Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Walking to the polls
Today I walked to my polling place. Round-trip the walk was a little over 3 miles. Originally, I was just doing it to get exercise. Perfect distance, warmish fall day. Why not? But as I was walking I had such a profound feeling of gratitude. I started to think about the people all over the world who have no choice, but gladly walk well over 3 miles to their polling places so that they can have some say in the way they are governed. Then I thought about the effort of those suffragettes who made voting possible for me as a woman. I chose to put effort into my voting process today. In doing so, it made me appreciate how easy it has been for me to drive to a convenient location, stand in a short line, and be counted. And that is my gratitude for today. The only way that the voting process could be any better for me is if I voted at the same location as my grandpa. He lives near the MnM factory, and they have free candy upon exiting at his polling place. (In case you were wondering: in that election, I voted for the Mars candy people to add the purple MnM's to the colors in the regular bag.)
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Hi,
My Friend Robin Robin Mizell sent me a link to an excerpt of Summers At Blue Lake (from the Algonquin piece)today, and I loved it. (I'm also happy that we get to vote---there's my relevance tag for this post!) But I was reading an earlier post of yours about having trouble with the girl character, and, having just read the excerpt from your new book, a thought occurred to me. Anyone who can write "My grandmothers were lesbians..."---a fabulous opening: direct, honest, simple and immediately capitvating because of that---will soon discover the essence of the girl character she is trying to write. If she begins as a blob, then she'll be a memorable blob; if she's not really a blob, the writer who wrote the beginning of that sentence above will find out who this girl character is. I am working on my first publishable book, and I'm having my friend Robin do the first draft (or more) edit for me. Everyone once in a while, she'll just say: You're trying too hard...let it flow. Anyway, for what it's worth, I'm buying your book this week because I love the way you write. And why anyone would do NoMo and NoBlo or whatever it is all at the same time, I'll never know. Cheers to you!
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