Thursday, March 31, 2005

Rosalind Franklin

Rosalind Franklin established her competitiveness early in life. She donned the uncomfortable mantle of competition in a male-dominated field at age sixteen when she chose to take more difficult areas of scientific courses usually spurned by other girls. By twenty-five submitted her Ph.D. thesis on a noticeably non-feminine topic – how holes in coal are affected by heat. After finishing her doctoral work, she enjoyed an idyllic four-year stint in Paris, where she gained expertise in the new field of crystallography.

Having always planned to return to London, she applied for a position at the biophysics lab at King’s College in 1951 to investigate the structure of biological fibers of interest, which we now know to be DNA. Working with congenial and cultured colleagues in Paris while living in a garret contrasted starkly with the “intellectually mediocre” colleagues and the cellar lab built around a bomb crater from the war she experienced at King’s College. In addition, she was expected to share the project with a deputy director she despised and had no respect for. Being female in a male field necessitated Franklin’s caution when asserting new data. Her theories had to be flawless or she risked never being taken seriously.

Were her angry rejections, “brusque combativeness” and other behaviors notable because she was a woman? Watson implied to Rosalind that she was incompetent at interpreting her own X-rays; why are we surprised that she reacted in anger? Would a male in the same situation even been questioned on this point, much less openly insulted? The question of cultural differences also rears its head. Was this intelligent and opinionated Jewess a threat to the English and American men who rarely had occasion to work with a woman on a peer basis, much less a woman of a distinctly different culture where woman are encouraged to speak freely? Culturally in the post-World War II period, men tolerated women in the workforce only because of the role they’d played during the war. Women were not accepted as equals.

It seems evident that Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize – not for any scientific contribution made, but for both his role as a go-between for the Cambridge and London labs and his “Y” chromosome.

In a final coup de’gras, genetics betrayed her once more when ovarian cancer ended her life at age thirty-eight.

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

The Sugar Blues

Sometimes the universe hands me a story. It's like some unearthly writer hung around and mugged my Muse. The words pour forth -- my fingers merely a conduit to the story being offered. Such is the history of The Sugar Blues, now being workshopped on Zoetrope.

So far, I've read some really kind words from reviewers:

Dang - that was told real well. Loved it as much as the Sally Ann loved sweets. Can I have another one? I liked the flavor of every scene - I could taste Momma's baking and smelled every smell stuck to your words. On the ol' 1 to 10 scale - you went over the top.
* * *

This story crackles like a lemon stick. It's tart and sweet, beautifully written.

* * *

Ginger, you just might have the next "To Kill a Mockingbird" in your fingers.
* * *

I really love your story. It is full of many favorable pictures, and very intense. I haven't read one like this in a long time. It has a vintage southern touch to it... The best part for me would be the ending. I never seen it coming.
* * *

This is REALLy fine stuff...A most excellent bit of work. Someday I hope to write like that!

Sunday, March 20, 2005

The Secret of My Success

Well, my shortlived malaise is over and I've been very productive this past week. I've written over 10,000 words that I'm mostly satisfied with since Monday. I've found another two dozen or so submission places, and read a dozen or so helpful articles.

I'm constantly amazed at how supportive the writing community is. No wonder the energy continues to build.

I've submitted some of my photography for publication in a couple of mags.

Here's a peek into something I wrote. Mostly I've been working on my fiction but this is a quick 400-word nonfiction/essay piece:

The Secret of My Success


Fellow writers are often stunned when they discover I had twenty-four acceptances in five months -- my first five months. I agree; it sounds too good to be true. Am I some writer savant? I wish I were. No, I’m a decent writer with a recipe I‘m willing to share.

First of all, I started writing forty years ago. I scribbled angst-y poetry before I eased into silly, humorous nonfiction. Personal foibles made ideal writing fodder. I figured if my friends enjoyed my zany tales, I could write the stories and share them with even more people. I wandered around Yahoo for a month or so until I found, then joined an online writers group. Supportive and generous, the other members gently guided me along the rocky writers’ trail.

I learned how to do online research and accumulated lists of online publications. More research went into reading print and online pubs. I discerned what they were looking for and sorted each publication by category. Using a multitude of free-for-the-asking writers’ tools to improve my work. I wrote, rewrote, revised, re-revised, tossed out, gritted my teeth and recreated until I had a piece I felt was pub-ready. With a whispered prayer, I hit the send icon in my e-mail program.

