The Youngest of These

As the sparrows in the loving arms of shelter

you huddle

               trust

Canons fire at the borders of your home

     and yet

               you don’t flinch

  for you know the sound; it soothes you,

          rocks you to sleep, to dream

of fields far away and nearby, where your protector

                     slaves in love, for his country, his homeland

    and yours.

You cannot always know the “why” of what he does

        and yet you’re proud

                stalwart

Standing at an attention of your own kind

        you know

   from the outside world, you’re not the same

they have police & grocery stores, convenience

you have MPs & commissaries, shoppettes

               it’s a different world

       and they’ll never know.

As he is promoted with full honor & bearing & grace

     and ceremony

             you watch

  learning of honor & bearing & grace

As he retires

               while – in the other world

                  a man leaving his job gets a watch and a

              “thanks and see ya (but won’t, of course)” dinner

               with kids at home with sitter or off away

     You are called to join

               stand in line beside him, quiet, respectful

          grace in its highest form

your protector, your personal hero

        receives with dignity a thank you & “we’re still here for you”

spouse & children, as well – always one

               a proud smile warms your knowing face while he

               accepts – with deep gratitude – his award

  and then

at his side

      you receive flowers, too

     for a military man never works alone

               his job is not only his – it belongs to all

         especially, it belongs to you

you who sacrificed

               moving homes

               leaving friends

               doing without your nightly hug because he’s away

           for days – months, eternity at times

               partnering with him, with your mom who pretends you

                              don’t know she cries

               becoming her strength as she gives hers to you

             
  he can’t do his job without you

                   without knowing your job is harder

                   simple childhood is non-existent in your world

     you are so much more

more than they – those on the outside – will ever know

            or care to know

        you are the strong

                       the strength

                       the persevered

        you are the proud

                        the knowing, the heart

it is you for which he fights, fears, gives:

            sacrifice that he sees not as sacrifice

            but as “is”

You will always know what others will not

               -- sympathy & empathy are not the same

               you want no sympathy

               (only others like you can give you empathy)

you want only respect

                              hard earned

                              hard to truly find

    it is for you, for every part of who you are

           & what you will become

        for which he fights

                              it is all

               or nothing – he knows no in between

                 neither do you

for you he fights, for love

          & it is you who shows him what true love

                                             is

The youngest of these pay for others’ sins

               & you are the proof of how beautiful that is

___
April is National Poetry Month, as well as the Month of the Military Child. This is for my children, and for military children everywhere.
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©2010 LK Hunsaker. All Rights Reserved.
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Happy 101

Back in February, Linda Banche named me as one of her "Happy” recipients. The timing was odd, as February was an atrocious month and although I meant to get it posted right away, it didn’t happen. Better late than never.

So:

The award asks that you list 10 things you’re happy about and then award it to other bloggers.

My 10 Happy Things:

1- Sunshine!
2- Daffodils and Yellow Tulips and Green stuff popping up everywhere
3- My kids enjoying each other’s company
4- Riding on the back of my husband’s Harley on a perfect day
5- Water! (swimming, boating, walking along a beach)
6- Family and friends who jump in just at the right time
7- Puppy joy that’s always there no matter what
8- Music that makes we want to dance, sing, or vent along with it
9- Playing in the dirt in the guise of gardening
10- Enjoying incredible art, be it books, fine art, dance, or theatre

I could go on, but I’ll stop at 10. Instead of naming specific bloggers, I'm inviting anyone who would like to grab the image and make your own list of Happiness to please do so and leave a link to your blog in the comments here so we can all share your Happiness!

Have a Beautiful Week ahead!
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Why I Watch Dancing With the Stars

  

I saw someone online the other day say they aren't watching this season because it's "a cast full of losers."

