History: January through December 2003

December 31, 2003
It's hard to remember on days like these that somewhere tulip bulbs lie dormant, expectantly awaiting warm spring mornings. Or that our mulberry tree will ever have leaves. Everything looks like death, yet hopes of new life. Difficult year...

In addition to our own health issues, our family lost a dear friend in August. Dr. Johann Forster ~ Hansi to me and Denise ~ died tragically on August 4. He was only 46. His encouragement, both emotional and tangible, in the White Rose work had kept us going through some discouraging days.

Besides his encouragement with White Rose work, he also inspired me to pen the Hansi and Frog series. His superior intelligence and remarkable wit contributed more "material" to these books than I could ever use!

2003 was also a time when we learned how closely mental, physical, and intellectual health are related. When one goes, the others are hard put to stay intact. It's nearly impossible to work well when you're not.

April 4, 2003
A week to play catch-up and not much else. Loads of emails to answer. Very tired. Hard to get motivated.

March 14, 2003
We're trying to get our History Project moving. Goal is to do for other projects what has been done for the White Rose. A ton of submissions that require all of us reviewing and discussing and trying to decipher what we know enough about to tackle. It's painful telling someone we can't accept their work, especially when it's something that is in fact interesting.

March 7, 2003
Yea! Sometimes I can just get on a roll and write like I'm talking to someone face to face. Inspiration seems to come easy during weeks like this!

Not only completed the essay for the Dreyfus conference, but submitted a market-article to Children's Writer newsletter about religious markets for children's writers. It was one of the hardest ones to research ~ funny how editors for multi-cultural books seem to thrive on their work, but editors of children's religious books seem constantly constipated.

Both are done, out the door, finished, filed away. What a lovely feeling.

February 28, 2003
I have to finish the Dreyfus Conference speech. I love the material, it's just hard juggling everything.

February 21, 2003
The big snow! In many ways, it felt like a "reward" for all our hard work of the last couple months, and especially the last few weeks. Everything was quiet, peaceful, and when it stopped, there was laughter on the street as people worked together to move all the white stuff. Funny how difficult situations can bring out the very best in people!

June and California

I hate to say this and possibly offend truly-good friends made in Utah. But I will say it anyway and trust that they know my heart well enough: I am so happy to be out of that state, living and working in California.

The last two years now feel like a void in my life. Almost everything about Utah is harsh. Climate, high altitude, theocracy that poses as state government... add in lack of trees, lawns, shrubs, and flowers in most neighborhoods (including ours), and little of Utah cheers the soul or provides solace when a body hits the inevitable bump in the road.

No pretenses about California. Even with the overwhelming beauty of this place, with flowers peeking out of nooks and crannies, and waves crashing on pristine beaches, I know it is not paradise. Traffic, high rent, crime, state government on the verge of bankruptcy, these too are California. Even were I to strike it rich, landing somehow on the A-List, it would not make me or my family immune from LA freeways and daily headaches associated with the second largest city in these United States.

And yet I love the sunshine, the roar of the ocean, flowers casually draped on random walls. When the body is warmed and nourished, one's spirit may also revel in the abundance of Nature, an abundance that draws out stories and renews laughter.

My dear Joanie and Sid, abandoned in Utah for lack of breathing room, beckon me once again to tell their story. Last I wrote about them (The Generation), I could not imagine them in love. Here, I cannot imagine them otherwise.

Hansi and Frog, Ursula Grimm, Fritz and Lotte, Butterfly Lace, those other manuscripts buried under Utah's dust, now stand a chance of completion. I can "hear" the stories more clearly. Once again, I know the sound that red makes.

History: January through December 2002

November 1, 2002
Finished my first-ever screenplay, The Brickmaker's Son. Don't worry, I'll post the notice here when Spielberg options the script.

October 11, 2002
One of the best things about living "up North" is that you are so close to so many beautiful things. After a difficult September, I called my mom and said, "Why don't we just hit the road?" So with next to no idea what we wanted to do or see, we threw together some clothes, filled up the trusty Saturn, and headed north.

