Tag: Writing

94 Years Young

Posted on by thefensk

momIf we were having coffee I’d be lamenting the fact that I am once again missing my mother’s birthday.  I live across the country from my mom, who turns 94 today.  I’d raise my mug in toast and say “Happy Birthday, Mom!”

The photo is my favorite picture of my mom,   High School graduation photo.  FYI, that’s pre-war … and I’m sure she was all piss and vinegar as they say.  She got married right after the war and I came along third in line to the throne with two following.

There’s a little-known secret about my early years …   my parents were remarkably cyclic … four of my five siblings were born five years apart.  Only my older sister was out of sequence.  She’s four years older than me.

What this means is that when I was a toddler/young hellion, and my older brother and sister started school. me and my mom were home all day … just her and me.  She was the typical 50’s housewife then … stay at home.  When she was a fledgling mother she had two infant/toddlers at the same time.  By the time I emerged from that cycle, for 2-3 year until my younger sister came along, it was just her and me.  By the time that was over, she had started working again.  Both younger sisters knew the joys of daycare but me, I never experienced that.  Oh, she had periods of at-home time with them, and of course with my older siblings, but I had her all to myself during those few great years.  I’m not gloating, I just feel fortunate. I’ve done a lot in this life, but those are some of my fondest memories.

So, Happy Birthday, mom!

Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina, far from his mother in Houston.  His second novel, A Curse That Bites Deep, was just published this month.

http://www.thefensk.com/main

 

 

The SHOES, Part 2

Posted on by thefensk

If we were having coffee today I’d have to beg forgiveness again because, well … I just have to give an update about the shoes.

I first mentioned the shoes last June, while they were still in the process of being transformed into the showpiece/centerpieces for our daughter’s upcoming nuptials.

To recap, Gretchen, my darling bride, took our daughter’s sweat-stained, ragged, worn-out pointe shoes, remnants from many years of intense dancing, and proceeded to turn them into works of art. To this end she used paint, decoupage, glue-on gems and flowers, and all manner of arts and crafty add-ons. She created about twenty unique pieces for this wedding.

When the florist delivered the bouquets and boutonnieres he mentioned to me that  no centerpiece flowers were ordered and I showed him what we had instead … he was impressed.

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, after she finished decorating all the shoes, the plan was to display them in a tall glass vase. After looking them over, she decided a little height was necessary, so each vase was elevated with an inverted glass heart dish. A dab of lace around the dish, a round table mirror, a little decorative border and a few  additional accents completed the centerpiece … I think it was a marvelous and unique idea and I am not alone. In looking at facebook postings of wedding pictures, everybody included multiple shots of different shoes.

The glass dishes were a little unstable as a platform and this required a late-breaking modification … we glued them, and very late at that, so we were quite fearful of the glue curing in a timely fashion. It made for tricky transportation because I did not feel safe boxing them … so I put them on the floorboard of the two cars we were driving with a little light padding around them … and tried not to take any sharp turns during the 170 mile trip to the venue. All arrived intact.

Like most wedding preparations, these shoes were just one of many details.

The wedding? Simply magical.img_6809

 

Thomas Fenske is a writer living in North Carolina. His latest novel, a Curse That Bites Deep has just been released. More info: http://thefensk.com

Is It or Isn’t It?

Posted on by thefensk

Somebody asked me the other day about the headline on my website:  “Not Just Another Lost Gold Mine Story”

Well, beyond the obvious answer (it isn’t!) … there is a story behind the comment. 
I had entered The Fever in a contest where the winners would be considered for distribution to movie and television producers. Hey, I thought, The Fever would make a great movie! In fact, when I was first attempting to write the story, I seriously considered doing it as a screenplay instead. But in the early days I was just as successful in avoiding writing a screenplay as I was in avoiding writing a novel.  

Anyway, one aspect of this contest was that they would give you feedback on your submission. They did. They pointed out that it looked like a good story and all but it seemed to be “just another lost gold mine story.”

“Great,” I thought to myself, “I knew I should have rewritten Freaky Friday instead!”  

Oh, I’m fairly pragmatic about such things, and saw this feedback as more of a problem with my submission materials rather than the quality of the work itself. I think submissions like this are a bit like grant writing, there is an art to it and it is a skill I haven’t quite mastered, along with writing book blurbs and good headlines I guess. 

 But there you have it … I wanted to emphasize the fact that it ISN’T just another lost gold mine story. The hero Sam realizes he has become stagnated and his isolation is holding him back. He finally figures out that he HAS to change or he’ll never find what he’s looking for.  

I think that’s good advice … I probably need to change the headline and blurb to something new before too long.  

Thomas Fenske http://www.thefensk.com