First, I resent anyone calling someone else a loser unless it's like .. a rapist or murderer or a bottom feeder or the like. Although there is one celeb this year I'm very anxious to see leave, and have plenty of agreement on that, I still wouldn't use that term. Nasty, yes. Loser? Well, who knows what she's gone through in reality? Maybe she's fighting more odds than anyone can know, which doesn't give a person the right to be nasty to innocent parties, but still, calling someone a loser only makes you look ... well, nasty.

Losers? I have to wonder just how much that person has achieved to consider these people losers. My guess is not nearly as much. Consider Buzz Aldrin, the astronaut who walked on the moon. Yes, he’s 80 and dances stiff, but hey, he gave it a good go and was fun to watch because of his attitude and because of his accomplishments. The show was honored to have him, as they should have been. Or Erin, who worked her way up to broadcasting. Nicole, who made her way in the music business before Idol brought no names overnight success.  Same goes with most of the celebs this season: they worked hard to get where they are. Heck, Evan’s been called the hardest working figure skater in the business and he’s an Olympic gold medalist. Hardly loser material. 

That’s all besides the point. I don't care what celebs they have on the show. Some I enjoy more than others. Some I root for and am sad to see leave. But I watch for the pros.

They're great, aren't they? Last night's results show was amazing, because of the two pro dances. I wouldn't watch the results otherwise. I don't like the whole ... "we'll tell you right after this" type of drawn out suspense. I don't believe that the results are purely the results of viewer voting. I don't vote anymore because it feels a waste of time and too much playing in their rating game nonsense. I do think the one everyone wants to have kicked off is only still there because the producers know drama and controversy on online venues will pull viewers in to watch and see what the drama is all about.

Still, I love the dancing. I love most of the pros. Maksim is just heavenly to watch, and Derek is amazing; Louie is a joy as are Lacey and Tony.... In short, they could pull people off the street aka that Idol show that got booted off top ratings by DWTS and I'd still watch. It's about the dancing for me. I love it. I enjoy the celebs with no dance background who go on and work hard and prove that you CAN step out of your element and still succeed if you're determined enough. How long they stay on is a moot point. That they dared to do it is what matters.

I don't watch realities with a very very rare exception, because I don't at all believe any of them are not staged. It's largely a bunch of overdramatic whining set up to make the audience think it's all real. Come on.

I get sick of the celebs who do that on DWTS, also. You know which I mean: the ones who go on and on about how busy their schedules are and how horrible it is to have a little injury and to keep going anyway. Welcome to real life, chickadees. So what? I applaud Evan Lysacek who broke a couple of toes and said nothing about it this week while dancing on them anyway. Not to mention he's also performing with Stars on Ice in between rehearsing and doesn't whine about that schedule, either. That's reason enough to keep rooting for him as a winner, which in my mind, he is (even besides his Olympic medal).

Yes, I'm a fan of the show. No, I'm not all pulled-in to the hype or think it's all "reality" as they want us to think. I watch for the dancing. I love the elegance of ballroom as opposed to all of the bump-and-grind of modern days that has received too much attention.

Real dance is incredibly hard. It's true art. It's vivid and alive. If you don't believe how hard it is, give it a try. I'm in favor of anything that promotes elegance and hard work and respect and art and pushing yourself to new limits. I find it a very good sign that DWTS topped the TV ratings. Possibly, all of those values are returning.

The cast, unlike most reality casts, don't get nasty toward each other (at least not on the show). They encourage each other even while competing. They have fun while working hard. They learn how to get along and what makes the individual relationships work enough to spend so much time together in such a stressful environment. The pros are the ringleaders in doing so, in promoting a healthy working relationship, in being honest but respectful.

It's a beautiful thing to see and so rare to find on television these days. Maybe that's what helps make the show such a roaring success.

