I had some valuable memories and information recorded.

It wasn’t until that following November (She passed away in July) and Thanksgiving was about a week away that I realized, with all the interviews and questions asked, I had forgotten to ask her for all of her cooking secrets for making the best tasting turkey and stuffing anyone could dream of.

That year, I had been crazy enough to offer to take on the task of cooking the turkey for our entire family. I thought it was important to carry on the Thanksgiving traditions that were always so dear to my mom. Though this was our first year without her, I thought we needed to be together as a family. It didn’t hit me I had no clue how to cook like mom did and I was sure that that’s exactly what the family was longing for—just like I was.

I learned a few lessons that year. For one, no matter if you have recipes written down follow it to a tee, nothing is as great as mom’s home cooking. (I had located mom’s stuffing recipe—I was so careful, still, mine didn’t taste the same) I set about asking anyone and everyone what their secrets were for the perfect moist turkey. Not knowing which would work best, I tried them all. I’m proud to announce the meat fell from the bones. Sorry, I had to brag—I have never cooked a turkey quite as well as I did that first year, even though every year since then I have attempted to follow the very same tricks. Go figure???

So with this blog, I want to make it’s purpose two fold. I am cooking again this year and would love to hear everyone’s secrets for the perfect turkey. I need another turkey triumph. So please! Send me your no-fail secrets and fast. I’m in trouble again!

The other purpose is this:

This is my last post before Thanksgiving so I feel I’d be ungrateful if I didn’t count a few of the blessings I am thankful for this Thanksgiving season. I’d love for you to share with us what you’re grateful for as well.

I am truly blessed to have a wonderful husband and family whom I love that will put up with my quirky ways—I am grateful for their support in all I do, and I have such good friends who stand by me and help me—bless all their hearts for tolerating me.

At this time of year I am reminded that each of the struggles and trials I have in my life gives me the opportunity to grow closer to my Savior, for which I am very grateful. I know these things are for my own good. They will give me experience and they can increase my faith. Something again, I am grateful for.

I am also grateful for my testimony, the atonement, and the peace that the gospel brings into my life; for the hope and direction I have because of it.

I am thankful for opportunities that have come my way; for the people who have helped make that possible, and the ones that have made my journey so enjoyable.

I am thankful to live in this country and for the freedoms I enjoy. I feel a great debt of gratitude to all those who have served our country to enable me the freedoms that I fear I may at times take for granted.

I also want to say I am thankful for my friends of the V-Formation. I consider their friendship an incredible blessing in my life. I love and admire each and every one of them. I am also thankful for the chance to gather my thoughts here (as haphazard as they may seem at times.) :)

I could go on and on, but I want to open it up to you. Here’s your chance to mention things you’re grateful for this year— and don’t forget, I need those turkey cooking secrets!

Have a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Enid Blyton

by Anna Jones Buttimore

Last night I watched a BBC documentary recreation of the life of Enid Blyton. I was a huge Enid Blyton fan as a child - I had the entire Famous Five series, and most of the Secret Sevens, plus Mallory Towers and St. Clare's. At one stage I remember I modelled my signature on Blyton's with two little lines under my name - I think I was about ten. I noticed that things seemed a little different in her books; I didn't have servants, didn't eat tongue sandwiches or drink ginger beer, and I didn't know anyone who went to boarding school (although it sounded so fun and exciting!) but the outcry against Enid Blyton's books went over my head. I was incenced when libraries and schools banned them. I loved her books, and hadn't noticed that they were racist, or that all the working class characters were criminals.

Sadly, having watched the documentary about her life, my sympathies are now firmly with the libraries, and those who want to rewrite her 750+ books to fit in better with the modern age. I suppose to some extent she's the product of a different age, but she was a shockingly bad mother. She worked in her study all day, seeing her two daughters for an hour each evening. If they had misbehaved in any way, their punishment was to lose that hour with their parents.

