Author Archive

Posted on February 20, 2012 - by Kim

Music, Music, Music!

It’s a scientific fact that movies aren’t movies without the soundtrack. Scenes lack intensity and depth when there is no swell of strings in the background. And we’ve all seen flicks where the background tune just doesn’t fit. That can turn a deeply dramatic moment into a farce. But when the music is just right, you often have an Oscar-worthy moment.

Perhaps that is why the Oscars have had a Best Original Score category since 1934. After all, would Harry Potter and Star Wars be Harry Potter and Star Wars without John Williams’ memorable score? And would The Pink Panther be as pink without Henry Mancini? I think not!

While we might not know that the familiar tune that opens up the Indiana Jones movies has a name (The Raiders March), we certainly leave the theater humming it. More than that, we identify the tune each time we hear it or each time the movie’s title is mentioned. In that way, the score is as important as the catchy dialogue or the actor’s body language.

And while we might forget the names of the composers who spend hours trying to create the perfect theme for the hundreds of feet of film, we never forget what they make us feel. The tears they urge and the laughter they create with eight bars of notes and a couple of codas.

So here’s to John and Henry and Richard and Robert and all the rest! May the next generation of talent live up to the high standards you’ve created!

Now, for a bit of fun…Can you match the score’s composer with the movie? (Hint: The movie and/or the score was nominated for an Academy Award

1.         ____ Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone

2.         ____ Breakfast At Tiffany’s

3.         ____ Love Is A Many Splendored Thing

4.         ____ To Kill A Mockingbird

5.         ____ The Bridge Over The River Kwai

6.         ____ Rocky

7.         ____ Chariots of Fire

8.         ____ The Way We Were

9.         ____ Gone With The Wind

10.       ____ Dr. Zhivago

a. Vangelis   b. Max Steiner  c. Elmer Bernstein  d. Maurice Jarre  e. Marvin Hamlisch  f. Malcolm Arnold

g. John Williams  h. Henry Mancini  i. Bill Conti  j. Alfred Newman

Tune in this evening for the right answers!

 

Posted on February 6, 2012 - by Kim

Love Isn’t Selfish

Two five year olds sit around a table in their Kindergarten class enjoying snack time. Suzie always has a snack packed lovingly by her mother. But Sadie never produces anything from her lunch bag. The teacher, in her eternal wisdom and kindness always keeps a few packs of kid-friendly edibles for just such an occasion. She offers the snackless child something from the stash.

Sometime before the first week of school is out, the Suzie produces two snacks from her Barbie lunchbox. She leans over to Sadie and whispers. “I brought you a snack today.” Pushing the choices toward her little friend, she smiles. “And you can choose either one you want.”

Every day the exact same scene plays out before the teacher’s eyes. One day, a few weeks later, the teacher runs into Suzie’s mother at the local Wal-Mart. She thanks the young woman for providing a second snack for her daughter’s schoolmate and tries to tell her it is completely unnecessary as there is a special drawer in the filing cabinet with enough edibles for Sadie to indulge in for weeks to come.

“It’s not my idea,” Suzie’s mother shrugged. “Suzie came home after the first week of school and asked if I could pack an extra snack for her on Monday. When I asked her why, she just looked up with her big blue eyes and said, ‘Sadie never has a snack and I just want her to have something to eat like the rest of us do.’ “

Or so goes the story a Kindergarten teacher (the one in the story) related to me a few weeks ago.  I had all but forgotten about it until 1 Corinthians 13:5b became my topic in this round of blog posts. Whether little Suzie realized it or not, by not only providing the snack but allowing her friend to choose which one to take, she embodied ‘Love does not demand its own way’ (NLT). Once again, I find myself humbled by the innocent acts of children.

What about you? Have you been the embodiment of love isn’t selfish or witnessed it in the acts of others? Inquiring minds want to know.

 

Posted on January 23, 2012 - by Kim

The Swan House

Move over Margaret Mitchell. Stand aside Harper Lee. There’s a new kid on the block…relatively speaking. Or at least that’s what I thought when I read The Swan House by Elizabeth Musser.

This fantastic novel, published in 2001 is set in the author’s native Atlanta in 1962, is the coming of age story of one Mary Swan Middleton – a child of privilege from Buckhead. But money and the fine education she is receiving at the elite Wellington School doesn’t save her from the tragedy that leaves not only her family but the entire city grieving.