First stop was Niagara Falls. It was more spectacular than we could have imagined. We did the "Maid of the Mist" boat ride. Drenched to the skin, blinded by the spray, we joined in the hilarity with a group of Japanese tourists. I'm always amazed at how an experience like that can bring together total strangers. By the end of the twenty minute (too short!) ride, we were laughing together and even posing in their pictures for back home.

We are easily fascinated; little things can keep us happy for hours on end. We chanced upon the St. Lawrence Seaway and gawked at ships moving through the locks between great lakes. Waved at the sailors, flirted as they passed by almost at eye level. And the bridges!

One day we ate lunch on Lake Ontario, checking out abandoned ships. And we watched the sun set on Lake Erie. Coming home, we made our way through Mexico and Texas (towns in upstate New York) and spent the night in the Adirondacks, vowing to return and spend at least a month in a cabin there.

It's funny... Great architecture can be inspiring. Who has not oohhed and ahhed inside the Muenster in Ulm or atop the Empire State Building? But when our batteries need recharging, there is no better place than Nature. Nothing more refreshing than crisp mountain air or a sea breeze.

Especially when the trees are ablaze.

September 30, 2002
A difficult month, largely due to health issues. But our next big project is underway ~ a practical translation of an 1879 German cookbook. Turns out the Max Dade Institute is publishing a fairly literal translation of exactly the same cookbook, but their version will only complement ours. Our edition updates the recipes for the 21st century kitchen, while retaining historical information that make it more than just a cookbook. I'm helping with the translation work, but someone else is editing and working out the details. For once, I have the easy job!

August 16, 2002
Taking one of those welcome breaks to look at other back-burner projects and figure out what's next. I keep coming back to my sci-fi effort, The Generation. It's writing that makes me smile even as it's in progress. I genuinely like the people I'm envisioning.

And yes, all the strange things you've ever heard about writers "talking to" their fictional characters and letting those fictional characters "control" the scene... I hate to tell you this, but it's all true! You know you're a real writer when you can celebrate your strangeness.

May 31, 2002
Initial catalog mailing is done! (Note: If you are reading this and you have never received one of our catalogs, post a comment-question here and I will make sure the publisher adds you to the mailing list.) It's a double-edged sword, being this small. Tedious doing this kind of clerical work, but fun too, because we all pitch in. With laughter, even dull jobs are worthwhile.

June 21, 2002
Finished article on researching tools for Children's Writer Annual Yearbook (2003). Just ten years ago, our options were far more limited than they are now. We couldn't Google to our heart's content, dredging up minutiae on obscure topics. Now Herzl's complete Judenstaat can be read online from the library of the University of Augsburg, Yale carries the full text of the Treaty of Versailles, and Calvin College's Web site allows access to the dark world of Nazi propaganda. In 1992, finding those three documents would have required living in close proximity to a good university library. These days, you just need Internet access.

June 7, 2002
Quick update to Jotter's Blotter (creative writing workbook), for an odd (but welcome) flurry of orders all at once. White Rose isn't the only thing in life. We all need these other projects to keep us sane and focused.

January 31, 2002
If anyone had told me that being the executor of my grandmother's estate would be this much work, I wouldn't have believed them. She did not have all that much. She had disbursed her furniture and antiques in 1996 when she moved from her forever-home to a retirement center.

And she was only in the hospital four days before she died. And she had no debt.

So why is this so amazingly hard? Not complaining, as much as wondering aloud why corporations like Southwestern Bell and Time Warner Cable are incapable of handling easy transactions correctly the first time around. Maybe politically, this is the real story ~ "Al Qaeda" is merely the distraction to make us forget that customer service and quality assurance are nearly nonexistent in these United States.

January 3, 2002
My grandmother died this afternoon, so it may be a couple of weeks before I can update this journal. Heading to Houston tomorrow, driving a U-Haul back (hopefully not in the snow and ice). She had a long and relatively good life.