The scene that sticks in my mind is that of Enid telling her eight-year-0ld daughter that she was remarrying. She had been having an affair with the surgeon Kenneth Darrell Waters for some time and it had led to the break-up of her marriage (although she divorced on the grounds of her husband's adultery, in order that she might save face). Enid chose to break the news of her impending marriage to little Imogen by cheerfully and abruptly telling her that "Uncle Kenneth" would be her father now, and she was to call him Daddy. When Imogen tearfully asked about her real father, she was told "Oh, he's gone off to war; I doubt we'll see him again." When the little girl became upset, her mother scolded her and sent her to bed without supper.

Later, Imogen saw her mother talking to a man in the garden (Blyton's estranged brother, Hanly, who had come to inform her of their mother's death) and asked innocently who it was. Blyton declared her "a little sneak" and sent her off to boarding school. Neither of her two daughters featured in the film again. Little Imogen is now 74 and I wonder whether she contributed to the research for the film.

There are many authors who lead lives which we, as Latter-day Saints, might consider unconventional or dubious. My question is, does knowing something about the author's personal life affect your enjoyment of their books? If you disapprove of an author's lifestyle, do you boycott their work? Alternatively, if you admire an author on a personal level, do you make an extra effort to buy their books even if you find them uninspiring? Knowing Enid Blyton to have put more time into writing for other people's children than mothering her own, would you buy her books for your children?

Thanksgiving Memories

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I love this time of year. I've always loved the fall colors, and the crisp biting air as the seasons change. And one of my favorite holidays is Thanksgiving. I enjoy getting together with loved ones, sharing fun memories, playing games, hearing family stories, and savoring delicious food. This particular holiday took on an even deeper meaning for me when we discovered that some of our ancestors (like John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley) were among those who took part in the first Thanksgiving dinner held so many years ago.

This past month, I've had 3 separate opportunities to snap pictures of wild turkeys. I know turkey wasn't a featured menu item for my ancestors during their Thanksgiving feast, but this member of the poultry family is an important item for most who celebrate this fun holiday. As such, I'll share a couple of those pictures and a silly poem I wrote about turkeys last year. And if you feel so inclined, feel free to share some of your favorite Thanksgiving memories.

Turkeys on the Run

Turkeys on the run
Aren't having any fun
Dodging Pilgrim wannabes
They hide behind the trees.

Turkeys on parade
Think they have it made
When hunting season ends
They try to be your friends

Turkeys with attitude
Border on being rude
They strut across the road
Rebellion is their code.

Turkeys in the rain
Serve to entertain
When droplets hit their head
They look up---drown---fall dead.

Turkeys aren't too smart
But they try to do their part
Making Thanksgiving day complete---
Their revenge---we overeat.

Cheri J. Crane
2008

TIME FOR NOMINATIONS.

I'm not a member of LDStorymakers and I'm not on the Whitney Committee, but I feel strongly that the Whitney Awards are a needed way to honor LDS authors and promote clean fiction. Not many novels will be released between now and the end of the year, so now is a good time to look back over the novels by LDS authors that have arrived on bookstore shelves this year and pick out the ones most deserving of this honor. This means you. Because this award is highly dependent on reader input to be successful, there is a need for large numbers of readers both inside and outside the writing and publishing field to nominate the best books. A book must receive five separate nominations to be in the running.

The Whitney Awards were devized by a small committee sponsored by LDStorymakers, but is independent of that organization. This will be the third year to present the awards which are given in six categories plus an overall Best Novel of the Year.

For a novel to be considered for an award it must be written by an LDS author. It doesn't have to stick to LDS standards (personally, I think it should). It doesn't have to be published by an LDS publisher. It doesn't have to adhere to any established writing guidelines (though in most cases nominees are well written according to accepted literary standards). Anyone who profits from a particular novel such as the author or anyone in his or her household, the editor or publisher of the book or employees of the book's publishing house are ineligible to nominate the book. Friends can nominate so this an added reason nominations are needed from the general reading public. It would be a shame for an author who doesn't write too well, but who has lots of friends to be nominated while a great author was missed solely because everyone assumed he or she would get lots of nominations from someone else so why should they bother.

Below are the various categories. Get out your pen and make a list of the best books you've read this year in each category. If you think it's a tossup between two or three great mystery/suspense novels or any other category, nominate them all. You can nominate as many books as you like, but you can't nominate a single title more than once. Perhaps you're unsure which category a book fits in. That doesn't matter; you don't have to specify which genre a nominee should be placed in. And if you're like me, you won't always agree with the categories every book is paced in for the judging anyway.