The story opens with a very grown up Mary Swan finally agreeing to tell her pregnant daughter the story of her sixteen-year-old self and the paintings that hang in Mt. Carmel Church in Grant Park. Thankfully, we get to go along for the ride as she tells of first loves, the slowly evolving racial climate in the city, the pain of secrets kept too long and the struggle to find a faith she didn’t know she was searching for.

From the very first paragraph, Elizabeth Musser draws the reader into the world of the South in 1962. Every word seems to pull you farther into a city still rising from the ashes of the past. Through the eyes of the characters, you feel like you are in Oakland Cemetery or standing on the expanse of lawn at the Swan House. You can feel Mary Swan’s pain as she grieves for her mother and struggles with the secrets uncovered as she tries to solve the infamous Raven Dare. You experience the confusion of being attracted to two possible first love and having to chose between the kind boy who could make her a social outcast and the sweet young man who drives a new convertible and goes to as elite a private school as she does. In short, you will cry her tears and laugh her laughs. And come out a better person for it.

 

Elizabeth Goldsmith Musser, a native of Atlanta, Georgia, attended the Westminster Schools and then received her B.A. in English and French from Vanderbilt University, where she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and graduated magna cum laude.

Though passionate about writing since childhood, Elizabeth’s first book was not published until 1996. Two Crosses was the first of a trilogy set during both the Algerian War for independence from France (1957-1962) and the present day civil war in Algeria. Her work has since been translated into Dutch, French, and German.

Since 1989, Elizabeth and her husband, Paul, have lived in Montpellier, France, where Paul serves on the pastoral team of a small Protestant church. The Mussers have two sons, Andrew and Christopher. (Taken from the Barnes and Noble website.)

 

Posted on January 9, 2012 - by Kim

The Blank Page

Fill it.

That’s the best advice I’ve ever been given when it comes to this writing stuff. Actually, the advice was a bit more poetic than that: You can’t fix what’s not written.

Which is true. If it scientifically impossible to fix something that isn’t there. (And if some scientist hasn’t written a treatise on this, they should.) So if you have a story in your head and you never put it down on paper you’ll know if it is fixable. Or if it ever needed fixing in the first place.

I guess that’s the long way of saying if you don’t try you’ll never know if you could. And that applies to more than just us writers who are questing toward publication. (I think the published writers out there would agree that quest doesn’t end with the first contract either.) It applies to life.

If you never tried new food, you might miss out on something absolutely decadent. If you never tried new hobbies, you might miss out on a lifetime worth of enjoyment. If you never tried to make new friends, you might find yourself on the wrong side of lonesome.

Of course all this trying and fixing does have its drawbacks. You might end up with a drawer full of rejections. You might end up with food poisoning. You might cut a finger off or poke your eye out depending on the hobby you choose. You might get hurt if you put your hand out in friendship and have it knocked away.

Every thing in this life from the moment of conception is a risk. And we are all just human. Making mistakes and having to pick ourselves up and fix them are as much a part of our DNA as our eye color. That’s why some brilliant person put erasers on the end of pencils. All we can do is try. Fix our mistakes to the best of our ability. Start over when necessary. We can’t expect ourselves to be perfect.

After all, God doesn’t.

 

Posted on December 26, 2011 - by Kim

A Little Piece Of Christmas All Year Round

I write this blog in the waning hours of Christmas. The tree is still up but the presents are gone from beneath its synthetic boughs. The last shreds of wrapping paper seemingly deposited on every square inch of bare floor by a rather exuberant three and a half year old little boy has been disposed of. The boxes and bags collapsed and packed away for another year, the gifts they held already put to use. In a matter of a few days the last vestiges of Christmas 2011 will be stripped away from both home and office.

Yet the spirit lingers.

It’s my experience – at least in my little corner of the South – the spirit of giving embodied by the Christ child stays all year round. From the ‘ya’ll come on in and sit a spells’ to the anonymous donations that provide the funds needed to purchase school supplies for the local kids who live from hand to mouth, you will find good ol’ St. Nick peeking from around the corner and God’s smile just a hint wider as we keep the meaning of the season alive from December to December and back again.

So while you may not find a forgotten piece of a Nativity set on a shelf should you come and visit in July, you will get the sincere wishes for good health and safe travel seemingly relegated to the last month of the year. And while it may be too hot for cocoa in the middle of August, you’ll get the best glass of sweet tea this side of Heaven and a warm smile with a hit of twinkle that could only come from a descendent of the jolly old elf himself.

May you experience the same little piece of Christmas I do. Every day. 365 days a year. Until eternity.

 

Posted on December 12, 2011 - by Kim

Elizabeth: A Shoulder To Cry On

Can you imagine the state Mary must have been in when she arrived at her kinswoman’s house? Exhausted from what could easily have been a nine-day journey. Newly pregnant. Unmarried. Perhaps in emotional turmoil after disclosing her state to her parents. Scared not only of the unknown but of losing her very life at the hands of her friends and neighbors should Joseph publicly turn her away.

Then Elizabeth arrives on the scene. Elderly Elizabeth, the neighborhood grandmother. Perhaps the one person Mary never wanted to disappoint. Not only does she welcome the teenager with open arms, but in her words she provides something Mary may not have received from anyone else who knew of her predicament – Belief.

Elizabeth believed the girl’s story before it was ever told. Knew the moment John jumped in her womb who this barely more than a child herself carried.

Just picture the scene afterward. Both probably in tears. Mary cradled to Elizabeth’s bosom sobbing out her fears and uncertainties while the older woman rubbed her back in soothing circles. The sense of ‘I can go on’ Mary found in knowing someone somewhere believed this positively outlandish tale and would be there for her no matter what.

And that probably wasn’t the only time during her stay that Elizabeth offered a shoulder to cry on. Anyone who’s ever been pregnant or in the same vicinity as an expectant mother knows what an emotional rollercoaster it can be. But it is all made a little easier when you have someone who accepts you unconditionally like Mary’s kinswoman did.

May we all be as believing as Elizabeth during this holy time of year. And may that belief and acceptance of the Christ child go beyond the manger and into the triumphant sunrise of Easter morning. And beyond.

 

Posted on November 28, 2011 - by Kim

It’s Tradition!

This time of year, I’m more often than not drawn to the traditions of the season. Like watching Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer and A Charlie Brown Christmas. The same seems to hold true for my selection of reading material. For me, Christmas just isn’t Christmas until I’ve read these books at least once.

 

 

The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans. The story tells of a young family who come to live with and care for a lonely widow in her spacious Victorian mansion. Seeing the young father’s obsession with money and success above all else, the widow tries to make him see the need to change his priorities. (This is one of the few books I read in one sitting. Once I get started I just can’t put it down.)

 

 

 

Shepherds Abiding by Jan Karon. It’s Christmastime in Mitford and Father Tim is working on something special for his wife. But will Cynthia or Father Tim be touched more by the gift?

 

 

 

 

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Ebenezer Scrooge, the most miserly man in all of England, finds Christmas and all its traditions a humbug. Until he’s visited by the ghost of his former partner and three other spirits of the season.

 

 

 

 

What about you? What books in your library, along with a steaming hot cup of cocoa and a plate of cookies, are a traditional Christmas read?

 

Posted on November 14, 2011 - by Kim

A Letter To Me

Dear Kim,

15, huh? Old enough to be permitted to drive but not trusted behind the wheel without an adult. Don’t worry. You’ll survive.

And you’ll survive all the other birthdays after. Though you almost don’t make the 31st thanks to your stubbornness and unwillingness to listen to the warnings from your body. But with a little divine intervention and an insulin pump, you recover. Ten years later and you’re still going strong.

You’ve got some surprises coming your way in the next few years. Like your choice of careers. While you will kind of fall into it – God’s zaps always have a purpose; just remember that – you won’t regret it. Before it is all said and done, you’ll have a job you love and the title of Dr. Payne.

No husband, though. Seems you’ll learn a lesson a little too well from a friend while in Graduate school when it comes to being desperate to find a man. No kids either. (Go ahead and watch Steel Magnolias now and you’ll understand why. Come to think of it, that may be more the reason for the no husband than the friend from school.) But that’s okay. Because that snotty nose little brother of yours ends up giving you not only the sister you always wanted, but a niece and nephew you will absolutely adore and who will absolutely adore you. (By the way, your little brother doesn’t turn out to be half bad either.)