The Education

I proved that lemma beyond the shadow of a doubt
Logic tree impeccable
Givens in a row
Precise and calculated
To impress Einstein himself

You said if the limit of y equals zero, my proof falls apart
Line three becomes invalid
The givens do not matter
And I am flat out wrong

I wrote an impressive essay on the viability of humor as a tool for advancing political activism
Sources cited perfectly
Footnotes backing up my thesis
Quotes from experts
Like Roosevelt and Stalin

You showed that humor in the nineteen hundreds usually missed its mark and failed
To effect a lasting change
That parody produced entertainment
And I needed to read some more

I composed a remarkable waltz in five four time to revolutionize the music industry
And choreographed the dance
With simple steps
That anyone could follow
In the style of Strauss and company

You pointed out the weakness inherent in three chord progressions
Noting where a minor key
Could make the twirling sparkle
And told me to start over

I said I would never undertake to be original again
My math had soured
Words failed me
No one danced to my music
And no one ever would

You led me to your desk, retrieving sheaves of paper bound in ribbons blue with age
Scribbles on your dissertation draft
Red circles slashing page-long proofs
Tightly written notes defining errors in your reason
Clarinet solos marked beyond recognition
Failure written on the work that you had done
Failure written on the work that you had done?

I added a minor inversion to the second movement
And glanced up to see you dancing

(c) 2001, Ruth Hanna Sachs. Excerpted from Changing Seasons.

History: January through December 2001

December 27, 2001
What a great way to end this tough year! Database cranked back up. Exclamation! Publishers now accepts credit cards, so hopefully that will improve the marketability of my books. Funny how you have to think about even little things like that... Well, the well-worn and horribly romantic image of a writer writing and pacing and drinking himself silly sure has taken a hit this year. Writing is proving to be much more of a "job" than anyone ever lets on. A job, to be sure, that I wouldn't trade for anything. And that, my friends, is a great place to be.

December 20, 2001
Finished a "markets" piece for Children's Writer Newsletter. Researched which publishers are looking for adventure pieces in 2002 and early 2003.

December 6, 2001
The Enron mess is pretty awful, but surely should not have caught anyone unawares. The way it is being heralded as a huge surprise only points out that we do not keep up with international news nearly enough. Dabhol, UK plant explosion, Enron's walking away from the pipeline in UAE, all should have been clear signals that something was brewing. ~ Did people choose not to know, or is this a case of censorship at work?

November 29, 2001
Birthday tomorrow reminds me that we all get older and slower, no matter what we do or where we live. Oh well. Enjoying the journey, and that is what matters most.

November 22, 2001
So much to be thankful for, and I don't even mean the "biggies". Strong sense this year of needing to understand that so much that I am "thankful" for comes at the expense of others who receive little or no wage (much less thanks) for their labor.

November 15, 2001
The article is done, out the door. When it came time to quit the self-editing and proclaim it a done deal, it was a little scary. How can one person give another person advice on that trickiest of ages, the teen years? I didn't figure it out when I was that age. Maybe that's the greatest thing I had going for me, even as I hesitated to dispense advice: I could remember the agony of being sixteen.

November 8, 2001
Working on an article for a new magazine called Parenting Teens, I am awed by how honest and forthright people can be. Is it possible that there is far greater decency and respect among us than the media portrays? All is not lost.

September 27, 2001
Putting together a resume for a prospective client this week, I was reminded just how rich life is when you do nothing but live it from day to day. We could all be writers, we could all be poets. Even the deepest wounds make us grow and give us character we would not have were we to live simple, sheltered lives.

September 13, 2001
There is nothing else to write except for deepest grief at the events of this week. On Monday, facing a week full of bright prospects, we could never have imagined how changed our world would be today, how very different we have all become in so short a space.

May our innocence lost turn to wisdom gained.

August 2, 2001
When a person thinks about becoming a writer (or at least when I did), there's this romantic vision of sitting at a computer and pouring meaningful words onto a blank page. I remember the early days, writing whenever inspiration struck... usually late at night. It was simply fun, that theater of and for one.

