The Month of the Foot

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I am two-and -a-half weeks into recovery from foot surgery, and there isn't a lot to think about when your day is spent reading one book after another while your foot is propped up on 3 or 4 pillows to keep it above your waist. (The first 2 weeks it was above my heart.) I could be doing book reviews, true, but it would be hard to pick one. I think I've read about 20 books in two weeks! 

I keep wondering how this experience will play into my writing. Will it? Can it? I write mainly for kids. I had bunions and hammer-toes, an adult affliction that develops over time. The protagonist in my present WIP is a ten-year-old girl in the Victorian era, when corrective surgery for these didn't exist, and ten-year-olds wouldn't even know what they were.


Write what you know. Well, at present, what I know is all about foot surgery for bunions and hammertoes. Maybe one of you can have a character with this problem, in which case, please help yourself to the following information. 
                                        
This is kinda what my feet looked like before surgery. I had one of each of these on each foot. And let me tell you, they are really uncomfortable. Almost all my shoes started rubbing painful blisters. I could only wear those comfy sliders that look like bedroom slippers. You know the ones I mean. My feet looked a little in between the picture on the left below and the picture on the right. You get the general idea.


                         

I had the right foot done last summer, and the left foot done on June 22nd this summer. It's amazing what the doctor does: He cuts bone. Yes. He cuts the bunion off. Then he cuts the hammertoe off and pins that toe so that it's flat. Yeah. A pin. (That comes out after 5 weeks). The new big toe, now minus a bunion, has a little screw in the joint. That's forever. 


When the foot is all healed up, it looks like a normal foot again, like the feet in the next picture. So far, my right foot looks like one of these. My left foot will soon. But that's not why I had it done. Believe me, I would have kept having my shoes stretched across the toe before having my bones cut. This is not something to do for cosmetic reasons. I did it because of discomfort and pain. I couldn't wear any shoe with comfort, and I couldn't do much walking for exercise. 

But now that I do have normal feet again (or will, when the swelling on this one goes down), I admit I am looking forward to wearing nice shoes again like the ones way below. 


Meanwhile, I suppose I can weave part of this experience into a story: If my MC gets sick in a sequel, I know what she feels like while recuperating, longing to be outside again; longing to walk around and say hello to friends or admire gardens or go peer in a shop window. I know, too, how tired of reading she might become, no matter how much she loves to read. Nothing gets completely wasted on a writer, does it? 


How about you? Have you been through some experiences you can't really find a way to put per se into a story except to cull out bits and pieces?

                 

By the way, you may have noticed these shoes don't have pointy toes or high heels. But they beat the bedroom slipper look. 

Another Time Out

Saturday we received news that my husband's eldest brother passed away. We called Friday evening as we often do, (which was Saturday morning In India), and he was on the verge of passing even then. All the brothers were there, as well as my husband's sister, and we conveyed news to two brothers here. One of them called India later and called us back with the news that he had passed about an hour after we called. He was 90, and would have been 91 in September. He lived a long and incredibly good life, and still I am sorry he is gone, though also glad for his sake. The heat in India is killing heat at this season. He was suffering from that in recent calls. But even though our visits were infrequent through the years, I'll miss him in future visits. He radiated kindness and wisdom, as does my sister-in-law, his wife. And he always took my spiritual questions seriously and took time to answer them. Both he and his wife have been beacons of goodness for all the family, and after all the traditional rites and ceremonies are performed, his loss will be deeply felt, though he leaves a wonderful spiritual legacy for us all.

Back to The World of Blogging

I haven't been blogging because. . . A series of FORTUNATE events have been keeping me busy.


 There was the art show in March. I always love setting it up. But then there was taking it down again before our trip to Spain. Busy, busy, when you are packing too.

The art show in the window of Are Ellis.

There was the trip to Galicia. Wonderful, as always.  This is our village, Trasulfe.

But this time there was not much time to blog, because I was doing a rewrite of my mystery for an agent who is interested. She liked many of the changes, but wanted more changes. So. . . , that meant another rewrite before surgery, along with the year's wind up of art club. And I still have another rewrite coming up. But I love doing it. I thought the book was ready before, but it's much better now, and I like the agent's approach.

Here is a location that is important in Book 1.

In our absence, our friends in Galicia arranged for an exhibit of my husband's photos of places in Galicia. We couldn't be there for it, but we heard it went well. There were 60 photos in all. Here are four of them:








And then there was the surgery itself, two days ago. (But you don't want photos of that.)  I spent the last two weeks in pre-op appointments as well as gardening. I am so glad I pulled weeds and made the garden beautiful. Now, bed-bound,I can look out my back window and enjoy roses and geraniums when I get tired of reading. Rajan also put a huge bouquet of sunflowers in a vase on the desk in my writing nook here inthe bedroom. Another restful sight, and so cheery! (Don't have a picture of that yet, but I will.)



