When You First Hold Your Words in Your Hands

Many people who write fiction have those stories in their heads for many years before they feel brave enough to actually write them.

Many people who write fiction know, deep down, they will never see their work traditionally published.

Even when people who write fiction understand they can self-publish and share their writings with a few, the process feels so daunting they never tackle it.

And many people who write fiction also know that, however they publish, few actual people will ever read those words, even if they sell their books.

Knowing all of this, writers still, somehow, write.

And no joy can match the the joy when the first proof copy of your first book arrives in the mail and you can actually hold your words in your hands.

Pictured is the real Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara (yes, he's a real person), holding the proof copy of Ruthless, his first novel.

His wife Nancy, a beloved art teacher who made the front page of the Daily Southtown when she retired from Brodnicki Elementary School in Justice in 2014 - and was subsequently given the keys of the city - created all the interior and cover art.

Rebekah created the actual cover and did all the formatting.

I did all the editing - except for one round of copyediting that Colleen H Robbins did - and am currently copyediting the proof.

But nothing matches the work Ed himself put into this novel.

You see, Ed is extremely dyslexic and scatterbrained - his own words. And he's also said he's never finished anything. 

My kids say this is not true. He's worked as a supervisor in newspaper delivery his entire life. And he always finished his routes.

Nevertheless, this book is a huge accomplishment in many ways. He wrote it to fit into my BryonySeries and developed some of my characters in ways I didn't imagine.

He asked for deadlines from, and he met every one.

And to ensure he met those deadlines, he worked through COVID.

Not "COVID" as in the pandemic.

But his own battle with COVID in November.

I'm very honored to be part of his publishing journey.

And I'm inviting everyone reading this post right now to be part of the celebration.

Calkins Day 2021 will be held from 7 to 8 p.m. Calkins Day (Feb. 13, 2021) on Zoom. 

Real food and drink available if you bring your own ingredients. 

Calkins and his sidekick “The Goddess” will chat about author collaborations, how to legally  fictionalize a real person, literary nonsense. Irish vampires, deep time psychosis, and Astro-Time Physics.

He will also answer questions but doesn’t promise you’ll understand the answers. Calkins will also randomly give away three copies of “Ruthless.”

And we will celebrate the release of “Ruthless,” by Ed Calkins, Steward of Tara, is a work of absolute literary nonsense about the last seven seconds in the life of an Irishman and his afterlife as an Irish vampire, most of which never happened.

Local author and WriteOn Joliet co-leader Tom Hernandez will emcee. 

Chef Tim will give three demonstrations. Menu and ingredient list provided after registration.

Calkins Day is free. To register, visit bryonyseries.com/registerforcalkinsday.

A Real Loss

Almost without fail, the first words I type each morning are a Bible verse, wishes for a good morning with a cup of coffee, and birthday greetings to Facebook friends who have a birthday.

That's when I found out that an incredibly talented young writer had died in August.

Fall is a busy time for me, work-wise, so I don't keep up with everyone on social media. However, before I reviewed Ravina Thakkar's book for the LocalLit newsletter back in August, I did hop onto her page to make sure all was well with her - and i appeared to be.

She passed later that month.

Ravina had spoken to WriteOn Joliet, an adult critique group I co-lead, back in January. She spoke about writing and the process of becoming a traditionally published author in her early teens, even as she battled cystic fibrosis.

It was Ravina's mother who told me off to the side how sick Ravina was that night, but she was so honored at being invited to speak, she wanted to power through it.

I had interviewed Ravina for The Herald-News several times over the years, the last before she set off for college as a creative writing major, full of hopes for publishing more books and launching a career as an editor.

The story was called "Cystic fibrosis won't get her last word."

You might think it did.

But that's the great thing about writing.

The words last forever.

Ironically, Ravina's novel for middle-schoolers was called "The Adventure of a Lifetime."

You can buy it here.

And while Ravina won't write another book, her determination will now help other young writers.

Sourcebooks, you're a real class act.

"Ode," by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

"Ode," by Arthur O'Shaughnessy

We are the music makers,

  And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

  And sitting by desolate streams;—

World-losers and world-forsakers,     

  On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

  Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties

We build up the world's great cities,     

And out of a fabulous story

We fashion an empire's glory:

One man with a dream, at pleasure,

  Shall go forth and conquer a crown;

And three with a new song's measure     

  Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying

  In the buried past of the earth,

Built Nineveh with our sighing,

  And Babel itself in our mirth;     

And o'erthrew them with prophesying

  To the old of the new world's worth;

For each age is a dream that is dying,

  Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration     

Is the life of each generation;

A wondrous thing of our dreaming

Unearthly, impossible seeming—

The soldier, the king, and the peasant

  Are working together in one,     

Till our dream shall become their present,

  And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing

Of the goodly house they are raising;

They had no divine foreshowing     

Of the land to which they are going:

But on one man's soul it hath broken,

  A light that doth not depart;

And his look, or a word he hath spoken,

  Wrought flame in another man's heart.     

And therefore to-day is thrilling

With a past day's late fulfilling;

And the multitudes are enlisted

In the faith that their fathers resisted,

And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,     

  Are bringing to pass, as they may,

In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,

  The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,

  Ceaseless and sorrowless we!     

The glory about us clinging

  Of the glorious futures we see,

Our souls with high music ringing:

  O men! it must ever be

That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,     

  A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning

  And the suns that are not yet high,

And out of the infinite morning

  Intrepid you hear us cry—    

How, spite of your human scorning,

  Once more God's future draws nigh,

And already goes forth the warning

  That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers     

  From the dazzling unknown shore;

Bring us hither your sun and your summers;

  And renew our world as of yore;

You shall teach us your song's new numbers,

  And things that we dreamed not before:     

Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,

  And a singer who sings no more.