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"There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move,
and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies."
Robert Frost

As an aside: Maksim Chmerkovsky now owns a dance studio in New Jersey. For the first time in my life, I'm thinking NJ is the place to be, even for an instructional visit. Not that I would actually dare, but the thought is fun. And who knows? Maybe I would dare if I had the chance. ;-)
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Amazing Grace and a shaky path

The other day I rented Amazing Grace. Have you heard of the movie? I dare say many haven’t. From 2006, with director Michael Apted and a score of actors without big industry names (excepting Albert Finney), the movie seems to be getting lost in the shuffle somewhere. That’s a shame.

I sat down to watch it the other night and both of my kids expected not to stay longer than the beginning while they were in the living room anyway. As the story continued, they both stayed , all the way through to the end.

Amazing Grace is the story of two men: the man who wrote the song, an ex slave ship captain who escaped the position to join the church and had continuing nightmares about it, and the brave legislator determined to stop the slave trade in England. It’s a beautiful story of determination through 20 years of fighting that threatened William Wilberforce’s health versus those who wanted to keep their eyes closed to the reality of the trade. At times, he wanted to walk away, afraid he was doing no good and that his stomach condition would become life-threatening, as it did indeed. With support of only a loyal few who believed in what he was doing, he continued, and he won. There are so many lessons to learn from this film.

Since it is Easter Sunday, the lesson I’m pulling into focus with this entry is how mixing religion with politics is what made the difference between continuing the evil and abolishing it.

The group standing behind Wilberforce were “itinerant prophets”  -- religious leaders of different kinds. It was William’s religious beliefs that God created all men equally that drove his conviction to continue the fight. It was his friendship with William Pitt, prime minister of England during part of the fight, that helped his cause stand through the rigors of parliament’s one concern: money.

Fast forwarding to the slave trade in America, it was the Quakers insisting on that same conviction, that God made all men to be equal, who fueled the fire to end the trade here, as well.

And now we spout “separation of church and state” as though it says as much in the Constitution and as though religion will cause the downfall of our country. If we look through history, we see quite the opposite.

Where did we fall so off track?

I believe the separations are what causes much of the problem, not religion itself. There are so many branches of Christianity with so many stems reaching so many directions, all having their separate rules about what is accepted and what is not, about how to worship, about who will go to hell and who will be saved … that we’ve lost track of the one important message:

Love each other.

That doesn’t mean, and was never intended to mean, only those who believe as you do or think as you do or worship as you do. It means everyone. It means stop the separation and realize we are all the same in God’s eyes, regardless of what we call Him or how we see Him or which church we attend or if we don’t.

The separations and miniscule little rules that make us bicker and push each other away are hurting both Christianity and our nation. It’s making our kids turn away from religion so that too many are claiming to be atheist simply because of the rules and separations that make no sense to them.

They’re right. It doesn’t make sense. That’s not what it’s about.

So archeologists are studying the man called Jesus and looking for answers. Why? That’s not the point.The point is His message and it’s the same message all religions have at their basis:

Love each other. Treat each other well. Don’t do anything to someone else you don’t want them to do to you.

Simple. Maybe we should go back to that focus and bypass all the little rules that were man-made and most often made for political reasons.

Religion and politics are, and always have been, tied together because it must be that way. Without religious ideals, laws would be based entirely on finances and without humanity. I don’t believe any of us want that. On the other side, there is not one church that doesn’t have politics going on in the background.

Spirituality, on the other hand, is free, and freeing. And it’s personal, while still connecting us all to each other.

”I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
Amazing Grace

”Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.”
Kin Hubbard

12 Lessons from Ireland

In the summer of 2008, my husband and I took a trip to Scotland, Ireland, & England. Though quite a whirlwind, we brought much of it away with us.

On St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d share pieces of it, using a few of the many, many photos I took along the way.

If you move your cursor over top of the photos, it will tell you what each one is.

[Photos are copyright-protected. Do not use without permission.]

1) Build strong, with heart and eyes and head. What you do now may last longer than you can imagine and impact many more souls than you would ever have thought possible.


2) Use your own natural resources whenever possible.



3) Step wisely and pay attention to what’s underfoot. A path is made of more than stone.



