I think that I shall never see
a poem lovely as a tree.
---Joyce Kilmer
RIP giant shade tree. Thank you for giving me 13 years of shade, and for falling away from the house instead of into it.
A New Look
When I chose change as my word of the year, I had no idea what changes the Universe had in store for me. I simply had a feeling that this would be a year of change. Some changes, I anticipated--such as my job change. Others, not so much--such as having to change doctors because mine left her practice.
In recent weeks, I've been working toward changing houses. I've been cleaning and purging room after room after room. (Goodwill either loves me or cringes every time I pull up to their donation door.) I'm developing an appreciation for minimalism.
This design change on my website is part of that. I'd kept the previous design in place for three years, an eternity on the Internet. It was time for a change. I wanted a simple, clean design. I played with a dozen templates until I found the one I wanted. This one is called Wells, which also happens to be the name of my alma mater. I don't know if that's a sign it was meant to be, or if the Universe delights in irony as much as I do.
I do know that this design reflects where I'm at in my life and my head at the moment. It may last a month, a year, or three years. It depends on when I'm ready for another change.
The Best Book I Read This Month: The Haunting of Maddy Clare by Simone St. James
I went to the library on Saturday, looking for short books that would help me make up some ground on my Goodreads Challenge--where I was 10 books behind. I picked up a Stephen King novella, knowing it would be a quick read, and The Haunting of Maddy Clare. I chose The Haunting because it was a) relatively short and b) set in post-World War I England, one of my favorite settings. I read the King novella first and started The Haunting of Maddy Clare Sunday afternoon. It swept me away. I stayed up late Sunday night reading it and made sure I got up early enough Monday morning to finish it before I started work.
My library had the book classified as horror, but I didn't find it all that scary. (Perhaps a tolerance I've developed as a lifelong Stephen King reader?) Yes, there is a ghost--a rather violent one--but the story was more like a mystery, driven by the pursuit of answers to two questions: Who was Maddy Clare? What happened to her?
And Maddy doesn't do the only haunting in the story. World War I is just as vivid a specter, having left both physical and psychological scars on the two male leads, scars that inform their interactions with each other, with Maddy Clare, and with the main character: Sarah Piper. And, as is fitting for an England where war has decimated the male population, the story is populated by female characters, with the men often playing supporting roles.
Ultimately, it was the interaction among the three "ghost hunters"--Sarah, Alistair, and Matthew--that drew me in, grabbed me, and held my attention. This is certainly not a story for the faint of heart, but Susanna Kearsley's cover blurb was accurate: it was spellbinding.
Short Story Contest Results
Well, the NYC Midnight 2017 Short Story Challenge winners have been announced--and I'm not one of them. I am a little disappointed, but having read the synopses of the top 20 stories and having read the winning story, I understand why. NYC Midnight judges tend like stories with a slightly different take or with a twist, and mine didn't have either of those. (I would, however, like credit for getting the prompt "write a story about an undertaker at sunrise" and NOT writing a vampire story.) My story also didn't have the emotional wallop of the winning story, which you can read here. Still, I'm happy I made it as far as I did. It was quite a ride.
Better luck next year!