An update on the operations, developments, and plans for 2023.
A month longer than planned, Maycee and I long for the 2023 return to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
In 2023, we tent camped for 13 weeks and 4 days on my dad’s 40 acres of rural forest land near Marquette, the largest city in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Twenty-four thousand people live in Marquette.
Upon making our return, we will resume our off-grid living adventures. Our time there is anything but a typical Upper Peninsula Michigan vacation.
We don’t spend a great amount of time visiting Upper Peninsula attractions. Of course, other than the ones in the Marquette area.
No matter though. If you check out my YouTube channel you’ll see we have plenty of adventure on our own.
The longer we are away the higher the level of “overwhelm” I feel increases.
Many things delay the road trip to the UP at present.
These include:
Finishing the overhaul of donaldjclaxton.com
Editing several YouTube videos from last year’s video cache
Finishing repair or making of timber frame tools we’ll need when we get there.
Developing some plans to use for timber frame projects to do this year.
Figuring out better ways to supply power and water to our new site in the woods.
Getting packed and on the road.
Ugh! But what about more words on the page?!
These activities also include generating a massive amount of content before we go to the UP.
I need four more iterations of myself to tie up presentations, tools, and more.
Let me rephrase that. I need four or five others who know much more than me, to work things into shape!
Donald J. Claxton emoji with me at one of my Macs, overhauling donaldjclaxton.com and creating feverishly; until there’s a distraction! Then the offender gets a special look as I continue to prepare for a return trip to the UP.
Overhauling donaldjclaxton.com by using Divi and WordPress tools.
My family and friends as me what I’m doing today: the answer is always the same of late.
I’m working on the website.
Learning new ways to use the Divi Builder.
In the last month and a half, I’ve learned that many things I was attempting to do with the site were wasting my time.
Many aspects of the Divi Theme Builder, made by Elegant Themes, improved over the last year.
Many of them while Maycee and I were out in the woods. (Disclosure: This link to Elegant Themes website is an affiliate link. If you buy Divi, I may receive compensation from the company at no expense to you.)
This, while the ironic point is, has not been, “easy.”
As with off-grid life, completing one thing requires finishing 20 or 30 more before the intended task.
YouTubers who focus on Divi.
But I have learned much from each of the following YouTubers. Thank you to all, you’ve been so very helpful.
Each YouTube channel will help you get your head around advancements to the Divi Builder.
Speaking of YouTube…
Here’s how to watch last year’s videos from the UP.
Last summer brought an increase in subscribers to my YouTube Channel @DonaldjClaxton.
While overwintering in the South, I thought there’d be much more time to get to the catalog of raw clips needing editing and posting.
Unfortunately, between learning all I can about as much as I could, I’ve not gotten to them yet! But they’re coming.
This summer, I’ll also be adding drone footage from above the trees. (Get an FCC Remote Pilot License aka Part 107 Certificate, and practice flying the thing!)
Timber frame vintage hand tools repair, sharpening, and making
Before going to the woods for the first time in years last summer, I spent an insane number of hours watching Canadian YouTuber Shawn James on his personal channel and on “My Self-Reliance.”
This also included binge-watching Trustin Timber and his Canadian modular log cabin build.
To his credit, I’ve emailed Trustin twice and he’s responded in about five minutes each time. I appreciate him making himself available like this. I really, really do.
My 2023 timber frame plans
Over the last six months, viewership of other channels has taught me so much about building timber frame shelters and small projects.
This also has led to finding vintage hand tools via eBay and at any flea market I pass.
I’ve saved tons on buying from these sources.
Tons, I tell ya!
Mr. Chickadee, the best YouTube to watch to learn about timber framing.
Hands down, the best, rugged force in building timber frame anything(s), is Mr. Chickadee. He is an ex-US Marine who moved from California with his wife to a small farm in Kentucky.
This ex-Marine has read every how-to book there must be on the art and skill of timber framing.
Sure, there are commercial enterprises out there offering incredible services, but just as Shawn James and Trustin Timber et al. are you there specializing in building log cabins, Mr. Chickadee rules the roost as far as I’m concerned. Millions of others seem to agree, too.
Mr. Chickadee includes techniques he’s learned and studied by the Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans.
Know how to do a “kerf to the pith” to keep timbers from cracking or checking as the green wood dries out?
He is the only one I’ve found in hours and hours of searching who even knows, and teaches, how to construct one, and he doesn’t even include it on his own channel!
This is not an exaggeration. And it’s the solution to a lot of problems.
What is a kerf to the pith?
Mr. Chickadee claims it is a practice from Southwest Asia. One that’s quite old.
You may not also know that there are structures in Japan, China, and Korea that have stood the test of time.
Estimates say they are 1,300 years old and likely will survive at least another 800 years.
In a nutshell, a “kerf to the pith” is a 3/4’s-inch cut in the southern face of a timber beam or post, that creates a channel for moisture to escape and not cause structural integrity or cosmetic appearances of the wood.
On a tour of the property he teaches on, Mr. Chickadee points this out, almost as an “Oh, by the way.”
But this is a BIG deal for anyone whose cut wet timber and tried to do something with it.
In fact, many local ordinances across the United States prohibit the use of wood that has a large moisture content.
Why?
Because as wet wood, aka, greenwood, ages, the fibers shrink and also may twist.
This cut to the pith of the wood provides a place for the sap and water in a timber post or beam to evaporate out of the wood near the same rate as the wood on the outside.
A kerf to the pitch reduces the chance of cracks and checking happening in large timber posts and beams.
My vintage hand tools collection.
I’ve tapped into a gold mine of treasures in regard to collecting, restoring, and using vintage hand tools.
This includes:
Chisels
Hatchets
Peavey or Kant head–just need to cut a piece of oak when I get to the UP and fashion it to fit
Planes
Saws
All of them are well over 60 years old and in all probability, closing in or exceeding 100 years.
You see, in the woods, there aren’t all that many trees one can plug into and receive power from. And, to boot, as far off the beaten path our camp sits, there are no power lines either.
So in large part, what I use out there is hand tools. And we all know today’s made-in-China tools aren’t built to last 10 minutes.
Steel and iron may be a lot heavier, but the tools I have weathered time well.
Creating plans for the planned projects for this year.
The summer of 2022 in the UP became a lesson and reminder of what I didn’t know about what I didn’t know.
Maybe you have discovered times in your life when you’ve faced this, too.
We drove into the woods last summer with limited tools and resources. We made good and survived for 13 weeks and four days.
In 2023, I expect to find write the next chapters of “More About What You Don’t Know About What You Don’t Know.”
2023 Plans
Last year I found the top of a steep grade where it’d be nice to camp and enjoy the summers.
My plans this year include doing more to establish this site.
These include:
Sheds that measure 12′ x 16′ because they do not require permits to add out there in the woods.
An outdoor kitchen
A shower house
Rainwater capture system
Expanded solar and electric capabilities
Some semblance of a garden
Perimeter fencing to keep Maycee in and bears, deer, rodents, and uninvited humans out.
We did without these things last year.
As John Lennon once sang as a member of The Beatles, “Not a second time….”
What to do about off-grid power, water, and waste management.
As I mentioned above, the elephant in the woods comes in the shape of these three elements.
UP power sources in the woods.
Last year we began with absolutely no solar last year.
None.
By the end of the summer, we were using a 300 Watt power portable inverter. This absolutely saved the day.
But I’ve been using the Renogy power needs calculator and come to realize that to do most of what I “need” out in the wood puts me somewhere at 5000 Watt-hours per day.
In essence, that means having a bank of some 50 solar panels to even get close!
That’s not about to happen either.
This means complementing the power load with additional sources–wind, hydro, and thermal.
Going in this direction also gets tricky because these other sources generate electricity differently from solar.
What I’m saying is you don’t walk out into the woods, plop down a wind turbine, dangle a few wires from a pole, and connect them to the same box that’s feeding a 300 Watt inverter.
So, I’m completing my plans for how to make this work.
Water sources in the woods of the UP
Water is one of the four basic needs of human and dog life.
Last summer, I made a habit of buying more water each time we ventured into Marquette, Michigan, a fair drive from our remote location.
On average, I kept a minimum of 10 gallons on hand at all times.
That worked for me and Maycee, but this also created limitations.
A couple of times I was able to “shower” by standing out in the rain and giving myself a wash.
Rainwater, even in the summer in the UP, doesn’t get all that hot.
2023 hydration and irrigation plans
Thanks to Katie and Greg from This Off-Grid Life on YouTube, I learned this winter about “ram pumps.”
Katie mentioned that they had seen a video from a family in Panama using one. This led to watching multiple videos of The Nomadic Movement.
How ram pumps work.
It’s a matter of physics, but basically, hydraulic pressure, free from the need for electricity, pushes captured running water high up a hill and over crazy terrain.
You can watch the video below for more. They’re not expensive to build, PVC pipe and hoses are probably the greatest costs.
Aside from the shameless sexual exploitation of this married mom’s nipples, (yesterday morning was a thumbnail of her in purple leggings that featured every nanometer of the place God split her), their ram pump worked and delivers water uphill. If Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma lived in their house in Panama, (not Florida) this would give new meaning to the phrase, “Over the river and through the woods….”
That was a cool video, where do I buy a ram pump and how much are they?
The DIY ram pump in The Nomadic Movement‘s video costs somewhere around $130 US to build. (Seriously, y’all down in Panama, I’m sickened by the regular vulgar exploitation of your wife, Kaylee. Stop it.)
eBay has various-priced ram pumps for sale, pre-made.
This would be a plug-and-play deal, with a little bit of work.
A couple of springs on the land in the Upper Peninsula would lend to this project.
How close they are to the hill remains to be seen. At one point, I calculated that it was 1,400 feet from one spring I located last year.
I need to find springs closer to the hill if I go in this direction.
The 2023 waste management plan
This goes beyond packing one’s trash.
Yes, I packed our trash and hauled it out.
But aside from walking around with a little trowel all the time for other wastes, well, one of the first things to do upon arrival is to construct a compost toilet.
There are still a few issues to resolve, but for the urine converter, I’ve found a couple of alternatives that will work, for free.
Getting packed and on the road.
Like most living off the grid, I’m loading as much as possible into tubs and wooden crates.
This will make them easier, and more difficult, to all load into my Chevy Traverse.
What won’t cram into one of the containers will stay rolled up or folded and then crammed into gaps.
The critical part is leaving and having enough room in the back for Her Majesty, Maycee Grace.
Maycee is on the large side of most Great Pyrenees. So she takes up about 8 cubic feet, at the least, in the back. If only I could strap her onto the car’s top!
We’ll get things loaded, but it’s going to take some tier-building and effort.
To Conclude
I look forward to leaving the hot and muggy South behind and our return trip to the UP.
My “To Do” list shortens, and then just as many, and more items, appear.
The other day I told Maycee I’m going to reach a point real soon when I rip the scab off, and northward we will be on the way to the UP.
My chores will get done; Not in my time, but in God’s.
Here I witness to you. Since my back injury in May 2016, God has taught me much about patience.
That things happen in his time, not mine.
Many of us seem to find learning to “let go, and let God,” difficult.
A blurred line often exists between “reasonable” and “going too far” with the concept.
Google Bard v. Open.ai’s ChatGPT Advice.
Last Thursday I gave my list of to-dos to the task managers available in Google’s Bard and ChatGPT.
Rest assured, this article was not written by generative artificial intelligence. No, not one word.
I’ve experimented with these products a great deal in 2023. More to follow about this, too.
My point is, however, I’m working my lists in the order of importance suggested by each large language model.
Thanks for reading. Please join my email list, you’ll see a signup form in the footer below.
I look forward to getting to the UP and getting busy.
If you’re a blogger traveling, avoid the Marquette Michigan DQ.
They made me leave because I’d been inside uploading a 54-minute video on building a stand for my solar panel to charge my devices, and I’d not ordered my food “fast enough” for the on-duty manager.
Having stopped or “perched” as I often tell my BFF Julie from California, at dozens and dozens of establishments around the United States, this is the first place ever to ask me to leave.
EVER.
Free WiFi but don’t come in and use it.
The summary message here is simple: If you’re a blogger or YouTuber on the road in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, don’t bother stopping at the DQ. Even though they have the PWD for their WiFi posted in the dining room. (It’s BLIZZARD) Do not waste your time here because they don’t want you in their “restaurant.”
Something GM Kaitlin Monday made a sound as if she regarded their establishment as The Palm in New York City, or a Ruth’s Chris, or Bazaar in Beverley Hills.
Places where I would not think to take in my computer bag, with my power strip, multiple plugs for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, power brick, or my pain stimulator sub-dermal battery.
Saturday Night: A Blizzard of Kindness
Saturday night I went to DQ and had a pleasant experience. The store in question is located on Highway 41 in Marquette, Michigan. I uploaded two videos. I arrived a little after 7 p.m. and bought more food than I should have eaten. In total, I spent more than $25 at the Marquette DQ. When my video still had not completed loading at 9 p.m., closing time, the manager was kind enough to approach me and ask if I minded if they ran the vacuums and stuff to close the store.
I was astounded!
She was actually asking me if I’d be inconvenienced by them doing their work so they could get on the way home sooner. From my college days as a morning crew leader at Wendy’s, I know how much the night crew wants to get out of the store as fast as humanly possible.
I apologized to the manager for not being gone by 9 p.m. and the dear woman said, “Not to worry. I’m going to lock the one door but you can go out the patio door when you’re finished.”
And so they cleaned up and I left after closing, my meal finished, and videos uploaded. All was cool.
The Sunday Big Freeze
I arrived earlier Sunday evening, around 6 p.m., because I had a 54-minute video to upload. This is the longest yet on my rapidly-growing YouTube channel.
When I arrived, I wanted the same table as Saturday night, but an elderly man was sitting between it and the next one, so I went to the table with a plug toward the back of the store by the restrooms.
I noticed that Kiara, who had been my order taker Saturday, and who had kindly answered other questions that night, had just gone on break and I was trying to cut a portion off the front of my video. So I got up and walked over to her table and asked her for help, which she gave me. I thanked her for her time and returned to the table I did not want to be at.
A few minutes later, the Sunday night manager, Mindy, entered the wing of seats and in a condescending tone, asked Kiara if it was time to return from her break. Kiara’d not been on a long one, to begin with.
So, Kiara said she still had a few minutes. (My previous fast food managers would not have asked such a question. They had the time I’d started a break on a clipboard, like all the others on the shift, to ensure each took a break and got their 15-30 minutes.) But not Mindy. She had a ‘tude. As we’d say in the South, a “rude tude.”
Mindy also approached a female employee who was on break when I walked in and told her to return to work.
Then she approached me.
“I was just making sure we had not overlooked you,” she said after asking if I’d ordered yet.
I said not yet but I was about to. And indeed, fully intended to buy dinner. Just not $25 worth like Saturday night.
Manager Mindy returned to the front line of the store.
Around 7 p.m. Mindy Says “You’ll have to leave.”
So the goodwill from Saturday night ended when the same condescending attitude returned to my table as Mindy. I’d moved from my previous table. I’d not ordered food yet. And so she said, “Sir, I’m going to ask you to leave.”
Befuddled, I asked her why?
Now asking why, when I was not doing anything but my work, was about to place an order–in three visits I’d spent an average of $11.92 per visit–and Mindy didn’t care. I’d not spent any money on her shift and she decided that I needed to go.
“You’ve moved tables and you’ve been here a while and have not ordered anything. So I’m asking you to leave.”
I really was about to order food.
That didn’t matter.
Mindy said she’d called her boss and asked how long she should let me stay.
But instead of extending courtesy to a customer, Mindy went full-mall security guard on me.
“You’ll have to leave.”
I inquired as to why. Having been to dozens of restaurants across the country, I’d never been told to leave an establishment before, and I, surprised and appalled, wanted to know why.
The arrogant GM and the confused franchise owner.
On Monday, GM Kaitlin, and Franchise owner Steve, said that had argued with her.
And indeed I had. What she was doing was outrageous.
Owner Steve told me, “It’s hard enough to run a business post-covid without you making a mountain over a molehill.”
Were it so hard running a business post-covid, and I’m sure it is, (running a restaurant is never easy peasy), wouldn’t it have made more sense for manager Mindy to have approached me and said this:
“Sir, you’ve been here a while, and we are thrilled you’ve chosen our store tonight. But if you would kindly order some food, I will not need to ask you to leave.”
There would not now be a post calling them out. There would not now be keyword-loaded post on the internet that says, “If you’re a blogger or YouTuber, do not stop at the Dairy Queen/DQ at 3260 US Highway 41 W in Marquette Michigan.”
Marquette, Michigan’s DQ Managers/Owner, and DQ Corporate
At 8 p.m. I was down the road at the Big Boy restaurant, one we never ate at the four times we lived in Marquette, and I finished my dinner and writing an earlier draft of this post. I also enjoyed strawberry pie for dessert, too. I spent another $25 on dinner Sunday tonight. Money that would have gone to the coffers of DQ in Marquette, Michigan had I not been kicked out by manager Mindy.
Bloggers and YouTubers not welcome at Marquette Michigan DQ on US Highway 41 North.
My video on YouTube.
I have now also posted video to this effect on YouTube. “Bloggers and YouTubers, do not stop at the DQ in Marquette, Michigan. We are not welcomed at their 4-star restaurant.”
Four-point-one stars per the DQ official site and the reviews posted there. Pull the listing up and read some of the reviews. I told owner Steve Monday afternoon when he called angry about my post and for contacting corporate after a condescending, arrogant phone call from Kaitlin. She was so not willing to listen to me, I hung up. There was no point wasting any time with her junior-level arrogant attitude.
Though I’d given my contact information to the DQ fan line, they’d not sent the information to Steve. So he said I was being “sneaky” for not having given corporate more information.
So when we hung up, rather, when Steve hung up on me, I called the woman answering the phone for complaints and told her I still wanted to speak to someone at corporate about the crap attitude that I’d experienced from three managers/owner at the Marquette DQ. And I also told the woman she damned well better share the information with Steve.
Conclusions and Second Thoughts about Marquette, Michigan’s DQ
I’ve already mentioned the management of the DQ in Marquette, Michigan could have avoided this whole matter, plus the negative blog post and video mentions had manager Mindy simply approached me Sunday night and said, “Please order some food or I’m going to ask you to leave.
Had anything as nutty ever happened to me before, I also could have introduced myself to Mindy when I walked in and said I’m going to be here a spell, but I’m also going to purchase food to make it a fair trade. But I didn’t do that because this has never happened to me before, and likely won’t ever again.
I’d have popped right up and placed an order, probably one averaging something close to my $11.92. But instead, because they went DefCon 1 with me, I, who was not doing anything wrong, returned fire.
You can go most anywhere else in Marquette if you’re a blogger but not the DQ.
Steve sounded astonished that Big Boy and other restaurants across the nation have let me use a smidge of their electricity while patronizing their business.
After having worked for Dole for President, the campaigns of Reagan, Bush, Bush, and RINOs McCain and Romney, and supported President Trump, and been assistant press secretary, and press secretary for the first two Republican governors in Alabama since Reconstruction, and served as the communications director for the 51-person Communications Services division for Dallas Schools–recruited by former Gov. G. Bush’s Education Commissioner Mike Moses–Steve had the nerve to ask if I was a Biden supporter.
No, Steve, I guarantee I’m not in any way a Biden/Harris supporter.
I am a 56-y-o disabled man who is doing a social experiment having sold everything I own and returned to stay as long as I can on family land here in the Upper Peninsula. A place I lived three times while growing up and have wanted to return to since 1978.
I have moved 37 times in 56 years and I have worked for governors, school districts, a presidential campaign, and one of three PR companies ExxonMobil uses to promote math and science programs for at-risk youth across the United States.
No other establishment in the US has treated me as poorly as the Marquette Michigan DQ.
In all of those years as a writer, blogger, and now YouTuber, not once, until Sunday evening, has any manager ever asked me to leave because I did not order food in time to meet expectations.
Or, as Steve noted before he hung up, that I’d violated his store’s policies. When I asked exactly what his policies are, he hung up the phone.
So quite simply, I will repeat here, if you’re a blogger or YouTuber and needed WiFi and/or AC power to recharge your devices, go somewhere else than the DQ in Marquette, Michigan.
You’ll violate their policies which at best are a little slushy.
This pitch conference in New York puts you in touch with experts in the field of novel writing and prepares you for agent representation with book publishers.
From Sept 19-22, last Thursday to Sunday now, I took part in the New York Pitch Conference, the creation of mastermind Michael Neff. As luck would have it, too, I found myself in Group B, with many fellow writers–most of them focusing on sci-fi and fantasy–and all of us under the tutorship of the sometimes critical, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes hysterical, but always knowledgable, caring, and in particular, focused on what is going to sell in the publishing industry and what will not.
The New York Pitch Conference is an excellent opportunity for budding authors seeking to finish their manuscripts and begin the search for an agent.
The conference itself was well organized, with three groups separated into three rooms. One group was led by Paula Munier and focused on writing mysteries. Susan Breen led Group A and focused on memoirs and women’s fiction.
We only gathered together once to hear a presentation from the funny and strategic thinker, Amy Collins. She presented a plan, Becoming a Successful Author, that is eye-opening about the demands on every author in this modern market of publishing. And we were thinking getting an agent was difficult.
Acquisition editors from some of the major publishing houses were brought in at the beginning of the 20th after Michael Neff guided each of us in sharpening our pitches on the 19th. The sharpening continued after each pitch based on the feedback received from each editor.
By the time we were pitching on Sunday, our pitches were well-honed. Based on the interests of the editors, some received requests for more, others did not. We all returned home with the need to do more revising.
(That is nothing to be upset about. Revising is about 99 percent of writing a book. It is not at all like they portray in the movies where one sits down at a typewriter or computer and you see them starting and then finishing and it’s ready for publication.)
The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club Pitch
“Kirk Egerton is resentful when he sneaks from his house in the middle of an Upper Michigan blizzard because five of his friends are missing. They all live on an air force base where bombers are armed with nuclear weapons and sit on alert ready for the call to attack the Soviet Union in December 1977, whether it is snowing or not.
“But while Kirk knows the others should be at the tree house they built during the summer months that year, no one knows a Russian spy has captured the five when they found his hut while trying to get home in the storm.”
The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club Pitch Improvements
We made some important decisions about my present project. It’s something of a square peg. The industry prefers round holes. But at the suggestion of Brendan Deneen, we are now using the comp of the movie The Goonies to pitch my book.
But that’s not all.
I’m now saying the book is “a mixture of the movie The Goonies and a modern-day Tom Sawyer living in an atmosphere of the 1970s.”
At Brendan’s suggestion and with the reinforcement of the responses that followed from others, I’m now also including some of the “cool stuff” that happens in the meat of the book.
“To build the fort one of the guys overcame what he thought was the threat of killer bees. Another swears he sees Bigfoot when he steps away from their camp the first night they spend the night out in the woods. As four trained Scouts, they fail to notice until it’s too late that they’ve sat down in poison ivy. Rather than risking treatment at the base hospital, one of them persuades the rest that using skunk oil will relieve the itch. This leads to them building a trap and….
“For initiation one walks alone at night through a cemetery, which is a former Indian burial ground. Another climbs the base water tower at 10 p.m. and plays Reveille after Taps. For the final initiation, they all climb into a cave behind the tall rock face in the Little Laughing White Fish Falls lagoon and the entry collapses.”
The Closing Questions
“In the end, Kirk must rescue the others from the top of the rock face, known as the Devil’s Ledge, by climbing the face of the rock. The spy intends to force the five off the top and let them plunge to their deaths. Kirk engages the spy with a combat knife when the Russian has a pistol. Is he able to rescue the others and keep them from getting killed? How have the events of the year affected Kirk and shaped him for this one moment that will matter for the rest of his life?
I ask some good closing questions. They are designed to get an agent to ask for more, not to give away the whole story.
What I Learned at the New York Pitch Conference
I’ve been to a number of writing conferences and spent three years in the Southern Methodist University Writer’s Path Program.
There is some variance in how to do a few things, but the rules for how to pitch, what New York editors and agents are looking for, and those things are pretty much set in stone.
Some fluctuation exists, but not much. New York writing agents receive hundreds, if not thousands, of queries each week. Their screeners and the agents themselves are looking for the “slightest anything” they can use to reject and pass on representing your book.
Neff said he’s even seen screeners even highlighting lines of queries in email boxes and randomly highlighting them and then hitting delete just so they could get to a manageable number of queries to read in a week. Not fair, no, but there is nothing that can be done about it, and one will never know if that brought a pass or if they read your pitch and did not like it.
The proverbial “they” say there is a difference between a writer who got published and one who did not. The one who got published ignored the umpteen rejections and kept querying.
One of my mentors once told me that until I got into the 130-rejections range I really had not tried to query anyway. I’m almost halfway there and I have to tell you, my pitch has changed considerably, my book has been revised about five times since then, and the writing is much stronger.
My Recommendation: Attend the New York Pitch Conference when you’re ready
I recommend this conference to well-seasoned writers who have a book that’s in its fourth or fifth draft. If you take a first draft or second draft to pitch, you’re only setting yourself up for disappointment. While your idea may be exciting to the editors and coaches you’ll work with, your book will not be ready for the scrutiny that will follow and in a couple of years, their passions will likely have moved on to something else.
Writing a book takes time. A novel does. (Update: Forget what those using ChatGPT might tell you!)
Remember the Ernest Hemingway quote, “The first draft of anything is shit.
I shared my first draft of Voodoo Hill with my family and a few friends. I’m embarrassed now that I did. I wish I could sneak into their homes and get them all back and burn them, but most likely they’ve all thrown them out already anyhow. That is what should have happened to that copy. The next year when I made a 10-CD audio recording of the next draft, ugh, I shudder to think about it.
This latest draft I feel is pretty sound, but I felt the same way about the others and I know they weren’t ready for human consumption either.
Go slow. Be deliberate. Let your words simmer. Finish a revision and then put the book away and forget about it for a month or two. Maybe even six months. Then come back to it. The words will still be there. So will the publishing industry. And the trends will change. Maybe square holes will be the thing soon. I sure as hell hope so….
But the New York Pitch Conference is a wise investment along the path to getting your book published. Without any reservations, I recommend it whole heartedly.
The graves of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s parents are in Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery, Alabama.
The grave site of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s parents and family members in Montgomery, AL.
They are marked as #28.
They are not easy to find unless you know what you’re looking for.
How To Find The Sayre Graves
Oakwood Cemetery section. How to find the Sayre graves, the parents of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald.
Heading east on Upper Wetumpka Road in Montgomery, go past the Montgomery Police Department and down the hill toward Alabama Public Television and Paterson Field.
The last three entrances to the cemetery are important. The third one leads to Hank Williams’ grave on top of the hill.
The first one, St. Ann’s Street, is the entrance to the section leading to the Sayres.
Once you pull in at St. Ann’s, take the first left onto Stella Street. At the first right, turn north on Clarmont Ave. and go up the hill. The first right near the top of the hill is also Clarmont, but go straight another 20 or 30 yards. Then stop.
Off to your left, three rows in, follow the path of Clarmont to the west. You will see several tall and full trees, and there are two obelisk-like markers to the west in the next row of the Sayre resting place.
Once you are three rows deep, turn to your right and the Sayre site should be to your left.
Clearly marked at the front of the site is a memorial marker to F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who are not buried there.
Photos of the Site
I’ve included photos of Minnie Sayre’s grave, as well as Anthony D. Sayre Sr’s resting spots. Minnie is buried on the far left and Judge Sayre is three graves to her right. Zelda’s brother Anthony Sayre Jr lies immediately to the left of the Judge.
Marker for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in Montgomery, AL
My favorite shot in the short film, “Zelda, Almost Home.” The tunnel leads to Riverfront Park in Montgomery, Alabama.
A short film about Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald and a ghostly return home.
The premise for the short film Zelda, Almost Home is quite simple: Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, born in Montgomery, Alabama in 1900, lived a wild and tumultuous life with the author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom she met in 1918. What if she returns still as a ghost?
The inspiration to shoot Zelda, Almost Home came from watching Vincent Laforet’s Reverie on YouTube. You’ll also notice there’s a hat tip to Damien Chazelle and his film La La Land— Zelda walks in front of a mural. Simon Cade from DSLR Guide has been a big influence and coach as well. (This is my first short film. I’m 51 years old.)
Come to find out, there are ample stories around Montgomery already to suggest the premise for this film is dead on. The halls of Baldwin Middle School are full of stories alleging apparitions of Zelda. As I talked with F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum