Time and Distance by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Have you ever stopped to think about how much time it takes you to get from point A to point B? or how much time it takes to get from point A to point B then to point C then point D, and finally back to point A?

Trying to figure out how long certain things will take, depends on distance, how large of a city (population), and even the number of people with you and how many places you’re planning to go. All of which add time to how long it will take. And your character running into someone else will add more time to the trip.

Which is what Konnie and I were talking about not too long ago. She said something about my characters getting too much done in one day. But, well, I always think her characters take too long to do simple tasks.

I’m guessing that both of us need to work on it, but in a lot of cases we’re guessing how long a certain action or event will take, we have no real way to tell us how long it will really take. There are some things that are easy to guess, while others are not so easy.

I mean I can have my characters drive across town in twenty minutes or less, but I generally put my stories in small towns, that’s what I know. That’s where I live and I rarely put my characters in larger cities. I may have lived in those larger cities in the past, but I don’t now, and I’ve lived most of my life in small towns, so its just easier to put my characters in small towns.

Konnie on the other hand lives in a large metropolis. For Konnie, she can drive ten miles in any direction from her home, and still be in the city. I can drive that far and be out in the countryside, sometimes in less distance than that. For Konnie, traffic is a constant problem, and traffic jams happens, routinely.

The last time I saw anything close to a traffic jam around here, a train had just gone through town, shutting off roadways for several minutes. Cars were backed up a whole quarter of a mile! 😊 There was once (years ago obviously) when Tom and I were watching the news and the reporter was standing with interstate behind him talking about proposed construction in that area and how it would affect rush hour traffic.

As he talked cars were zooming past him at about one every two to three seconds (it was rush hour). Then the reporter drew everyone’s attention to those cars, saying, “As you can see traffic is bumper to bumper right now.”

I turned to Tom and asked, “If that’s bumper to bumper, what do they call it when your bumper is literally touching the bumper in front of you?”

He said, “Around here that’s a fender bender,” deadpan and straight-faced. And it still makes me laugh because it’s so true.

At any rate, travel time is affected by so many different factors making it hard to figure out while writing a story. And of course, there is the issue of actually doing the shopping, and how long it will take. I’m sure some people think it takes them a matter of minutes to do their grocery shopping, but I’m telling you, I rarely finish in under an hour, and I’m just shopping for me. Think about how long it takes all those people who actually fill their cart, or even more than one cart?

How do you figure that out? I’m not sure. I guess. Maybe I guess wrong sometimes, but I think it’s possible to go too far in the other direction where you have characters barely managing a couple of things in a busy day. I manage to accomplish more on my busy days than my lazy days, because I keep going, keep working.

But when writing my stories, I need to remember that my characters aren’t working alone, and those characters they interact with might be having a bad day, or my character didn’t realize how long it would take to chat or whatever.

However, I think sometimes that Konnie is too vague about the passage of time, and she has her characters accomplishing too few things in a single day. If you have your character taking a half hour just to brush his teeth, you have two valid choices, either this is a character flaw of some importance to your story, or you have some editing to do.

Anyway, consider the time it is taking your characters to accomplish tasks, look at them closely. Is it taking too much time? Is it taking too little time? And how can it be fixed?

Happy writing everybody! 

Of Being a Busy Mom, Again by Konnie Enos

I kid you not, I was eating breakfast this morning and it suddenly dawned on me that it was Wednesday, and it was at least a quarter after seven and it was my turn to post. A post mind you which I had not written yet because I was dealing with my daughter’s doctor’s appointments.

She had one on Monday all the way over in Las Angeles which required packing, planning, a hotel, the whole thing. What we didn’t plan on was the doctor she went to see admitting her to the hospital. Yes, I’m still in Las Angeles and I was supposed to be home yesterday. I still don’t know when I will get home.

Anyway, as I was eating my breakfast I realized I needed to post something and quick, so here it is. I had plans for a longer post but life got in the way and I never managed to get it written. The woes of a busy mom.

To all you NaNoWriMoer's, I hope you are successful in making it to the end.

To my middle brother, happy birthday, today.

To my husband, happy 28^th anniversary, last Friday.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Thanksgiving and Birthdays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and I certainly have a lot to be thankful for. I could make a very long list indeed, but what is on my mind right now is something which is happening next week. It’s the birthday of one of my little brothers. The middle one. The one who came the day after Thanksgiving the year he was born, something his mother will never let him forget since she went into labor just as her Thanksgiving feast ended.

But what I remember most about him was his enjoyment of riding in his stroller. When our family first moved to Rexburg Idaho, he was eighteen months old and he loved his stroller to the point that when anyone headed for the front door, he run out and climbed into it (it was the old style which didn’t fold). This made things difficult for our father and his mother when they left for work, but for the rest of us, it just meant the first teenager to leave the house during the day had to take Ben with them.

Quite often it was me. I ended up taking him with me three or four times a week. Now let me remind you, I was fifteen back then, and well endowed. More than once someone thought Ben was my son. I can’t tell you how many times someone asked me, “How old is your son?”

I’d always answer, “My little brother is eighteen months old.”

Sometimes, just to make it clear, I’d add my age, and when that didn’t work, I added my status as a virgin, but it was only once I had to do that. It was Rexburg after all, and most the people were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and they don’t even let their children date until they're sixteen. I might add I wasn’t a member yet, but I was a good girl.

Of course, that was also the summer when my then only two brothers walked to the park a block away and returned with one huge dog trailing them! Once upon a time I wrote about that dang dog. I might add I’m not a dog person, never have been, and I really don’t like large dogs – they scare me. And Jim Boy was exceptionally large.

Later on we learned his size was due to being half timber wolf! Yeah, he was big, but he won the heart of my stepmom that day by stopping Ben from falling off the steps. Dang dog.

Though that’s another story, getting back to memories of Ben. He, being so young, came up with nicknames his older siblings,but he had hearing problems, so he didn't talk much beyond those nicknames, and it didn’t help that there were so many people in the family, we got used to his hand gestures. And even after his hearing was fixed, when he was around four, there were still some words he wasn't saying.

Namely Dadda. He started with Momma but then went on to those nicknames; Be for his big brother, Le for me and De for Konnie, and I believe he called Jacki Jay, but he hadn’t said Dadda yet. And Dad was getting annoyed about it to the point that he told Bryon, Konnie, and me that he’d do the chores for one week for whoever got Ben to say Dadda.

Several weeks later I managed it while Dad was at work, so I called him and got Ben to say, “Hi, Dadda,” into the phone. Then I pointed out to my dear father which of his twin daughters had managed it, so there was no mistake as to who earned one week without chores.

Near the end of the week Dad complained at dinner about the bathroom not being clean and demanded to know whose chore it was; my stepmom smiled and said, “Yours, dear.” To which everyone else agreed, but Bryon told me I should have held off and let Dad know I’d won the deal when my chore was dishes for the week. Which wouldn’t have worked because in the rotation we had bathroom came after dishes.

Ben was a cute kid, and sweet, my sister’s and I used to sing “Close to You” to him all the time. He isn’t so little anymore, in fact now he has a sweet little teenage daughter. Where did the time go?

And right now, I need to get baking, so happy Thanksgiving and happy writing everyone. 😊

The Name’s the Issue by Konnie Enos

Back in mid-September Dear Abby responded to “Making Life Easy”, a father concerned about his wife, who was raised in India, giving their children Indian names. Dear Abby said, among other things, that foreign names are difficult to pronounce and spell and the children would be teased unmercifully.

According to a more recent article on Newser by Rob Quinn this answer created a firestorm with many readers accusing Pauline Phillips, the writer of Dear Abby, of being racist.

If you read through the comments on the Dear Abby site, many of the readers point out easy to pronounce and spell Indian names. One I truly love is Indira, I’ve used it one of my stories. In the same story I have a brother and sister named Aiman and Amita Patel. If any of you can remember the old TV show “Numbers” the pretty female who ended up being the love interest for the leading character was named Amita. I also use the name Sumati in my story.