Best Romance:

Best Mystery/Suspense:

Best Youth Fiction:

Best Speculative Fiction (This category includes sci-fi, fantasy, time travel, and last days fiction):

Best Historical:

Best General Fiction:

If you're wondering which books are eligible for nomination, there's a pretty complete list of novels written by LDS authors on LDS Publisher. You can also check reviews written by me for Meridian here to refresh your memory of stories written earlier in the year. I didn't review all of the eligible novels, but I did write reviews of a good share of them. Some books, though written by LDS authors aren't considered LDS novels and I don't review those.

All you need to do to nominate an author/title is go to this site and fill in the blanks. Be prepared to fill in title, author, and publisher. Let's give deserving authors/titles a resounding number of nominations. Don't let this piece of important business get lost in the coming holladay rush.

Why I Love Writing

I don't have time to write this blog today. I don't have time to eat, drink or even go to the bathroom. I have two book deadlines, a Gospel Doctrine lesson to prepare, book reviews to write, oh, and a family to take care of, but I'm making myself sit down and do this because I've had the most wonderful experience recently, and I wanted to share it.
Over the last eight weeks I've been doing a Library Lecture tour around the Salt Lake Valley. My topic was "How to Write from Your Heart and Not Your Head." I've had the opportunity to spend an evening with some wonderful people, people who have been bitten by the writing bug and have stories inside of them just bursting to get out.
Part of the reason I wanted to do this lecture tour was to give me a chance to "give back" so to speak. In doing so, I've been reminded of something wonderful. I've been reminded of why I love writing so much.
About fifteen years ago I was sitting in the audience at a writing seminar, listening to the teacher go on and on about getting published. I remember thinking, "Is this ever really going to happen? Will I ever get published?" My doubts weren't based as much on my ability and writing talent, or my desire to get published, but on the criticism and cynicism of others. People (family and friends - you know who you are!) would sometimes roll their eyes as I tried to tell them about my writing projects and where I was submitting my stories and all the rejections I was getting. It was as if a ticker board was going across their forehead telling me their thoughts, "Why do you keep wasting your time with this?", "Does it take a house to fall on you before you realize this is never going to happen?", "Don't you have anything better to do with your time?"
After a while, I quit telling people what I was doing, and just kept it to myself. Even my husband didn't really know much about what I was doing. I'd come out of the closet and declared "I'm a writer!" only to go back in again where it was safe.
It was hard. It was hard because I loved what I was doing so, so much, yet no one believed I could do it. No one but me.
So, in spite of it all, I kept at it. I kept trying and trying. And, by dang, I did it. And I believe with all my heart it wasn't about talent and being a brilliant writer, it was about passion, persistence, hard work and dedication.
And that's why I do these lecture tours. I want to tell other writers my story. I want them to know that they can do it. They can get published IF . . . and that's the key work, IF they are willing to work hard and never give up.
I'm actually glad that during my struggle to get published I was forced to dig deep and really find out what I was made of. I think that has made me a better writer. It certainly has made me appreciate and never take for granted this gift I've been given. This gift of being published and being able to have a voice in the world.
And that is why I love writing.

One Writer's Journey

I just read for the second time Five Pages a Day: A Writer’s Journey by Peg Kehret. Peg Kehret may not be as well known as some of the “biggies,” like J.K. Rowling or Lloyd Alexander, but she’s had a very satisfying career as a writer. She’s written about 40 books for children/young teens and a dozen nonfiction books on various topics. In fact, the Library of Congress called her home to identify which Peg Kehret she was and which books she wrote because clearly there was more than one Peg Kehret because of the great variety in these books. Surely no one person would have written them. But she had. And they all have a part in her story.

She begins with her first writing venture, the Dog Newspaper, when she was 10. She asked everyone in her neighborhood to tell about their dogs, but since they had very little to say, she ended up writing about her own dog, B.J., who did have an interesting story. He had been found as the only surviving puppy in a litter by her uncle’s unit in Germany during World War I and the soldiers kept the puppy until the end of the war, when they decided to pool their money to get the dog to the U.S. (They had named him B.J., because it was a Big Job to take care of him.) Then they had a drawing and Peg’s uncle won the drawing. Although Peg felt her first issue was a great success, sadly, her venture barely made it to a fourth issue.