The first acceptance letter soon arrived. Before long, the corresponding payment arrived. That buoyed my spirits enough to submit a second story. I had a 50% acceptance rate for my first ten acceptances. Realizing I wasn’t the next Hemingway, I took time to study why my success rate was so high. I concluded the time invested in studying the markets was as much a factor in my success as my writing ability.
I continue to study my craft, via computer, and my skills improve accordingly.

Online writings groups are an invaluable resource. Medical problems make attending “live” classes inconvenient. I see a marked improvement in my writing since that first acceptance in October; in fact, I cringe when I read over my first few submissions. I’ve decided that’s a good sign. It means I’m improving.

Investing time in researching the market(s) may appear to take precious time away from writing. I believe it’s an illusion. You might bake the best cookies anyone’s ever eaten but if you try selling them to folks who only buy carrots, I bet you’ll end up with boxes of cookies in your garage. Do your research. You’ll sell more cookies.
* * *

Take time this week to treat your inner child. Try a new food. Stretch your horizons and make room for new experiences. Your soul will thank you. -- GHC

Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Go read, muse, and vote, for storySouth's Million Writer Award for Best Story of 2004! And while you're at it, read my Taking Grandma Home. Of all the stories I ever told, it's my very favorite -- and the danged thing's TRUE!

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Soul Searching

Do any of you ever feel as if you've lost your soul? At times I'm so torn between "proving" myself as a successful writer by getting paid well for what I write. It isn't as if I can't pimp my muse and come up with a marketable piece. I know I can. But my muse weeps and gets so depressed when I do...

I don't know if my conflicts are because I'm an American, or a woman, or part of it's due to my life stage, or where I am in my "career," or what. Everyone wants to feel acknowledgement; I know that. I've been wrestling with this all weekend. I sat and sobbed to my husband for two hours this evening, trying to express it aloud.

He tells me money doesn't matter; my art is what counts. That I have something to say to the world, that I'm special. He asked me (in a kind way) if I just want the "cool kids" to recognize me. I don't think that's it either. I know I hold the respect of people like myself, and that's wonderful. But somehow it seems like as old as I am, as much talent as I have (ok, I'm not Faulkner, but I am able to write well in a wide variety of literary "types"), as much time as I invest in my craft that I should be getting back something...more.

I'm also going through a kind of growing spurt where I've been reflecting on my life and what it means. I get so much support from others and kudos about what all I've survived but I feel like the ONLY thing I've done is to survive -- to simply endure to the end of situations -- and I find myself standing on the far side of child abuse and cancer and the other issues, with no real insight gained. I feel like I should just don a T-shirt saying "I Rode The X Ride of Life and Survived To Tell About It."

I don't expect to make a killing or even a living with my writing. But I ache for more than I'm getting.

Thanks for reading.

-- GHC

Friday, March 11, 2005

Things Change is scheduled to appear on the Thieves Jargon site today (see links below right). It's not my homey, southern story telling kind of tale. In fact, Grandma'd wash my mouth out with Ajax cleanser if she heard me read it out loud. That's why I published it under my pen name, Clara Chandler. Grandma didn't raise no fools.

I have a poem due out in Dead Mule in April, East Kanawha County. It's inspired me to try and write another, related poem. I'm struggling with it though. Used to be I couldn't write anything but poetry.

Penwomanship's debut print edition will be coming out in April. My advice column (Ask Aunt Henny) won't be in the premiere issue, but will be featured monthly beginning in May and should be in the April web version.

Finally, AustinMama will be featuring my essay about breast cancer, Hair Today, Man Tomorrow in the next month or so.

If you have a question for Aunt Henny that you don't mind being published in a national magazine, send it by email to AuntHenny [at] Yahoo.com. I won't use anyone's real name -- hell, I don't even use mine!

Monday, March 07, 2005


Saxophone Man Posted by HelloThe Saxophone Man’s Soul

Saxophone Man sits in a lawn chair on the corner of Desperate and Lost. His instrument points the way to heaven as the music weeps for his tormented soul. He hauls himself to this corner daily seeking deliverance from his pain -- his song both a petition and a warning. Passersby atone for their happiness by dropping money into his case. Most avert their eyes. Saxophone Man’s gaze pulls them into his mournful red-rimmed eyes, revealing a spirit so tortured even music can’t express the depths.

The keening stops and he sucks thin brown nectar from a flask until it’s as empty as his soul. Saxophone Man gathers the money and lays his horn to rest. He plods back to Hell toting the lawn chair under his arm, as he does each day.