In the comments on the Dear Abby column one of the other names mentioned is Ravi, which is a totally easy name to spell and pronounce. Then there is my O.B. I readily admit I refuse to try and pronounce his last name. I can say his first name and so far I haven’t run into a single person who didn’t know who Dr. Nadar is.

So spelling and pronouncing some foreign names isn’t impossible.

The other issue was teasing.

When I was in fifth grade several members of our class ended up with nicknames. One girl, whose name was Monica Marsh, was nicknamed Harmonica Marshmallow.  A boy named Scott was called Scotch Tape while one, who had shown up to school one day with a red nose because of the cold and had the unfortunate name of Rudolph was called Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer. My sister and I also got teased unmercifully, but usually, because we’re a pair. I ended up being called Clyde, as in “Bonnie and Clyde”. As you can see having perfectly ordinary European sounding names didn’t get any of us out of being teased.

Of course just saying European names would be much easier to spell is completely overlooking perfectly ordinary names which are either hard to spell or have several different common spellings. Or, like my name, not spelled in a common way.

I could not spell several of my nieces’ and a great-nieces’ names for years, not until my own children were old enough to read and write. They told me how to spell them. Why? Because my husband’s family (it’s his side) just kept telling me to sound it out. I had no clue and the one girl has a perfectly ordinary European name.

I am extremely aware of the fact you will have to spell your name for people regularly if it is unusual or uncommonly spelled.

One of the funniest stories I tell my kids is about the time Bonnie and I and our younger brother went to enroll in our new high school in the town we’d just barely moved too.

The secretary, after establishing we were siblings and new to the area and needed to enroll in school, turned to me and asked me my name. I told her, but did not spell it. She wrote down my first and middle name exactly how she thought they would be spelled then asked how to spell our last name.

 I could see what she had written so after clearly pointing out our last name was two easily spelled four letter words, I said, “You spelled the rest of it wrong.”

By the time she was finished writing our names down she was all but moaning. Our brother’s first name is unusually spelled and, of course, Bonnie’s name matches mine letter for letter other than the initials, so her middle name isn’t spelled how you would expect it to be.

Now my second daughter has a perfectly ordinary first and middle name. There are three, yes I said three, different common ways to spell her first name and two common ways to spell her middle name. Not uncommon, not unusual. They are the normal ways people spell those names.

As one of the commentators on the Dear Abby column put it, “if you don’t know, ask.”

It’s as simple as that.

Beyond that, why can’t parents choose names that mean something to them?

I personally like the name Talitha. It’s an ancestral name and from what my daughter has learned of her story, she was one amazing woman.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

The etiquette for asking favors by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I’m assuming that everyone knows the problems of trying to get where you need or want to be when you have no means to transport yourself there on your own. I think everyone has been there at some point or other in their life.

Either when they were a teen but not yet licensed, or as an adult without a car of his or her own, whether it was because they couldn’t afford it yet, or because their car was in the shop, there’s always a reason, but we’ve all been there.

I went through a period of time when I did have a car, but I couldn’t drive it, because I couldn’t safely get behind the wheel (i.e. I could get there, but the buckle on my seat belt extension would collide with the steering wheel, making it difficult to turn, ergo, I couldn’t do it safely). So, during that time I either waited for my husband to take me, or a called for friends or family to do it.

I was glad when I finally lost enough weight to get behind the wheel again, and I’ll be happy when I can have a car again, but I know what’s like to be without, to have to beg for ride. Though I will be grateful for the friend who called out of the blue and let me know she goes to town every weekday afternoon, if I ever needed a ride.

But I also know what its like to be the one giving rides, and I think there should be some rules of etiquette for this.

Again, I’m speaking from experience having been the one giving rides.

So, here they are:

First −You are not the center of the universe, your friends or relatives has a life of their own, they are not sitting around waiting for you to call, so please remember this, and be courteous, never call for last minutes rides, unless it’s an emergency.

And I must stress that an emergency is not craving some snack foods you don’t currently have at home, nor is it an emergency to have to run errands. If you can’t plan those out a day or two in advance, that’s your problem, not your friends’.

