Last year I ran my first-ever writing contest. I made it simple - a matter of descriptive writing for which I’d offer one prize to a lucky winner determined by … well, LUCK. Instead of judging descriptions as good or bad, I decided to just pick one name at random. I wrote everyone’s name on a slip of paper and chose one winner. Fair enough?

WordCustard is the Squidoo screen name for a woman in Scotland. She’s written about Valentines Day food and lights, snowboarding tips for women, The Alps, in Europe, and many other fascinating topics! WordCustard received the contest prize: $25, sent through PayPal. I intended to give her an Amazon gift certificate instead but found out it is very difficult to purchase one for someone in the UK from my side of the pond, in the USA.

WordCustard’s blog is here: The Custard Bowl.

Thanks to everyone who participated!!

I don’t remember how old I was when I got my first Scott O’Dell book, but I remember who I got it from - my mother. She knew I loved to read and always remembered to buy a good book for me whenever there was an occasion to do so. I’m guessing - but I may have been around eleven at the time.

She bought a hardcover version of Island of the Blue Dolphins - a book I loved so much at the time I read it more than once. I treasured that book so much that now, forty years later, I still have that copy of the book on my shelves. It is one of the few books that survived my childhood and the many, many moves I’ve made since then.

The haunting, memorable story of a woman left alone on an island for about twenty years after trying to save her younger brother stayed with me and has been lodged in my heart all my life since then. I am moved to tears, remembering how much this book meant to me. It showed me how I, as a woman, can be strong and self-sufficient, and get through anything that might come my way.

Years later while I was homeschooling my two youngest children I decided to read Newbery Medal winning novels to them. One of the first I read was the book I had on my shelf, Island of the Blue Dolphins. They loved it too.

After that I read them Sing Down the Moon, an exciting book about the relocation of the Navajo in New Mexico during 1863. I’d read it before during a children’s literature class I took in college in the seventies, right after it was published and named a Newbery Honor Book. My children liked that book so much they didn’t want me to stop reading. I remember staying up late as they listened intently, reading so many chapters at a time we finished the novel in just a few days.

After reading those two book to the kids I decided to read one on my own, and chose The Blue Pearl. It is much shorter than the other novels and set in a more contemporary time. Those are the only Scott O’Dell books I’ve read so far. I expect I’ll be reading more of them in future years.

When I decided to write tributes to some of my favorite children’s authors, Scott O’Dell was the first I thought of. He will always be first in my mind when I think of the great writers of children’s literature.

A few links:
Scott O’Dell: A comprehensive website
Scott O’Dell Award For Historical Fiction
Elizabeth Hall, the wife of Scott O’Dell

I wrote this list in my journal a few days ago, and hope it will help me as I write my narrative timeline (autobiography a la Julia Cameron’s book, A Vein of Gold.)

My list of 49 places where I’ve lived:

1) The little white house on Willet’s Drive in San Pablo - it has since been torn down. Age 0 to 2/3?
2) Mira Vista Drive, El Cerrito - age 2/3 to 8.
3) 3314 Morningside Drive, El Sobrante/Richmond - age 8 to 18 except for the times I wasn’t there.
4) My grandmother’s home in San Leandro, and my uncle’s home in Hayward - stayed there for four or five months when I was fifteen.
5) My friend Leslie’s home on Bayview Court in El Sobrante - I stayed there four or five months when I was sixteen.
6) My friend Susan’s home on Gold Court in El Sobrante - I stayed there four or five months when I was seventeen. All these were places I went for refuge because I couldn’t get along with my mother. Every year I left in about September/October and didn’t return until after the first of the following year.
7) A house on 17th Avenue in the Richmond District. I can’t remember what age I was when I lived there, with friends. Stayed about four or five months. One of those very foggy memories.
8 ) A flat on California Street in Santa Cruz - I always thought of this as the first place I moved to when I left home at 18, but it couldn’t have been because I lived in the Richmond District before that. I stayed only a couple months in Santa Cruz though it is one of the best towns I’ve ever lived in.
9) A room in a flat on Baker Street in San Francisco. A month or two.
10) A room in a flat on Noe Street in San Francisco - stayed there a few months then went on my Grand Canyon adventure in January 1972. I remember this date by the date of the total eclipse of the moon that I saw while there. I was 19 at the time.
11) 1649 Page Street in the Haight Ashbury. I lived there for 4 or 5 months.
12) A room in an apartment on Upper Ashbury. That lasted only about a month, if that. The woman we moved in with kept flirting with my boyfriend which annoyed me terribly!
13) A room in a flat on (I think) 26th near Guerrero in San Francisco. Lived there possibly six months.
14) An apartment upstairs from that room. I lived there a few months in 1973 and was there when my first child was born on April 24, 1973.
15) A house just outside of Vista, southern California, where I lived a few months with my son’s father. It was on a property called Palm Hill Ranch.
16) An apartment across the street from the old Levi Strauss factory ruins in San Francisco, around the corner from Valencia. (Can’t remember the street name just now.) We sub-letted the place for a few months.
17) A flat at 444 Virginia St. on Potrero Hill, San Francisco. Lived there a few months in 1973, then felt the need to leave my son’s father.
18 ) Back to my mother’s home for a month or so. I’m re-counting this place because so much time went by before I moved back there.
19) An apartment on Tenth Avenue in Redding, CA. - 1974.
20) A tiny hotel room in Redding. It was too small and I moved out after a month.
21) A cottage on Shasta Street in Redding - 1974-5.
22) A house on Shasta Street in Redding - 1976-7.
23) Mary Anne Risley’s home in Modesto - stayed for a month or two in 1977.
24) The horrible Mesa Verde Apartments in Modesto. Stayed there for a few months in 1977-8.
25) A duplex on Evergreen Road in Modesto. 1978.
26) Sister-in-law Terry’s house on 6th St. in Merced. 1978-1979.
27) An apartment in Merced - a couple months.
28 ) A house on Franklin Street in Merced. - 1980-81.
29) An apartment in Tuolumne City, near Sonora. 1981.
30) A house in Tuolumne City. 1981-2.
31) 717 Denair Street in Tulare, CA.
32) Trailer #1 - a 17’ travel trailer in the trailer court across from the fairgrounds in Tulare.
33) Trailer #2 - a 40’ 1957 park model trailer in the same trailer court.
34) Same trailer - moved it to a trailer park in the countryside near Kerman, CA. 1983 or 1984.
35) A grouphome where my husband worked near Fresno, for a couple months.
36) Homeless in the Bay Area for a few months, as my trailer was rented out.
37) Back to the Kerman trailer park. 1985-6.
38 ) An apartment in Reedley, CA. 1986.
39) 334 Crenshaw Road, Visalia, a condo. 1986-1988.
40) An old house on G St. in Visalia. 1988.
41) An apartment on Caldwell in Visalia. 1988-9.
42) An apartment near Demaree in Visalia. 1989.
43) Another apartment in the same complex.
44) An apartment near the freeway in Tulare, 1990. The absolute worst place I’ve ever lived because the freeway sound was constant.
45) A house in Tulare. Three years, from 1990-1993.
46) A flat in North Oakland. Nearly three years. 1993-1995.
47) A duplex in Pittsburg CA at the corner of 17th and Davi, 1995-1999. Five years.
48 ) The hotel in Dunsmuir. A month from 1999-2000.
49) A cabin/house in the woods near Happy Camp, January 11, 2000 until now.

I’m a Happy Camper. No, not just happy or excited about something… but actually THRILLED because as of today I’ve lived in Happy Camp, California for TEN YEARS! In the same home/house/cabin/domicile! This is the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere, ever! I must like this humble little red cabin. (I do like it - a lot!)

This morning I woke up early to make sure my nineteen year old son got on the Stage to head out of town for Yreka. The ‘Stage’ is the name of the bus company. We live in a remote section of northern California - near the Oregon border - about seventy miles from the nearest town (during winter that is, when the pass to Oregon is closed by snowfall.) Though my son is nineteen he’d never before taken the Stage out of town on his own.

When I arrived at Double J - the liquor store and tiny market and video store - he was there already buying his breakfast, so I really didn’t need to worry about him missing that bus, like he did last week. This time he was up and at it. Nonetheless, he was happy to see me and we stood and had a chat while waiting for the Stage.

I told him, “I find it ironic that you’re celebrating your tenth anniversary of moving to Happy Camp by leaving town.”

He wanted to take his BMX bike with him. The Stage driver said “no” and he turned around and nearly left, disappointed.

I told him, “Put the bike in the back of my car and get on the bus!” And he did!

My son has dyslexia. Severe dyslexia. Because of this I worried about him getting back to the bus stop in time to take the Stage home. This is Monday and the next Stage to Happy Camp is on Friday, and he needs to be at work on Thursday. However I was pleased beyond measure that when the Stage arrived back in Happy Camp at 5:15 in the afternoon, he was on it, packages in hand and new shoes on his feet. He’s adjusting fine to adult life, and I’m very happy to observe this. What a relief it is for the mom of a severely dyslexic young adult! I gave him a ride home because he had too many packages to ride his bike the block and a half to his trailer.

My son may never be a great writer, but he is a budding artist. He’s the one I bought the colored pencils for. He showed me a drawing he’s doing. He said, “It’s not very good. It’s just practice.”

I said, “It looks okay to me, and by the time you finish practicing on the 100 pages of that drawing pad, you’ll be very good indeed!”

Like my son, I am practicing. As I make my baby steps toward publication with the novels I’ve been revising, I also take time for writing practice, producing short articles, or flash fiction. I’ve developed a real love for flash fiction and have another of my short stories submitted to a publisher now. This won’t make me rich, but it is a fun hobby.

During my ten years in this cabin I’ve written more than ten novels. Most of them still need revision. I like the first drafts because they’re like clay in my hands, with their own pleasing texture, ready to be molded into something submittable.

This week I’m revising my short middle grade novel, River Girl. I developed the idea not long after moving to Happy Camp, and now, years later, it is nearly ready for submissions. I love the story and my critique group friends liked it too. It is a historical novel, about a girl who moved to Happy Camp, many years ago.

Here’s something I wrote in my writing practice notebook last year:

…

On a search for my true self and the purpose of my being here, I confess to knowing the following so far:

1. Every really bad experience prepares us to help others living through that experience at a later date.

2. Life without the ability to reach out and help others is pretty lame… leaving a self-seeker feeling unfulfilled.

3. Sometimes it takes courage to be the one to reach out.

4. Not everyone will understand your issues or agree with your perceptions.

5. If you really want to help make the world a better place you must surge forward without regard to public opinion.

6. Peace and silence are conducive to clarity of thought.

7. We are all related and contain the same quality of beautiful spiritual light, though some are more conscious of that than others.

8. Life cannot be fully lived without interactions with others.

9. Intentions and outcomes are not always the same because sometimes you get something better than expected.

10. There is beauty in every human being; it may be covered by Karmic junk, but the beauty is always there.

Last year the writers in one of my critique groups each chose a word to inspire their endeavors during the new year. Last year I went for COMMITMENT and this year my word is FOCUS. My intent is to focus on one project at a time until it is done. I realize sometimes I’ll need to put a novel away to wait for further revision, but during a revision I’ll focus on that and nothing else.

Well, not exactly nothing else. I mean, within the spectrum of my writing work, I’ll focus on one thing at a time. Right now I’m focusing on a novel critique.

I’ve still got books to read, and blog postings to write, and housework to do, and a garden that always needs more attention. Today I moved compost around and planted garlic.

Books! Another focus for my year! I intend to read four books monthly for a total of 48 books, at the very least. I made an online TBR list that I’m having a lot of fun adding books to, and shuffling them around on.

My Silverweb critique group has three new members! Hurrah!! I’m very much looking forward to working with them.

Something else I want to focus on this year is ART. I celebrate art as a wordless activity that can enhance my writing. I just bought my son this set of 48 Prismacolor colored pencils:

They are so beautiful, now I want to buy some for myself! Here’s where I got them. But first, I inventoried my own supply of cool things to create art with, and I’ll satisfy myself with these things for now. In any case, I’ve decided to take the plunge and feature some of my art on this blog during 2010. I’ve done some simple drawings and paintings. More about that another day!

Tomorrow I’ll choose the winner of my 2009 Descriptive Writing Contest. Thanks to all who participated. I haven’t decided what kind of contest to have for 2010. ::putting on thinking cap::

I wrote about some specific 2010 writing goals on my Live Journal page: Goals Are Like Flowers Before They Bloom. I’m not going to write them again here.

I’ve joined the 2010 Great Rejection Slip contest over at Forward Motion. This is the first year I’ll be in the contest, as now I’ve thankfully recovered from my submit-phobia and have some good (completed) manuscripts to submit.

That’s about all the news for now. I’ll be back soon to announce winners of the 2009 Descriptive Writing Contest.