One foggy morning, a child creeps out from the shadows. At first she sways imperceptibly, then her body flows and becomes one with the notes. She dances unselfconsciously, leaping and spinning on the sidewalk in front of his lawn chair. Saxophone Man plays to her. His fingers find a song never before heard in this world. He teases and cajoles the instrument until an avalanche of ecstasy bursts forth that lifts the child’s spirit. Tears stream down Saxophone Man’s full mocha cheeks as his heart fills with joy. His soul is redeemed.

A crowd forms. No one wants to miss this miraculous moment, the flawless marriage of lyrical dance and perfect accompaniment. Each observer hopes the pair will never stop. The child’s footsteps are so light they don’t contact the cement. Saxophone Man’s foot slaps in time with the music. Perspiration drips off his bald head and saturates his thin plaid shirt as the music rises heavenward. The child is now but a blur, her features indistinguishable. She is pure motion and emotion at the same time. Saxophone Man blows a note with no beginning and no end – an enduring resonance of joy.

Onlookers dare not breathe. Time ceases and no one moves save the indistinct dancing form and Saxophone Man’s blurry brown fingers and tapping foot. The reed splits, rending the endless perfect note, and the man slumps forward. He tumbles onto the sidewalk; the saxophone buckles beneath his weight. The blurry form of the child shimmers and fades away. A woman punches buttons on her cell phone and calls for an ambulance, knowing she just witnessed Saxophone Man’s final concert.

Unobserved by the crowd, the child gracefully extends her hand. Saxophone Man’s spirit reaches out and grasps it.
© 2005 Ginger Hamilton Caudill

West Virginia Posted by Hello

Saturday, March 05, 2005

I Lost My List of Links...

...when I changed my blog's template from that hard-to-read pink to this crisper template. So if I had a link to your site or you're a Zoe blogger or friend of mine and would like your link here, please send me the address using "Comments" on this post, Zmail, or email.

Thanks,
Ginger

Friday, March 04, 2005

November-December 1963 (excerpt from memoirs)

Excerpt from my memoirs:
NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1963


The worst timed newspaper strike in history began in Toledo, Ohio, on November 16th, 1963. The following Thursday afternoon my classmates and I dutifully laid our heads on our desks, pretending to be asleep, while Mrs. Markowitz graded papers. I had my eyes open, watching the undulating heat rise above the steam radiator. The heat waves warped the scene outside the classroom window. This was my usual naptime activity, imagining another world on the other side of this steam curtain.

Jennifer Drake was a classmate of mine. She loved horses even more than I did. We were both horse addicts, collecting sets of stallion, mare and foal families of Appaloosa, Pinto, Morgan, and whatever horse families the Breyer company produced. I used to go to her house to play. Her father was an architect. There was a baby grand piano in a totally black-and-white decorated room with bubblegum pink carpeting. We weren't allowed in that room, but I always sneaked a peek. I loved the idea of a room decorated in such a frivolous manner, so unlike my house.

Jennifer was a little odd, like me, and didn't fit in well with the other children. Unlike me, she could make her eyes pop out of her head and then put them back in. She also knew how to roll her eyes so only the whites showed. I attributed this to her having an older brother. She also knew how to take orange slices and make huge orange smiley faces by slipping them in front of her teeth, just behind her lips. I thought this was the epitome of originality at the time.

Back then, we all knew everyone else's parents, or at least their mothers. People tended to stay in one house all their lives and you were stuck with whatever role you found yourself falling into at a young age. I was doomed to be the weird, smart girl with the odd parents.

Anyway, it was during naptime and Jennifer's mom burst into our classroom holding a red transistor radio. A transistor radio was about the size of the palm of your hand and a marvelous thing to have back then. You could listen to radio broadcasts without a cord tethering you to the electrical outlet. She rushed in, and I noticed her hair wasn't neatly combed like it normally was. Her eyes were wilder than I'd ever seen, and I thought offhandedly that maybe that's where Jennifer learned her cool eye tricks.

Mrs. Markowitz stood up as Mrs. Drake rushed towards her. I knew immediately something bad was wrong. "Jack's been shot," was all Mrs. Drake said. "Jack's been shot." I remember Mrs. Markowitz cried. So did Mrs. Drake and Jennifer. Two of my classmates' fathers had died already that schoolyear -- unusual, I know, but it was normal for my experience. I wondered why someone had shot Mr. Drake.

We were all sent home early. School was cancelled the next day. Nothing good was on television, only newscasters and solemn men with shaky, gravelly voices and the same picture of some people in a car over and over again. Mom wouldn't talk about it, and I wondered how important Jennifer's daddy must have been for us to get out of school because he was shot. I also wondered who shot him, and why. I wondered if somebody was going to shoot my daddy.

Coincidentally, President Kennedy was also shot that day. He died. He had a daughter my age and a little son Fritz’s age. I felt sorry for them, and for Jennifer and her brother, and for my other classmates who had lost their fathers.

It wasn't until we went back to school the following week that I learned who "Jack" was and found out Mr. Drake was just fine. I still felt sorry for the President's children and my classmates who had lost their daddies. It turned out to be only the beginning of many children's daddies dying -- Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, all those Vietnam soldiers, those black men who were burned and tortured down south, and many more.
* * *

In December, Mrs. Markowitz decided we would make and decorate Christmas trees for the bulletin board. Each student had a large sheet of green construction paper. We were instructed to fold it in half lengthwise. Then we were to cut out the shape of half of a pine tree and take our newly formed pine tree to Mrs. Markowitz and get her approval before irretrievably gluing on our ornaments. I was handy with scissors, and quite adept at cutting out half of something from my earlier experience with paper dolls. I sashayed up to her desk, pine tree in hand, before anyone else.

"That’s a good shape; you'll want to trim it now." I was puzzled, but not one to argue with my teacher, I returned to my desk. There I refolded my tree in half and cut around the shape once more. When I had shaved a bit more off the tree, I joined a couple of students lined up at her desk for the official Mrs. Markowitz stamp of approval.

"That's fine, but you need to trim it, Virginia." Feeling a little frustrated, I returned to my desk and once more reduced the size of my tree. I opened it up and examined it carefully. Surely, this was perfection itself. Back to the desk for judgment I went, this time in a throng of other students. While waiting for permission to decorate my art, I looked around and saw the quicker children – my usual peer group – with at least half of their trees decorated by now.

"Virginia, your tree needs to be trimmed!" Mrs. Markowitz said with a hint of impatience uncharacteristic for her. I trudged back to my seat, sighed, sat down and began to cut yet again. I held my now-thin pine tree up and looked critically at it once more. Other than being much smaller now in all dimensions, my tree still had a good shape. It would definitely be smaller than the other children's trees but the shape was good.

I took a deep breath and shakily returned to the teacher's desk. This time, I stood alone. All the others had finished their trees. Mrs. Markowitz wore her no-nonsense expression this time.

"Virginia, I want you to sit down and trim that tree right now!"
"But Mrs. Markowitz, I have trimmed it, and trimmed it, and trimmed it again! If I trim it any more, it’ll disappear."

Mrs. Markowitz threw her head back, laughed, and hugged me tightly. "Oh, Virginia," she said, tears coursing down her face, "I meant for you to decorate your tree, not cut it more!"

I still remember that bulletin board – 24 tall green construction paper Christmas trees with hand-glued ornaments, and one anorexic tree a third the size of the rest. Though skimpy on ornaments, my Christmas tree was trimmed more than all the rest.

# # #

GREAT QUOTES BY GREAT LADIES

(Thanks to David Coyote and Carol Novack for compiling this list)

Inside every older lady is a younger lady -- wondering what the hell happened.
-Cora Harvey Armstrong-

Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out. But I can usually shut her up with cookies.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.
-Helen Hayes (at 73)-

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows.
-Janette Barber-

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
-Lily Tomlin-

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.
-Carrie Snow-

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends.
-Laurie Kuslansky-

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint.
-Erma Bombeck-

Old age ain't no place for sissies.
-Bette Davis-

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
-Rhonda Hansome-

The phrase "working mother"! is redundant.
-Jane Sellman-

Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
-Charlotte Whitton-

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart.
-Caryn Leschen-

I try to take one day at a time -- but sometimes several days attack me at once.
-Jennifer Unlimited-

If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
-Catherine-

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them.
-Sue Grafton-

I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on.
-Roseanne Barr-

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country..
-Elayne Boosler-

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
-Maryon Pearson-

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman.
-Margaret Thatcher-

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career.
-Gloria Steinem-

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.
-Eleanor Roosevelt-

"The one important thing I have learned over the years is the difference between taking one's work seriously and taking one's self seriously. The first is imperative, and the second is disastrous." -Margo Fonteyn-

"I always thought that if I were popular, I must be doing something wrong."
-Suzanne Vega-

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but someone."
-Coco Chanel-

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

I've suffered from SADD (Seasonal Affective Depressive Disorder) all my life. Basically it boils down to there's not enough sunlight during winter for my body to work optimally. I don't have the really awful depressions like I did when I was younger -- thank God. I used to tell myself, "Just hang in there till February's over."

Well, February's over, folks! Let the sun shine in...