Second − Some people will give rides without expecting compensation, but be considerate of any friends or relatives who are having financial problems, and at least offer them gas money (and I mean offer expecting to pay – as in hand them some money – they may not take it, but at least you tried). This is especially true if they are going out of their way for you. That said, I’ve only ever given gas money to one friend who’s given me rides – the only one with less wherewithal than I have, everyone else won’t hear of it. Though I do try to think of other ways to pay them back. But most the time about all I can do is ask God to bless them, and believe me I do that. They are a godsend.

Third − Remember to thank them. Thank them when they agree to give you a ride, thank them when they pick you up, and thank them when they drop you off, they are doing you a favor, and interrupting their own life to do it.

But that brings us back to number one, they do have life, let them decide when they can fit you into their life, don’t impose on them to drop everything, plan ahead.

This of course does not apply to emergencies. If you have a true emergency, I’m sure your friends and family will understand, but again, is it something you could have planned ahead for, if you’d used your brain?

I’ve called friends for same day doctor’s appointments because I needed to be seen right away, but I’ve never, ever called anyone and asked them to take me to the store that day. There’s once when a friend could fit me in the day I called, but I didn’t ask her to do that, she offered – there is a difference.

Back when I had a car, I was giving rides to my sister-in-law all over town, we planned these trips in advance, whether it be to her many doctor’s appointments or just to go shopping, they were put on my calendar well in advance. Especially her doctor’s appointments, since I was with her when they were made. But there was another person who called me for rides, and she never once planned ahead. Every time she called, she expected me to drop everything and run, and she didn’t stop until I lost my car. And at no time was it a true emergency. They were all errands she should have planned ahead for.

Happy writing everyone.

Celebrating October 31st by Konnie Enos

Over the years I’ve met a number of people, including my previous neighbor, who adamantly refused to celebrate October 31^st because of its connection to the pagan celebration of Samhain.

Samhain, a Celtic, pre-Christianity holiday, consisted of dressing in costumes to “hide” from the ghosts of the dead who could return to earth on the last day of the year to haunt people. The Celtics celebrated the end of the year after the harvest was over so, October 31^st was the last day of the year. The Celtics would appease the spirits by giving them treats.

I can see the similarities.

And yes, when Christianity was brought to these areas many of their “holidays” were converted to Christian holidays so they could still have them while being Christians.

I could go into similar details of how and when we started celebrating Christmas as we know it today.

I am, however, not going to debate as to whether or not either of these holiday should then be considered pagan holidays because of their origins. It is beside my point.

I just find it absurd for any modern individual to be so superstitious they can’t have any fun putting on a costume because the custom has pagan origins.

I know other people who shy away from the festivities because of all the scary costumes.

This one I honestly understand.

I never could figure out why costumes had to be gross or scary particularly when you were going to a church activity, or more importantly when young impressionable children were going to be at the activity.

I mean if it was adults only, maybe. But when children are involved, especially young children? Why are you trying to terrify them?

I never understood that.

When I moved here to Nevada I found the divide on whether or not to celebrate Halloween was something of sore spot.

This is because in Nevada, October 31^st is also Nevada Day, the day the Battle Born state joined the United States.

I think a lot of residence see celebrating Halloween as part of celebrating Nevada Day.

So you get some arguments on it because there are still those “good Christians” who believe it is a pagan holiday and will have nothing to do with it.

So many people around here still believe in taking their children trick-or-treating but in many neighborhoods there are only a handful of houses decorated or have any lights on.

In my neighborhood the last few years I’ve not even seen any trick-or-treaters. But then we only have one family on this block who still has young children.

Though I also don’t go out much on Halloween. In fact, I usually turn out all the lights in the front of my house and hole up in the back for the duration of the night.

Why?

Not because I believe it was a pagan holiday. I don’t really care one way or the other. And not because of the scary costumes, though I do have an issue with those.

No, I hide in my bedroom for the evening for a completely different reason.

I personally find it unconscionable in this day and age that any caring adult would at any time tell a child they should never, ever accept candy from a stranger, except on Halloween. Then it’s perfectly acceptable to go around knocking on stranger’s doors and asking for candy.

It isn’t the asking for the candy that bothers me so much as the double standard.

