Of White Oaks and Fall Colors

When I settled down to read Sunday’s Chicago Tribune, my attention was drawn to a beautiful color photo of oak leaves. The article, by Laurie Casey, was celebrating Illinois’ state tree, the white oak, which provides a majestic color show this time of year.

One tree authority, Donald Peattie, even called the white oak “the king of kings” in A Natural History of Trees. The magnificent shape of the tree, its fall colors of maroon and russet and wine, are all celebrated. And then, the article stated, “For all its glory, white oak is becoming rare.”

According to Kris Bachtell, a horticulturist at The Morton Arboretum, “White oak used to be a dominant tree here, but most were cut down to make plank roads, as well as furniture, flooring, boats and barrels.”

Imagine my distress, as a member of The Morton Arboretum and an avid fan of nature, to read that the demise of the white oak was caused by building plank roads a century and a half ago.

Imagine my despair, as an author of Plank Road Summer, to actually read the words “plank roads” in the Chicago Tribune, and then realize the tragic consequence of the roads.

And so I am putting out an appeal to readers of Plank Road Summer–if it is within your power, if you have the space and ability, please plant an oak tree! A  white oak, a bur oak, any of those majestic trees, would be a legacy worth planting.

As for those of us in lots too small to ever support an oak tree, we’ll just have to enjoy the trees we find in our neighborhoods, parks, and arboretums. And maybe wonder how many more there would be, had the white oaks not been made into plank roads.

Crossword Puzzling

A few weeks ago, while doing the crossword puzzle in the Chicago Tribune, I came upon the clue “Toll road toll unit.” Glancing at the puzzle, I saw that it was a four letter answer and the second letter was x. Without a moment’s hesitation, I wrote “oxen” in the spaces. I was thrilled that a crossword puzzle writer would know that tolls were based on how many oxen or other animals were pulling a wagon. In fact, as I worked the puzzle I was composing a letter in my head to that writer. I was going to tell him or her all about Plank Road Summer, and thank her for putting such a great historical tidbit into the puzzle.

However, my puzzling soon faltered as I struggled to complete the puzzle. Alas, I had made a mistake. “Oxen” was not the correct toll unit. The correct answer was “axle.” Do you suppose I was the only person working the Tribune puzzle that day who tried the word “oxen?”

Another Summer

The lilacs in my yard, some of which have been brought to Illinois from the McEachron homestead, have bloomed and faded. The cold, wet spring has turned overnight into a blazing hot Memorial Day. Though I have another week of school, I am looking forward to summer days when I can dedicate more of my time to writing. (Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.) Another revision of Plank Road Winter is underway, and other stories linger in my mind, waiting to make their way onto a printed page.

I also have a quilt to make, though not as intricate as those in Plank Road Summer. I’ll be cutting up old t-shirts to make a quilt for my son to take to college. Pieces of his grade school, middle school, and high school years will travel with him on his new adventure.  A piece of my grade school days just came back to me. Mr. Schmidt, my first principal, just commented on our “About the Authors” page. Please click to the Comments on that page to find a brief memory of my early years at Yorkville School.

As another summer arrives, I hope you all find time to enjoy whatever changes the season brings to your life.

“Plank Road Winter” finished during Blizzard 2011

What better way to finish writing Plank Road Winter, set in Chicago and Wisconsin in 1871-72, than by candlelight, with the power knocked out by the second largest blizzard in Chicago history? Though some people might have complained about the storm, for Hilda and me, it was a perfect gift.    In our own homes, we settled down to hot chocolate or coffee and, sheltered from the howling winds and blowing snow,  hammered out the last couple of chapter revisions.

Winter, with its shortened days and cold weather, can be a season of darkness and despair.  My few hours of candlelight, while the blizzard raged outside, were enough to make me thankful for central heating and electricity.  The next morning, when the sun was bright, I sent my teenagers out to shovel.  When a neighbor came by with a snowblower, I felt obliged to leave my manuscript and lend a hand.  Once outside, my children and I found that the snow that had cut us off from the wider world also reconnected us to the neighborhood, as we ventured through the drifts to see how others were faring.  We helped dig out an SUV that tried, unsuccessfully, to make it down an unplowed road.  We invited a neighbor boy to jump off our porch railing into the snow below.  There was time for simple pleasures we don’t make time for in the rush of our everyday lives.

