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One Thing Or Another Column: Why November?
By Mark McNeease
Temperatures have plummeted, leaves have fallen, the gray days have taken on a certain despondency, depending on your mood. It must be November. I don’t have anything against it, and I always enjoy Thanksgiving, but there will always be something misplaced about the month, which I describe in further detail in this column from a few years ago. It still rings true.
NOVEMBER SEEMS LIKE AN ORPHAN month, stuck between the festivities of Halloween and the extravagance of Christmas. It’s that month when we wave goodbye to moderate weather, and say hello to furnaces and fireplaces. We watch leaves fall helplessly, their spectacular colors melting to a dull compost brown. November has a way of confirming our suspicions that nothing lasts forever. We get the tires checked or replaced, knowing they’ll soon be slipping and sliding in winter weather. We twiddle our thumbs, waiting for sleigh bells and gift ideas. November is just there, like a stretch of time spent in a waiting room. Eventually the door will open and we’ll be invited to the party, but in the meantime we’ll be reading a magazine on dental hygiene and hoping for the best.
November can be exciting if you celebrate a birthday, anniversary, or early retirement. But the month doesn’t offer much pizazz. It’s like February, that sad, short stretch of days sandwiched between the hopes of the new year and the tease of spring. November doesn’t announce itself with a confident, “I’m here, let’s have some fun!” It arrives with a sudden chill, reminding us to order new winter socks and get the space heater out.
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The Twist Podcast #307: Democrats Crush It, Rick Hearts Jennifer Lawrence, and the Nashville Tenors Deliver
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as we bask in electoral victory, say what bugs us, and recommend Jennifer Lawrence’s new flick and the Nashville Tenors’ amazing vocals.
NEW! You can treat your co-hosts to a cup of coffee … just $3 a brew!
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Online Workshops in December: Fiction Writing, Self-Publishing, and Autobiographical Journaling
I’m excied to announce three online workshops coming up in December, with more online and in-person workshops planned for the new year. These will be held via Zoom from 2:00 – 4:00 pm eastern to accomodate participants in multiple time zones. (Workshops are limited to 8 participants each.) Just click on the links below to register. And now you can also purchase gift certificates for the writer in your life!
Gift certificates are good for any workshop or project.
Fiction Writing Essentials: 2 Hour Online WorkshopJoin us on December 03 via Zoom – 2:00 – 4:00 PM easternIn these writing classes and workshops you’ll explore your own creativity as writers, learning what makes good characters, page-turning plots, and the illusion of conversation we call dialogue.
Have you wondered where story ideas come from? Or how to take an idea and turn it into fiction? What do you do when you get stuck? How are some of the ways we can keep ourselves going from the whisper of an idea to a full-fledged short story or novel? Learn structure, outlining, narrative, point of view, and more, as you become what you want to be, or what you already are: a writer. Yes, you can!
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The Twist Podcast #306: Halloween on the High Seas, Roaming Around Rome, and Some Twist Must-Sees
Join co-hosts Mark McNease and Rick Rose as Mark podcasts from his Royal Caribbean cabin on the highest of the high holidays – Halloween! Thare are a lot scarier things out there these days.
NEW! You can treat your co-hosts to a cup of coffee … just $3 a brew!
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Upcoming Holiday Ad in the Bucks County Herald (Now With Gift Certificates!)
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‘Pine Melody: A Memoir’ by Stacey Meadows Now Available
I knew when I first started helping Stacey Meadows publish her memoir about her son’s death in a car accident that this was something special. The writing is superb, and the emotions are as raw as they could possibly be. It’s both beautiful and devastating, with the promise of acceptance and healing as Stacey recounts her journey with grief. I’ll be giving this to my workshop participants as an example of an outstanding and well-written memoir.
Swerving to avoid a deer on a dark Wisconsin highway in early summer, 22-year old Gabe lost control of the car. His 29 year- old brother, Jonah, singing along with him as he drove, absorbed the full force of the impact with an oncoming pick-up truck driven by the Chief of a First Nation. The crash left Jonah with severe traumatic brain injury, Gabe with a broken femur, and soil samples, meticulously gathered for Jonah’s graduate research project on agroforestry, strewn across the highway.
As general counsel for a Philadelphia medical center, I was competent enough to interact with my sons’ care teams, but lost all semblance of professionalism when neither my legal expertise, search for a medical miracle, nor tenacity of my love was able to bring benefit to Jonah, who lingered in a coma for three months, before dying in hospice. I was left to find a way to carry on for the sake of Jonah’s brothers while handling my own grief and helplessness.
Immersing myself in Jonah’s journals, and memories of his extraordinary, spirit-filled life, my pillars materialized—meditation, yoga, prayer and sailing. With Jonah as my spirit guide, in the bardo and beyond, I navigated pathways between terror and beauty that Jonah had spent his life seeking. Pine Melody is the result of my journey.