How are young children going to understand when it is and isn’t acceptable to ask for candy from strangers if sometimes they can and sometimes they can’t.

Then there is the whole issue of too much candy is never good for anybody anyway so why on earth would you encourage your kids to go around asking for candy until they have enough to last them for months? Only it never lasts that long. Most kids eat it all up in a day or two.

I don’t have a problem with having fun or dressing up in costumes, as long as nobody is going to get scared by them. I don’t even have a problem with groups of friends gathering together and doing a trunk-or-treat type party. The kids aren’t asking from strangers and aren’t likely to get huge bags of candy.

I will not, however, encourage anybody going around knocking on stranger’s doors and asking for candy. It just feels like the worst type of parenting to me.

Thankfully tomorrow is “All Saints Day”. Instead of consuming candy why not get a jump on a month of thanks and start counting your blessings as an alternative.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

My Tech by Bonnie Le Hamilton

I recently bought my first smartphone. I can give a lot of reason why I’ve waited so long, but the simple matter of it is that I didn’t NEED one. I could make and receive calls or texts; I didn’t need some fancy gadget full of all sorts bells and whistles. And you have to admit those things aren’t cheap!

I had heard of lots of helpful or fun apps that you can only get on a smartphone, but I figured I’ve lived this long without them, I can manage longer, which was fine, until a couple of weeks ago when one of the apps I have on my reader stopped working. I contacted the company telling them the problem and they informed me that the app is no longer supported on readers.

Thank you, so much.

This wouldn’t have bothered me, except the app in question is one I use all the time, since its entire use is to supply people with the phone numbers of every other member of our church living in the area. (For those of you don’t know, we divide our congregations by area, so the app tells you the names and numbers of the members in your assigned area.) Its very helpful, and again, I use it a lot, therefore, suddenly, I needed a smartphone.

I went through something similar when I finally got a computer, internet service, a reader, and a cell phone. In each and every case I didn’t get them until those items became something I needed, not just wanted. There’s just no sense in spending money I can’t really afford on something I don’t even need. I’m actually like that about pretty much everything.

I’ll also cut bills if its something I can live without, ergo, I no longer have a landline and I recently got rid of my Netflix membership. If I’m not using it, why am I paying for it? That’s just a waste of money. Not smart.

The funny thing is, I finally got a reader because of another very handy app supplied by my church which is in and of itself a whole library of church literature, way more than we generally carry with us when we go to church, but it did include the ones we need for church, so when my health got to the point that I couldn’t carry all those books, having a reader was a Godsend, I could have all those books and more with me every Sunday.

I do use my reader for more than just that one app, but that is why I got it, and still have it. Having it has been very useful, especially while sitting in waiting rooms. Though right now I’m not all that sure about how useful a smartphone is, I’m still trying to get the hang of it.

And you can ask Konnie, the other day, I called her to get my niece’s phone number, and I kept accidentally disconnecting the call like three times. More recently I accidentally dialed a friend of mine by hitting the wrong spot on the screen. Actually, that’s how I did it those three times with Konnie. I’ll figure it out, eventually.

Then again, I’ve heard of, and even read stories about, people accidentally calling other people because their phone was in their pocket, so my problems are probably not that uncommon either, though it might make an interesting scene or two, maybe.

But let’s face it, the things we consider common and everyday will one day be unusual and unknown, like kids today who don’t know how to use a rotary dial phone. I saw a video about that on Facebook a while back.

I couldn’t stop laughing at those kids picking up the handset, then putting it back in the cradle before they dialed the phone! For those of us who have used such a phone, we knew what they were doing wrong. I actually thought it was pay back. After all these years of all these youngsters laughing at our inability to use tech, we could finally laugh at their inability to use the grandfather of their tech!

But if science keeps advancing, one day their grandchildren will be laughing at their inability to use the newest gadget, but those same grandkids will be lost trying to use what we have now. Sort of like that scene in Star Trek Four where Scotty at first tried to talk straight into the monitor then into the mouse. That still makes me laugh, too.

Where writing goes, those sorts of things will always be funny.

Happy writing everyone!