Plank Road Winter captures despair and dark days, but the story also celebrates the neighborliness that gets us through our difficult times.  We look forward to sharing the story with our readers.  In the meantime, we hope that you have come through the Blizzard of 2011, and we would like to hear snow stories from your neighborhood.

Writing on the Wing

Two days ago Emily and I realized that Plank Road Winter, our revision in progress, needed an entirely new chapter. The next day I plotted scenes in my head while driving from Indiana to Wisconsin.

The following morning at the Milwaukee airport I filled twenty pages in the little spiral notebook I carry in my purse. Aboard a flight to Minneapolis, I typed those pages into my Netbook.

I spent the afternoon in the Augsburg College library alternately scribbling in the spiral and typing from the handwritten draft. Early in the evening I typed the final lines of Chapter 27, emailed the manuscript to my sister author, and headed off to see the campus show that was my purpose for the trip.

Ending a long session of writing fiction is like coming up from underground, blinking and a bit dazed by the strange world of colors and light. It’s nearly the same feeling as closing a book after a long stretch of reading. One emerges groggy and disoriented from traveling between worlds.

I write this post aboard a flight from Minneapolis to Milwaukee—though I have not yet arrived in Milwaukee, as the plane has been diverted to Madison, Wisconsin, because of snow. Does this mean I’ll have an opportunity to sit in an airport and edit a few more chapters of Plank Road Winter?

A writer can always make use of an unexpected gift of time.

The Mother of All Book Clubs

Last Saturday evening Emy and I were guest authors at a meeting of a church book club in Racine, Wisconsin.  This congenial group meets once a month for a potluck supper and book discussion.  The ages of the members span a good five decades, and the pastor himself attends the meetings.

Not many authors travel to book events with their mothers, but ours serves as our financial manager and publicist.  And when Mom gets us a gig, she likes to attend the event.

Author Emily Demuth enjoying a meal inspired by Plank Road Summer.

Mom, Emy, and I were among the first to arrive at the parish house across the street from Pentecost Lutheran Church.  And then the club members began to arrive, each bearing a dish–and the dishes kept coming and coming and coming.   We learned that club member Kathy McGregor generally prepares fare from the book to be discussed that evening.

Plank Road Summer provided plenty of choices, for the book club supper included Cornish pasties, fried chicken, scones, strawberry preserves, cinnamon twists, and fresh-squeezed lemonade.  How the settlers of Yorkville would have enjoyed this meal–Emy and Mom and I certainly did.

The club members had plenty of questions for us, and their response to our book was gratifying indeed. Emy and I agreed afterward that we regretted only one thing about the entire evening: we wish we had talked less and listened more.

Many thanks to the Pentecost Lutheran Book Club for the  hospitality.  The food and fellowship were both outstanding.  Fueled by the prospect of another such gathering, Emy and I went straight home to work on our sequel.

Thanks also to Tim Hasko for inviting us and, of course, to Mom for being our number one fan.

Of Novels and November

November is fast approaching, which means that it’s time to gear up for National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. At Chesterton High School my students will write for at least 60 of the 90 minutes on each of the nine days that our Creative Writing class meets in November. As twenty juniors and seniors work on first drafts of their novels, the only sound in the room will be the clicking of computer keys and the occasional squeak of a chair.

After a 30-minute lesson on some aspect of fiction writing, often adapted from the materials available online for the Young Writers Program at the NaNoWriMo website (nanowrimo.org), my students and I will head to the computer lab to meet our word quota for the day.  If all goes well, I will model appropriate novel-writing behavior by revising several chapters of the sequel to Plank Road Summer during every Creative Writing class in November.

Because my students compose using Google document files and include me as a collaborator, I can view their works in progress and add comments (always in friendly green). Obviously, I can also tell whether they are actually working on their novels or just finding ways to distract themselves–a practice that is all too familiar to us published authors.  Hmmmmm.  It occurs to me that I have spent far too much time browsing the NaNoWriMo website and must really get back to work.

Plain Old Summer

Last year, with our book fresh off the press, Hilda and I enjoyed our own Plank Road Summer. We traveled about from one book event to another, eager to share our story with others.  We felt like real authors, which seems a bit more glamorous than our everyday lives.

This summer, for me, has been exceptionally less glamorous. I had very good intentions, when the school year ended, about getting back to writing (We’re working on the sequel!). But on June 23rd, when I was home alone–no husband, no children–it started to rain.  And hail. And pour. Yard flooded.  Basement leaked.  Tornado sirens wailed.  Power failed.  Sump pump quit.  Basement flooded.  

Went outside to get a neighbor to help start the generator.  Fell and broke my right (writing) arm!  Neighbor arrived. Got generator going.

BUT couldn’t get to hospital because the streets were flooded.  My house was an island with water lapping against it on all sides. Called 911. A firefighter came to my rescue.  Waded a long block through knee deep water to the ambulance.  When I sat down on the gurney and lifted up my feet, my wellies flooded the inside of the ambulance….

Some of you can imagine the rest of my summer–a hot, itchy cast well past my elbow, sorting through sodden masses of possessions, drying out and reconstructing.  And family visiting from Japan and Baltimore in the midst of it. A month later came a second flood, and another family member took an ambulance ride through the flooded streets.

Life is what happens when you’re not writing. It’s the challenges, heartaches, celebrations that form who we are and make up our own story. It’s Plain Old Summer, which isn’t really plain at all.  It’s memories, adventures, emotions, family, neighbors.  It’s the kind of thing you could write a book about. Maybe I will.

At the Well

Emily Demuth and her daughter, Louisa, at the Mather Inn well excavation.

  

The archaeologist, Norm Meinholz, was digging at the site of Mather Inn again this month.  This time, I managed to get back to Wisconsin while the dig was still open. Meinholz had uncovered part of the old foundation and established the exact location of the Inn, when  it stood facing the Plank Road.   The Mather Inn itself still stands  a stone’s throw away–it was moved many years ago, and now faces what would have been the Section Line Road between the Mather and McEachron properties.   

Just a few paces west of the foundation, the archaeologist had found the well.  Stones formed a perfect semi-circle (only half had been uncovered).  It was easy to imagine Katie pulling a bucket  of water from the well, setting the bucket on the stone rim, and peering at her reflection–even though that scene was edited out of our book during an early revision.    

Many scenes never made it into the final version of Plank Road Summer, including one which our mother particularly liked.  This lost scene was the first introduction to the Mather Inn from Katie’s point of view:  

“Katie walked past the grand front door that led to the parlor and the ballroom upstairs–that was for guests.  She hurried round past the porch on the west side, which led to the dining room–that was for teamsters.  At the back of the house she rapped at the kitchen door–that was for neighbor children.  Mrs. Mather was very particular about the proper use of doors.”  

As I walked around the original site of the Inn and stood where the front door had once been, I slipped back in time–back to when traffic sounds were the creak of a harness or clopping of hooves, and when water came not from the faucet but from a bucket drawn daily from the well.  Had Hilda and I seen this circle of stones a couple of years ago, I’m sure we’d have kept the well scene in our book.  

Click here to read a newspaper article about the first dig.  

Notes from All Over

I thoroughly enjoyed the coffee and conversation last month when fiction editors Tara Gilboy and Thomas Ward interviewed me for the online version of the Straylight, the University of Wisconsin-Parkside literary magazine: http://straylightmag.com/?p=691

The interview covers a wide range of topics, including the process of researching and writing Plank Road Summer and tips for writers trying to land an agent or a publisher.  Fans of Plank Road Summer will appreciate learning about the characters and plot of the sequel, which is currently a work in progress.

In my conversation with Tara and Tom, I spoke at length about the struggles of shaping a writing life. After reading the Straylight article, a friend chose to feature my story in a post on his blog, Minding the Workplace.  You can read David Yamada’s article “Embracing Creative Dreams at Midlife” here: http://newworkplace.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/embracing-creative-dreams-at-midlife/

And in case you just can’t get enough of the Demuth sisters, you can find another interview (and a book giveaway contest) at Read These Books and Use Them!, the blog of teacher/editor/historical fiction writer Margo Dill: http://www.margodill.com/blog/