We also visited friends,because for about 7 weeks I won't be traveling anywhere except into cyberspace! (I AM looking forward to reading your blogs again after being so focused on my own activities for so long.)


Meanwhile the surgery went quite well. I'm supposed to stay off that foot and keep it elevated for about 7 weeks. I'm well-armed with books to read. So you can expect some book reviews in days to come. Also I have my writing notebooks to keep me occupied, and hopefully the time will fly until I'm back at my desk and working on Book 2 of this mystery series.


How about you? How do you plan for those times when health issues change your schedule? Do you put everything on hold? Or do you find a way to maintain a schedule of sorts?

My Husband's Photography Exhibit in Galicia

Even though I am working on my rewrite like mad, I am taking time out to share my husband's wonderful photography exhibit in Galicia. Our friends, Terri and David Anderson set it up with the mayor of Ferreira, a small town near our village. The sneak preview was this week-end but it's really for the wine festival which begins June 2nd.


They did an awesome job of setting it up, and I hope you will go take a peek at the album I set up on Facebook on my timeline: here is my FB Timeline site. When you go there, just click on "Photos".(It's the first album. You'll recognize the cover picture.)


Sooo. . . , back to work now! See you in a couple of weeks.

Time Out

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Dear Blog Friends,


Sorry I have not been posting. I am working on a rewrite of my book with a deadline of two weeks, so I will not be posting again before the first week of June. Then I can resume both posting and visiting and commenting on your blogs. Please come back then. Thanks! Until then, I will be . . . .

New Book Review -- Bridge of Time by Lewis Buzbee

What if you woke from a nap to discover a familiar landmark had simply disappeared? What if you could meet yourself coming and going? What if you landed splat in another time and found yourself running for your life, and more than once? In Lewis Buzbee's latest literary mystery, Bridge of Time, a school field trip leads to a journey into the past with a surprising time traveler for a guide.

On the eve of their class trip to Fort Point, Lee Jones and Joan Lee each each learn their parents are getting a divorce. Needing a place to talk over the bad news, they sneak away from the class and hide in the lighthouse. But bad news can be exhausting, even when shared with a sympathetic best friend. They fall asleep. When they wake up and look out the lighthouse windows, the Golden Gate Bridge has vanished. And that’s not all that’s different. In the fort below, grass has replaced concrete. Soldiers are loading a real canon. Other soldiers have rifles and seem eager to use them. 

Immediately Joan and Lee crouch down to try and figure this out. Then they hear footfalls on the lighthouse stairs. The door opens. A young man dressed in black enters. His clothes are as old fashioned as those of the soldiers, and Joan and Lee can tell that, like the soldiers, he’s definitely not part of the field trip. He says his name is Sam Clemens. He says they have come “unstuck” in time, something that regularly happens to him. At present (this new present) it’s 1864. 

Thus Joan and Lee are launched into an adventure that takes them forward and backward in time through a San Francisco that keeps shifting. “Sam” is their guide, but even when he rescues them from the soldiers below (who might well shoot them for being spies), he gets them into new scrapes: Trying to get back to the lighthouse, which is a time portal, they have to elude the Kearney Street butchers, who want to take a cleaver to Sam for an article he wrote on behalf of a Chinese man they beat up. (In 1864 the white citizenry of San Francisco are bigoted against “the Chinese menace”.) And a mysterious man in black keeps pursuing them and Sam into both the future and past. (Why does Sam turn pale every time the stranger shows up?)

As in earlier mysteries, Buzbee weaves humor, history, and philosophy into his fast-paced tale. In one scene, Sam—who is actually Mark Twain—wrestles with twenty-first century slang, managing to get “dudes” and “totally awesome” right, but then adding, “I was also freaking the out.” In addition to the frightening aspects of San Francisco’s racism in 1864, there are softer brushstrokes that give the era: When Joan says she’d like to have a bath, Sam says, “Oh you children of the future. What have they done to you? Are you certain? It takes a good while to rustle up a proper bath.” (And so it does in 1864.) At the end of the book, Sam gives them a nice explanation of why the lighthouse at Fort Point is a focus for time travel. (But you’ll have to read the book to find out.) In one vivid scene the three time travelers fall into what Sam calls a “tumble”, shooting back and forth from one time to another so rapidly it could be a light show with strobe lights.

As was true of Buzbee’s two earlier literary mysteries, Bridge of Time is a book to savor and read more than once. (You can read earlier reviews of Steinbeck’s Ghost and The Haunting of Charles Dickens by clicking on the titles.)

Bridge of Time can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and a more complete list of online stores can be found here.

To learn more about Lewis Buzbee and his books, visit his website.

You can also visit him on Facebook.


But tell me, if you could time travel, what literary figure would you like for your guide?

Book Review: Only the Lonely

I have meant to blog regularly about our current trip to Galicia, but two prior commitments are putting that on the back burner: 1) An agent is interested in my MG mystery if I rewrite certain portions of it, so I have been diligently doing just that each day. 2) I have two book reviews I'd promised, and so I am taking care of those, one by one. (Rest assured, I'm also writing copious journal notes, and my husband has been taking numerous pictures, so on return to California, I'll do several posts about Galicia and some new discoveries on this trip.)

And now to the review of Richard Hughes' intriguing novel, Only the Lonely.

It isn’t often one encounters a family saga written by a man and from a man’s point of view. Much as I love to read traditional family sagas, this was a refreshing book for that very reason.The book takes the protagonist, Winston Hamilton from 1917 to 1945, and thus, through two world wars, fought by two different generations.

In 1917, Winston delivers coal to homes in a horse-drawn wagon, lives with his parents, and enjoys a good mug of beer with his friends at Louis’s Irish Pub. Then he accepts an invitation to Abby Cherniky’s house for a lesson in cursive handwriting. To the contemporary era this may seem a rather tame encounter. But Winston’s been delivering coal to her family for some time, and he and Abby have noticing each other. The handwriting lessons are a ploy on both sides for Winston to start courting in an era when a young man had to have a reason to come to a young woman’s house while the family checked him over.

But Mrs. Cherniky disapproves of alcohol, and when Winston realizes he’s deeply in love with Abby and wants to marry her, he gives up alcohol and the pub life. The author layers the difficulty for Winston very nicely, laying the seeds for his later problem, which mushrooms after their marriage and Abby’s death in childbirth. 

Devastated, Winston returns to drinking and gives his daughter to his in-laws to raise, since he can’t bear the reminder of Abby and doesn’t think he can be a good father. He also enlists in the “Great War” going on in Europe at that time, and his self-destructive urge leads him to fight valiantly, if recklessly, ironically making him  hero. On return to civilian live, he drinks to forget everything he saw in the war. He also starts his own business, but the alcohol has taken hold, and it deeply impacts his second marriage and his second family.

I wouldn’t want this to suggest that the book becomes a tract against drinking. The strength of this aspect of the story is the way in which the author gives a sympathetic understanding of the tragic turns of Winston’s life, events that are often beyond his control and only made worse by his dependence on alcohol. The book is about much more than his drinking. Winston was a lonely man to begin with, and alcohol helps him to preserve loneliness despite work and family life. He is truly one of “the lonely” of the title until a later turn in the road gives him a glimpse of a possible change before it’s too late. 

Particularly strong were the war scenes and their details that brought war to a reader in all its impact. But one of the author’s main strengths is the ability to render scenes in general with simple brushstrokes. Some samples:

“The trees looked dead, but Winston knew it was just a ruse to trick the bitter winter out of its biting sting. The trees had merely withdrawn into themselves as if meditating on their dreams.”

“The trees had changed to different shades of yellow and red. The sun was just above the tree line, backlighting the large white clouds with glowing borders.”

“He went back downstairs, decided to look in the basement, and walked down the rough-hewn stairs. The cold musty cellar was dimly lit from light coming through small windows near the tops of the stone foundation walls.”

Following a storm that devastated neighborhoods: 

“Mrs. Logan knelt in the middle of her wooden living room floor— practically all that was left of her house, that and the broken brick fireplace, the top half of the chimney strewn across her yard. Old and frail, with tousled gray hair, she clutched a picture frame to her chest and cried mournfully.”

Told mainly in third person singular point of view, with Winston being the point of view character, the story at times enters other points of view. But the story is firmly Winston’s.

One small nitpick is a I noticed in paragraphing: Sometimes paragraphs are indented, and sometimes not. Sometimes there are line breaks between paragraphs and sometimes not. I have noticed this in other e-books, so it seems to be a common formatting problem. After the first few pages, it didn’t particularly bump me, although I do think it’s something that could be addressed in future books. 

Only the Lonely can be purchased at Barnes and Noble and various locations listed on Goodreads, as well as his story collection, Battles and Other Stories.   

He also can be contacted at his blog, Living and Writing by Richard P. Hughes or at R. Patick Hughes's Blog on Goodreads, as well as Facebook