I still love to write, but have discovered in the interim that it's a business like anything else. The routine may "interfere" with the creative, but it enables it as well. Would not trade this business for any other! Keeping routine and creativity in balance is, however, a dance on egg shells.

July 13, 2001
It's been one of those weeks where, if you touch it, it breaks. I'm sure that no one reading this has ever had a week like that. (Yeah right.) Guess these days make me appreciate other times when creativity comes easy, when everything rhymes, and mistakes are unehard of, I mean unheard of.

In the meantime, I've been reading the new John Adams biography. Astounding, isn't it, how many stories we once knew are quickly forgotten. He lived a scant 200 years ago. What have we forgotten from time even more immemorial?

July 5, 2001
On this day after we celebrate our declaration of independence, it is sobering to realize that not everywhere and not in every time have people enjoyed so much luxury of freedom as we do here in these United States.

June 21, 2001
First day of summer. Such a glorious time of year. Energy to create, to think, to be. Sometimes, words are too much.

April 19, 2001
Eight days and counting till the release of my first book of poetry, Changing Seasons. Hope that when it's the 100th book about to be released, I'll be as excited as I am about this second one. It is a gift all its own, to be thrilled by intangibles and made happy by privileges.

April 16, 2001
You know you're growing older when your knee gives out. And the doctor says the awful A-word: Arthritis. I've been so pre-occupied with pain that Thursday came and went without my thinking about this Web site even once.

Funny though how accepting a new limitation can broaden a horizon and make me look for new ways of exercising and staying active. Give a little, get a little. Get a lot?

April 5, 2001
Hope that by this time next week, I can write in this journal about all the wonderful dialog I've put down on paper, or the translations finished and "in the book." But at least I can look back on the last seven days and know they have been good, they have hardly been wasted. Tax returns and the like keep me out of trouble ... that's the prevailing theory.

And it is finally, gloriously springtime. From last night to this morning, it's like the earth exhaled and trees greened. Forsythia's showing faintly yellow. Before long, there will be such a dazzle of color! Perfect time to be a writer. Cannot imagine being anything else.

March 29, 2001
Smiles enough, and laughter the last seven days. Putting aside White Rose has been like opening the windows on a gorgeous spring day, letting in the fresh air. Mark Twain has that effect on you. I've simply got to finish White Rose, so I can go back to Joanie and Sid.

Have practiced writing in different voices this week. Nothing publishable. In fact, I need to shred anything that made it to the printer. It is simply a delicious exercise, thinking out loud from another point of view.

I think sometimes we've got to back away from the things that normally consume our lives and stand in the sunshine a while. Clears out cobwebs hidden by the dark. This I will do!

March 15, 2001
Not a writing week! Stephen King may say that every writer should write ten pages a day, but odds are, he doesn't have to deal with car repairs and telephone people. Only one-and-a-half pages this week. For the whole week. Sometimes you just have to be thankful for what you do get done and quit obsessing over the work you wanted to do.

Oh well. At least the imminent trip to the garage turned into a new car instead. Fun shedding the staid, business-image automobile for something a little more me.

March 8, 2001
Varied week, lots of little things accomplished. Sometimes a break from the darkness of the Third Reich is very much in order.

Finished one article for Children's Writer, started another. Doing these makes me understand a little more here or there about the corners of writing that I am still discovering, the niches that are out there, still unexplored.

Also started translation work for hagalil.com, that excellent German Jewish Web site. Focusing first on contemporary German Jewish life, because so much Shoah material is already available in English. It's a breath of fresh air to write about today's struggles, joys, and perplexities, instead of always looking to the past for inspiration.

Looking to the "future" too, as a very strange and funny dream may have solved the way to get Joanie to talk again. Maybe I can write a chapter or two there next week, get her story moving. Need to look up something about Jupiter, so I can get the commentary right. I like the days I work on Joanie's Letters, because I find myself laughing as I write.