All in all, you couldn’t ask for a better life. A wonderful job. Time for family. Time for hobbies. And time to pursue your love for writing. While it remains to be seen if you’ll ever actually be published, you will learn a lot. Plus you’ll make some terrific friends. Most of all, you will have a great time doing it. But never doubt that God put the call to make people think through your words in your heart. Because just like school and your job, He put this desire in your life for a reason. So don’t go chickening out on Him. His plan will unfold in His time.

And it will be wonderful.

Love,

An adult me

Posted on October 31, 2011 - by Kim

I Can’t Believe You Said That!

Dialogue. Every story needs at least a few doses of it. After all, it can drive the story. It can change the feel of a scene. Speed things up. Slow things down. Give a much-needed dash of humor to a heavy moment. Make a plot believable. It is quite the handy little tool for a writer. And it may be one of the most natural ones. After all, unless one is a hermit, it is something every human with language abilities takes part in at some time during every day.

Yet despite how natural it may be, there are still questions about its use. How much? Where does it need to go? What makes good dialogue?

While I don’t have a good answer for the first two – unless you would accept “Whatever feels right” as a response – I do have at least a basic handle on the last.

Good dialogue, according to instructors and authors, starts with being real. And ‘real’ doesn’t always mean grammatically correct. Just think about it. Do we speak in full eloquent sentences when we are relating the events of the weekend around the water cooler? No! Real conversation is made up of fragments and interruptions and stutters and grammar that would make my tenth grade English teacher blush. The dialogue in our stories should be constructed in the same manner.

However, being constructed in the same manner doesn’t translate into making the dialogue the same for every character. Just like clothing and mannerisms, the way a character speaks should be as unique as the personality you’ve created for him. If he stutters when he’s nervous, don’t have his dialogue sound as smooth as a Mozart sonata. If he’s British, don’t make him sound American. If he’s a Yankee, don’t make him proficient at a rebel yell.

Now this doesn’t mean you have to write every word of dialogue with an accent. For one, it’s hard for the reader to interpret. And two, unless you are Joel Chandler Harris, you will probably never accurately capture the nuances of any dialect. But a few dropped endings or common phrases thrown in will keep the reader’s belief suspended and allow him or her to accept the character as his own person.

And while common phrases are important to help make the character sound like himself, one should be careful of clichés. After all, clichés really don’t make it into every day conversation as much as we think they do.

Having said all this, I guess the best piece of advice I’ve ever read on dialogue is to listen to other people’s conversations. And I don’t mean eavesdrop. But listen to the ebb and flow. Of how the speaker puts the words together. Of the mistakes made and the strange vocal tics you may have never noticed before. Then go home and incorporate them into your story. While you might not want to believe your friend said that to her boss, your heroine will thank you for giving her the biting sense of humor it took to say it.

By the way, if you want a good book on dialogue, I’d suggest Dialogue by Gloria Kempton. It is part of the Write Great Fiction series published by Writer’s Digest Books.

 

Posted on October 17, 2011 - by Kim

Fear No Evil

According to various and sundry military men like Chaplin William T. Cummings, there are no atheists in foxholes. Can you imagine feeling more in the clutches of evil than hunkered down in some open tunnel crisscrossing a battlefield with bullets whizzing by your ear and mortars landing bare yards away spewing dirt skyward like some latent volcano?

Or if that taxes the imagination a little too much, think of something on a much smaller scale. Remember those good ol’ school days when one minute you are laughing about the ridiculous hairstyle you saw on the opposing team’s head cheerleader at the football game on Friday night and the next you are stricken with apoplexy when someone casually mentions the test worth half the entire semester’s points you forgot to study for. That’s right folks, there ain’t no atheists in our classrooms either. Not any of ‘em. Even in the hallowed halls of the Ivy League.

And why is that?

Because evil, whether it looks like Adolph Hitler, Charles Manson, Jason from Friday the 13^th, or Miss Neal my high school Algebra teacher, is scary. Heart racing, lose all control of bodily functions terrifying. Yet of all the things in the world, it is the one thing we should not worry about.

Again, why?

Because God is with us. Right there in the trenches. Or the classroom. Or the dark basement I still avoid like the plague after the sun goes down. He’s right there.Holding us in the very hollow of His hand where nothing but sunlight and goodness can truly touch us no matter how many wolves are at the door, enemies firing from the other side of no man’s land or teachers glaring from lecterns. He…is…with…us.

And there is nothing to fear.