I love hearing stories of writers when they were children. I’m so impressed when I hear of writers who wrote their first book when they were 8 or 10 or even 16. In fact, I like that I wrote poetry in high school. I probably would cringe to read it now, but I love that I loved words when I was young and that I knew they could be used to express feelings and to create images that recreated those feelings in others.

Peg did have some great writing opportunities when she was younger and by describing them, she also gives would-be writers some ideas for their own writing. She proofread a newspaper and wrote commercials for a radio station when she was in high school, but married at 18 instead of going to college. It took her a while to get back to writing but that rediscovery for her provides many lessons as well. She started taking community classes but when her husband was transferred out of state, she learned that she couldn’t afford the out-of-state tuition for more classes. So she decided, since she already knew she wanted to be a writer, to spend the next year writing, until she could qualify as a resident and go back to school.

Here she enters into really fun and useful part of her book, how she slowly began to earn money with her writing, but then, I think every single chapter and all her stories about her writing failures and successes are useful, both to writers and to the editors who work with writers. I particularly appreciate that her apprenticeship before writing her first book took involved her writing for several magazines and also writing in response to several contests, where she won a car and a trip to Hawaii, among other things. But more than winning things—although they were useful to her young family and validating to her as a writer—was that they helped instill a discipline that invited creativity.

I’m going to stop here and simply say that about 10 copies of this book are available on Amazon for $2 plus shipping. Peg’s style is incredibly readable and I think writers at all stages will enjoy her story.

My Favorite Characters

I taught a class on creating characters last week at our public library. It was a fun opportunity to review some of my favorite people in literature. I read brief character descriptions from some of my favorite books, then discussed how I created mine.

The first excerpt I read was from The Secret Garden, one of my all-time favorite books when I was growing up. Frances Hodgson Burnett said of her character: "When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression." I loved Mary as she outgrew her self-absorption and was curious (and brave!) enough to investigate the crying sounds in the big scary house and find Colin, then bully him into a cure.

I read many more, but there isn't room nor time to go into all of them here. I did, however, read an example from Emeralds and Espionage, my first book, showing a serious flaw in character introduction. My heroine plunges into her adventure without the reader having any idea who she is or what she looks like - and in the first few drafts, it remained that way until some kind editor pointed out that it was about 25 pages into the book before the reader ever knew her name. My only excuse was that it was my first book - and that I clearly saw her and knew all about her. I just failed to communicate that early on to my readers.

I liked Allison. She was adventurous, head-strong, intelligent - after all, she spoke a dozen different languages. :) And she was beautiful, but humble through it all. (All the things I wanted to be, I guess.) When I created her, I went through the entire character sketch so that I knew everything about her: what she like to eat, read, listen to, do in her spare time, her parentage, her job, her car, her friends, her dreams. All these things will have a bearing on what she does and how she reacts in any given situation. I had to know about her education, ethnicity, possessions, obsessions, beliefs, religion, ambitions, fears, attitudes, character flaws and strengths as well.

Some of the participants in the class asked if this was really necessary when you write a book. I feel that it is absolutely essential. If you know your character, you know how she/he will react when faced with a problem, in an emergency, in a tense situation or confrontation. And if you write a character sketch, you won't have to go back later and see if her eyes were blue, green, hazel, brown or gray.

I was diligent in forming Allison beforehand, but didn't think it was necessary with the secondary characters, but as they began playing a major role in the story, I discovered their history and description needed to be fleshed out in a character sketch. As I added the Anastasia team, it was absolutely necessary to do that for them, or I could never have kept up with their idiosyncracies which are always an important part of any character.

I loved Maggie McKenzie. I had so many story lines for her, so much possibility. I'm sad that she is retired. A life snuffed out too soon.

So I am a total advocate of doing an extensive character sketch on your main characters. If they have fun quirks, make them a part of the story. Let your readers empathize with their flaws and rejoice in their strengths. If you know your characters well, this should make writing about them so much easier - and even fun!