4) A window is not only a window. Sometimes it tells a deep and meaningful story. At least it can if you want it to.



5) Books are to be valued by both writer and reader. Put your full creativity and passion into them and they will be well-loved and well-cared-for by those who follow. (These were hand illustrated over 1,000 years ago.)



6) Water refreshes the body and spirit, whether by taking it in, immersing into it, or enjoying and respecting its beauty, peace, and strength.



7) Rain may feel gloomy and it may be annoying as we go about our days, but it also brings vibrant life and calming green. No one knows this better than Ireland.



8) Whatever the language or place or temptation, there are reasons for rules and boundaries. If you cross them, do so very carefully and with due consideration for the results. (Also, when making a rule, it’s nice to be polite, and to remember they are meant to be protection from harm, not restriction from liberty.) :-)



9) Faith itself matters more than the particulars. The Celtic cross is a blend of Christianity and Paganism. They mesh beautifully in Ireland. There’s no reason the rest of us can’t do the same. Respect other faiths if you want yours respected.



10) Magic matters. The Irish wouldn’t dream of crossing down into the middle of this Fairy Circle where tree roots grew up into hill formations in a large circular pattern with a lowland middle. There are many of these in Ireland. Workers will halt a construction project before they cross into it. They will walk the edge of the hill circle, but never step down into the fairy territory. If a tourist does, they fear for his safety in days to come.



11) Never, never underestimate a woman’s ability to protect her home!

Colin O’Brien, whose built this castle with his father, was killed in battle against Oliver Cromwell’s forces. Cromwell insisted Colin’s wife, Maura, marry one of his officers because after a certain amount of time, the land would belong to the husband. Maura, not to be done out of her ownership of the land, arranged for the new husband, only days before he would take ownership, to join her at the top of the castle for a romantic evening. Somehow, he managed to fall off to his death. A resourceful woman, Maura remarried – several times – and each new husband mysteriously fell to his death just before the change of ownership. Men should well be glad that law no longer exists. ;-)



12) It makes no difference whether or not you believe in Leprechans, since they believe in you. Some will find them, some won’t. It’s all in the way you look. Not finding him, though, doesn’t mean he’s not there.

For more photos of Ireland, click on Ireland Slideshow at the top of my blog!

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Book Review: Still Alice

Still Alice
Lisa Genova
Pocket Books 2009
www.StillAlice.com

I picked up Still Alice because it was my library's book club selection this month. I'd never heard of Lisa Genova, but by the time I finished the novel, I was glad to know she's working on another.

Alice is a 50 year old psychology professor at Harvard who has co-authored a text book with her husband, a research scientist, and has established an incredible reputation as not only a preferred teacher but also as a world-traveled speaker. As she celebrates her birthday, she is struggling with memory issues and even starting to get lost close to home in an area she's very familiar with. Going privately to a neurologist, she is diagnosed with early onset alzheimer's disease.

Since Alice is the POV character, you have to wonder how Genova will continue to follow her story as Alice lapses further into the disease. I was rather impressed with how well she managed to show the early struggles as well as the progression. All of the characters are well drawn from Alice's POV and we get to know some of them better than others. I found it interesting that the child she says she knows the least is the one we know the most. The other two are mainly background.

Her husband, John, is an interesting character and at times, I wanted to yell at him for being so self-centered, but then looking back at their history, I couldn't help but think Alice partly made him that way with her work obsession. The novel is a nice look at marriage-combined-with-work issues, as well as the dementia issue.

From the beginning, we bond with Alice. Anyone who has ever been so busy finding a set of keys seems an impossible task will relate. This makes us truly sympathetic of her plight and we pull for her to keep going, keep trying. As we do, we learn much about Alzheimers and how it progresses and how they are working to find ways to slow or stop it. There is also information about how to keep the brain healthy in general.

At times, the writing is a bit stiff, especially at the beginning, but Genova is a first time novelist and I believe she may find her stride with the next.
This is a must read for anyone dealing with dementia in a loved one, anyone with dementia in their family history, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand this disease. It is truly educational and heartwarming and sad and hopeful all at once.

Note: Genova self-pubbed Still Alice when she couldn't find a publisher for it. She went through iUniverse and also contacted the National Alzheimer's Association for a possible endorsement, got their agreement, won a couple of indie awards, and Pocket Books picked it up. She recommends other authors self-pub instead of letting their manuscripts languish.

This review is from a book I purchased and no compensation has been offered or received.

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Artistic Eye: in photos

Art is a way of seeing.

That’s far from a new thought, but yesterday I posted a few photos of a local park in the blog I set up for my county to show the area in all its glory. I posted the link in my Facebook and received a comment about my “artistic eye.” That’s what art is all about: seeing things in a different viewpoint, looking more deeply and at different angles to find details. I’m not sure if it can be taught fully, but there are techniques anyone can use to see things more artistically.

I’m not a good teacher. I never have been. I found this back when trying to help my kids with their homework. Understanding and teaching are different. However, I’m always willing to share what I’ve learned and thought I’d try today, using other photos from the park that are more artsy than descriptive, if that makes sense.

 
I have a thing for docks. There’s something romantic about an old wooden structure reaching out into the water, a path that leads seemingly nowhere, unless you have an alternate mode of transportation. I don’t see only the dock here. I see the possibility of a small boat coming to its open end, ready for passengers. I see a couple walking out hand-in-hand to the edge and sitting together enjoying the water (or slushy snow in this case) and serenity of nature, wordless, since quiet is a powerful means of communication. I see footsteps in the snow beside it that were there before the weather warmed and made treading out on the pond on foot impossible. I see the shelters in the background amidst the trees that hold the possibility of get-togethers and laughter. I wonder who made the footprints. I wonder if the water is seen as a barrier between the dock and the shelters or a connection. I see the changing season: grass beginning to show on the land while snow and ice still control the water. I see possibility of metaphor.


Angle matters. If I had centered my son in the photo, I wouldn’t see the little pavilion in the background and I wouldn’t get the path of water leading to it. I wouldn’t have the edge of grass that echoes the melting of the ice that echoes the short sleeves. I wouldn’t get the same angle of his head echoing the curve of the pond. There’s always more to a photo than the main subject. Background matters.


Catch the sun in the right place and it will assist your eye and transform your scene. Also, try looking up instead of always out. It’s amazing the beauty you can find just by raising your chin.



Catch the reflections.


And the tracks left by someone else. 

If you’ll return (and you can know I’ve left a new post by subscribing to your right), you’ll soon find more artistic eye entries: in fine art, in writing, in design, and maybe in social issues.

By the way, all photos online are copyright protected by their creators. If you would like to use my photos, please contact me and let me know where and for what. I don’t mind sharing with permission and credit. I have the better, larger versions if there is a good purpose for the larger versions.

Publishing: How I Got Started

I’ve been asked often by other writers how I got started with publishing my books. Fair question. The publishing business is a complicated one, with many paths and many branches stemming from each of those paths. Now that Blogger has the option to add tabs to blogs, I thought I’d take advantage and use it to gather some of my thoughts and experiences with publishing. The main focus will be on indie publishing, since I am indie and haven’t been contracted. Maybe I can pull in some author friends who have been contracted to help fill that part of the information.

For the beginning of this series here on my blog (although I’ve been giving info to my On Our Own group for years), I’m starting with the few basics.

Back while I was working on Finishing Touches, which wasn’t my first written novel, but the first finished, I was asked what I planned to DO with all the writing I’d been working so hard on. Also a fair question. I didn’t start writing with the idea of publishing. I wrote because I’m a writer and that’s what I needed to do to be fulfilled. Did I want to publish? I wasn’t so sure about that one. It’s a scary thing, putting your work out there for readers to view and possibly tear apart. A novel is a part of a writer’s soul, at least mine are. Of course they are fiction, but not entirely. Much of who a writer is can be found better in her fiction than with normal activity. Did I want to share that much of me?

Not so much.

However, I loved my characters and my stories and yes, I decided I did want to share them. The question then was HOW?

I learned research methods in college, and I did plenty of it. That gave me a good general concept of where to start in publishing: research. So I did. In between writing and continuing to study the craft, I researched the publishing business. Now, I’m no expert. I don’t ever claim to be. But I did do my homework first and found I had three major options as to how to go about it:

1) Traditional

With traditional publishing research, which is where I started, I learned that not only would I have to do queries and synopses to mail out, that most don’t accept multiple submissions and can take weeks to months to answer before I could send it elsewhere if it was rejected, but I would also either have to search through to find the “right” publishers for what I wrote or find an agent to find the right publishers. Either one would take a good amount of time to find the match I needed. After that, it could take 2 years or so, IF my book was accepted, before it would actually come out. A good agent, as I found, is as hard to find as the right publisher. (And never, never PAY an agent! Legit agents make money when they sell your book, which is why they won’t accept you if they think they can’t sell you.)

Other than the time problem I had with this, I also had a problem with the “right” match issue. I don’t write to a commercially marketable genre, aka what’s “in” right now. I do my own blend of different genres and often they are very long. Most publishers will not accept more than 100,000 word manuscripts from new writers and many want no more than 60,000. Not a good match for me.

Also with traditional publishing, control is taken away: cover art is hired out with the author often having no say, how you market and where you sell is restricted, how long it takes to be available widely varies, and it’s always possible to get a contract only for the publisher not to bother ever putting it out. It’s happened. I didn’t want my hands tied. Not to mention the royalty rate is very low and many authors never get more than the advance. Advances are hard to come by these days. This method was not the right fit for me. So I moved along.

2) Self Publishing

Actual self publishing is when the author does all the setup herself, providing cover art (often purchased) and properly formatted text files, and then takes them to a printer (brick and morter or online), and pays all expenses to have them printed. It’s a risky way to publish, especially if your printer insists on you buying a large print run (sometimes 1,000 copies) that you then have to store. Doing this with an online printer is a safer way to go. Still, it’s an incredible amount of work and the author must BE a publisher, with publishing company name and the legalities that go with that.

3) Publishing Service

Many call them vanity publishers, but companies that will take your text files and assist you in producing and distributing your books save a lot of time for the indie author. They will also create covers for you, but I strongly suggest using your own, hiring that out to a good amateur artist if you don’t have the skills to do it yourself. Be careful doing it yourself. A good cover is very important. Also be careful about which company you choose, as there are a plethora of these places and many are more hurtful than helpful. Many, though, have good reputations, and this can be a viable way to get your feet in the publishing door.

I decided to go this way with my first books. Before I chose one, I did … more research. I compared fees with service, listened to what their authors had to say about them, skimmed message boards for good and bad of any I was interested in, and wound up choosing a small moderately priced company with all the services I wanted. It turns out that Infinity is now one of the top 2 recommended Publishing Services. Booklocker is also well recommended. Another that gets good comments from its authors is iUniverse. If you’ve gone this route with another company you’d recommend, please feel free to add it in the comments.

My latest book was done with an online printing/distribution service, using my own company and ISBNs. It meant taking the time to learn what I needed to know and do all the setup and the legal necessities, but if you have the time and ability to learn it, this is a good way to go.

There are benefits and drawbacks to each kind of publishing, and I’ll focus more on them in later posts. All of these will be gathered as links under my “Indie Publishing” heading at the top of my blog. Let me know if there’s anything in particular you’d like me to address.

As I said, I’m not an expert and cannot be liable for the way anyone uses this information. Do your own research! Be prepared before jumping into this business, because publishing IS a business, although writing is an art.
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Plugging the Hydrant

“Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second.”
Robert Frost

Robert Frost is somewhat featured in Off The Moon. Of course we all know he was an exceptional poet, but if you read through some of his quotes, you see that he was also a man of much common sense and intelligence with wonderful advice for living as well as writing.

My luster and drive for throwing myself into my stories and essays has been waning. At the same time, I’ve been throwing myself into reconnecting with old friends and talking with new and trying to keep up with everyone’s goings on. I enjoy it. Honestly. However, it has become that hydrant that’s such a danger to writing.

I’ve realized that for some time but expected I could find a way to balance it. So far, that hasn’t happened. My writing isn’t going where I want it to go. My chatting (partly with promo as an excuse) is becoming more predominant than my work. And a recent event has made me step back and realize I need to reconfigure.

I started writing back when I didn’t have enough communication. It was a constantly running faucet that relieved the emotional valve. It made for full, vivid stories packed with meaning and sub-meaning because all of my repressed thoughts came out in my work. Now, too often, they come out during chats and ramblings and it releases too much of that pressure I want in my work.

So, if I’m not around the lists or social networks much for a while, you can find me here – hopefully with better and deeper entries – and in my books. I have two I want out this year. They need my attention and my intensity. I also have a couple of other projects that have been on the back burner: projects that I believe will touch more people than I can with my little here-and-there ramblings.

I’m spread too thin. I need a narrower base of operations. This blog will be the main source. There’s also my quarterly newsletter (sign up is on my website). If you comment here or in my guest book, I’ll be around to answer. I can’t guarantee that elsewhere. Some of my miscellaneous projects will either be closing or transferred to others. The holes leading to water leaks need to be welded and the most important things I need to say are in my work.

There is a sign up to be notified of new blog entries to the right. It is only used for that – your email will not be shared. Please subscribe to my updates if you want to know of new entries, or become a fan at Facebook where these entries will filter automatically. Click Here or search LK Hunsaker.

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As for actual news:

Today is the release date for Classic Romance Revival’s “Cupid Diaries” anthology for romance lovers. My story “Toward The Sky” is included for their premiere issue. As it relates to Off The Moon, I’ve sent it about as promo for the novel and have received some very nice comments. Find the anthology here: Cupid Diaries: Moments in Time

“Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
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Happy Birthday, Grandpa. May I be able to leave as beautiful a legacy as you did.

A Musical Moment: the 70s

I was a child of the Seventies. Now, when most say that, they mean their late teen and early twenties years were during the Seventies and they were smack in the midst of the hippie revolution. I mean I was a child during the Seventies and my teen years began right at the tail end of that decade. But, I was always kind of old for my age and when I was ten, I fell right into that music-obsessed teen-like musician worship stage. Anyway, it seemed to me that all teens and pre-teens were music obsessed and that all conversation centered around who was hot at the moment and who had the better voice/most skill.

Since those days, I've come to realize that isn't true: not everyone centered their teen worlds on music. Unbelievable, though it may be.

They say scent is the strongest neumonic; nothing brings recall better than a familiar scent. Maybe that's true for most, but for me, nothing will bring back a moment in time more than a song, or a band, or even a musical style. Take the Super Bowl halftime show. I don't watch football, but my son called me out when The Who came on. Suddenly, I was swept back in time to when their songs were on the radio and I was in my parents' home locked away in my bedroom working on something to keep my hands busy just as an excuse to be lost in the music. The Who played a mix of some of their top songs and while some were knocking how "old" they are and how "bad" the sound was, I could only think how cool it was to see them perform and be swept away to the past. And to be fair, they gave a strong performance for a band that came out in the mid Sixties.

It was great to share the experience with my son who is older than I was when The Who was on the radio. He was impressed. For "old guys" they played well and were full of energy, which surprised the sixteen year old with tons of his own. He commented on how good the drummer was and how cool the stage looked. See? This is a kid after my own heart. He gets it. It's not only entertainment; it's an experience. [He also found it cool that their drummer for the show was none other than Zak Starkey, Ringo's kid.]

How can you go through your teen years without falling for a particular band, or a particular musician? Music captures moments of time that can't be captured in any other way, and teens are primed and ready for this musical moment-stealing.

I was swept away by many singers and many bands during those awkward years. Donny and Leif and Andy and David, plus Styx and Journey and Chicago and Air Supply … I could spend as much time with them as I could pull from homework and chores and they were always there waiting. Granted, most of the albums belonged to my big sis since she had babysitting money, but as we shared a room and she was a loving big sis, I got to use her record player and her albums.

I still vividly remember the day she brought home a new album of a band I'd never heard of. I thought they were rather odd-looking, to tell the truth, not as cute as Andy and Donny, but still, there was something fascinating about them I couldn't put my finger on (other than their odd clothing choice). And then she played the album. I was grabbed in a way no other music had ever grabbed me.

I've talked with many adults recently who were big fans of the band, as well, and so often I hear it was their looks that were the big attraction. Hmm.. I'm one of the youngest fans and no, it wasn't their looks for me. Heck, I was ten at the time or right at that. Boys were still only undecipherable creatures and interesting but rather annoying (apologies to my little brother, but he understands). It was the music.

As I grew, I moved into the Eighties with Hall & Oates and Madonna and Michael Jackson and Tears For Fears and Julian Lennon, but that band remained number one on my list. Why? Who Knows? Something about them spoke to me. In fact, it spoke loudly enough, it became a story. What were they really like past the media hoopla? What was it like to tour and live in hotels and buses and be stuck with each other for months at a time? Did they get along behind the scenes? What about girlfriends? How do you have one with that kind of lifestyle?

The questions festered until I had to start answering them. No, I didn't stalk the band. They disappeared and all that was left were those albums and the posters previously smothering our bedroom wall and then tucked safety into folders. I was stuck in a little town in the Midwest going to school and family functions. In my head, though, I was on the road. It moved well past questions about that one band to being about a band in general, and a girl who supported them.

I created my own band to answer those questions. The results were thirty-some years in the making, with tons of research and music-following in general and talking with other fans and reading music biographies, and it became my Rehearsal series. It's not why I started writing. I've been doing that since I knew what writing was. It did spur an obsession for story-telling, for discovering the whys and hows and what ifs, even if the answers are fiction. All fiction has its truths. Reading a novel may mean no more than several hours of escape. Or, it may be a moment in time that causes a lasting effect in some way.

That one moment back in the mid Seventies when I listened to that one album lovingly crafted by artists coming into their own was much more than 30 minutes of escapism. It was pure inspiration. It was lasting joy. It was a trigger. If only one of my books could do the same, that would be a legacy I would be thrilled to have.

If you're wondering, no, I'm not revealing the band name, because that's not the point (and because I called them odd-looking -- apologies to those of you who do know who I mean, but I was only ten-ish and I mostly changed my mind later).

However, for those following the CRR Blog Carnival (and for anyone else who stops by), I do have a musical prize to be drawn from those who leave comments on this post:

A CD full of music from my youth, much of which is mentioned in my Rehearsal series, plus

Rehearsal: A Different Drummer as Ebook on a signed CD. I'll draw the name on Tuesday morning to give those in other time zones plenty of time to get here. Be sure I can contact you or stop back by to see if I need your contact info!

So what about you? Were you a music-obsessed teen? Who did you listen to? If not, what was your teen obsession?

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This is part of the Classic Romance Revival Valentine's Day Blog Carnival. Winners for the grand prize -- a 5-ARC package from Classic Romance Revival authors -- will be drawn from visitors commenting on the most blogs.  To qualify for the grand prize, you need to register for the contest.  Please visit the Classic Romance Revival blog to find details of all the blogs and to register:

http://www.classicromancerevival.com/blog/?p=1671