Halloween at T’ Mamou’s by MRJones.

Trip From Dreamer to Author.

A nightmare of two Trojans attacking my computer happened recently. I lost many days to the effort to track the problem that had the computer in a flickering to locked state. I’m certainly no computer whiz but this experience made me use every resource on board to track, contain, and correct. A trip to the repair guru got rid of the Trojans I found but couldn’t delete. Then, like a cancer that blooms after treatment, the problems started again. This time I was determined to do it myself. Days of scrubbing and cleaning finally resulted in the computer working well enough to connect to the manufacturer’s website.

I use Dell computers. They are tough reliable machines. They also come with great backup from the company. When I connected to tech support and typed in my service number, a scan was performed. I was hoping to correct the problems on line. I was horrified to see the results of the scan. The hard drive was corrupted beyond repair. The computer is still in warranty so I will receive a new hard drive in about 10 working days. I will return the corrupt drive via prepaid shipping container from Dell.

Several years ago, being inexperienced with computers, I did not back up my information and lost most of the first draft of Slant Well when the hard drive in that computer crashed. It was an expensive lesson. I paid dearly to have it retrieved. Ever since then I have backed up to several devices and now to the cloud. When the new hard drive arrives and is installed, I will retrieve my work from the cloud and continue writing novels, short stories, and tiny poems.

I have always told stories. I have friends who remember me telling stories in the first grade. Now, for me that’s a while back. Over the years, I made up stories about my cats and wrote cracked fairy tales. Those were hand written. Actually printed by hand. I did illustrations too. I did not ever think I had a chance of getting a novel length story out of my head and onto paper due to dyslexia.

People laugh that I can spell that word. Dyslexia is different for each individual afflicted with it. I have always been able to read. My brain looks at words as symbols. Typing was where I lost it. The letters were there, looking like Word Jumble puzzles. When people asked me if I could type, I would tell them I knew how to operate a typewriter.

Then a miracle happened. Computers. Word processing units let me correct on the spot. Cut and paste became my best friend. I say that because linear thinking just does not happen in my brain. Baroque twists and turns with tangents happen there. My thought patterns have been described as matching my frizzy curly hair.

Several years ago I got my first laptop and learned to use it. I started writing a story that began with me seeing the highway sign that pointed out a Federal Oil Reserve. I happily wrote way too much by the time I finished the tale. That is when I began to learn about writing and selling the product. It was like going to college… again.

Rewriting and cutting are necessary to produce a sellable product. The harsh criticism of  critique partners is also necessary. There was nothing sweet and easy until I caught on. And I did catch on to the way to make a story in my head become a novel that a publisher will buy.

It took time and a pile, 61 to be exact, of rejections to do it, but on July 12, 2014, I sold the first book I wrote. SLANT WELL is the second sale. Back in February, I sold the second book I wrote. I wrote ASH ON THE STAIRS to get my foot in the door and it worked. If that confused you, that’s how my brain works and why I need cut and paste.

I must say there is no drug on this Earth that can give the sublime high that selling my stories has given me. I’m working on two more and I’m sure more will happen. Right now though, I’m glowing with the intense satisfaction of knowing that ASH ON THE STAIRS will be out around the end of the year and by this time next year I’ll be signing copies of SLANT WELL for all my friends who are demanding it.

I received an impromptu invitation Saturday afternoon. It was from my neighbor, who was taking some friends to a wonderful slice of the swamp. Shangri La Gardens in Orange, Texas is the legacy of the Stark family. Lutcher Stark took the land his father owned and added to it. Then he sculpted and tweaked it until it became the marvel it is today.

Being the closest thing to Blackwater Hattie my neighbor knows, I get to go on these outings as a guide. A five-year-old girl was with us. A well-behaved child, she was curious about all she saw. She learned to look past the surface of the water to see spotted needle nosed gar swimming with black bass and perch as we entered this wondrous realm.

A trek down the path to the edge of the bayou had us in the children’s section of the exhibit where hands on is not only allowed, it is encouraged. Stones, bones, skins and shells she got to handle. She grew more interested as we went along, darting up to see the lizards I spotted, and watching turtles and minnows swim in the shallows. All the while, in the background, songbirds sang and the calls of the Great White Egrets and cormorants rang out from the rookery.

Muscadine grapes hung  green in the canopy while the last of the blackberries offered a sweet taste of early summer while we walked to the flower gardens. I found a favorite of mine from childhood, red honeysuckle, growing on trellises. For a moment, in my mind, I was back in my mother’s garden where her prized red honeysuckle grew. As a child, I plucked those lovely trumpets and sucked the nectar like a bee.

Bees. There is an apiary where the covering of a hive can be opened to view the bees through glass as they build comb and fill it with honey. So cleverly devised, it protects bees and people from each other. We all had to stop and watch the busy pollinators at work before going deeper into the garden.

Flowers everywhere splash bright colors along the trails among the huge oaks and cypress. At one trail’s end is a small lawn on the edge of the lake that serves as the rookery for the egrets and cormorants. As we watched, a Great White Egret swooped in for a landing on a cypress. Two young egrets squawked and begged until their mother fed them as my new little friend looked on in wonder.

The trip would have gone on, but we were told that the garden was closing in a few minutes. As we wandered toward the gate, I spied something lovely and potentially delicious blooming in the bright sunlit shallows. I asked my friend if she knew what marshmallows were. She assured me she did. Then I showed her the big white flower of the Marsh Mallow and told her how the candy was originally made from the plant and that was how it got its name. The adults were as interested as the child. With that, our visit was over and we made our way out the gate. I hope to go back again and again to the wonderland in the swamp.

Mountains in the Sky.

Growing up on the Texas Gulf Coast, I did not see a real mountain until I was thirteen years old and the family went on a vacation that included a trek over the continental divide in Colorado. Before that, I and my siblings and friends had to make do with mountains in the sky. The peaks of water vapor that towered and changed before our very eyes were the mountains we played in. Our imaginations were the only things we needed to fly to the tops and cruise the canyons between.

We were the aviators of mind and masters of flights of fancy. Magical kingdoms and dragons were there in our sky to be glimpsed on the snow-white mountains of mist. To this day I navigate the clouds and let my imagination run free.

The drought has been harsh. Rain came the other day. Sweet blessed rain. In the evening light I saw a snow-capped mountain towering in the distance as I gazed out my front door. This mountain reminded me of the child I still am.

Snow capped mountain in the sky.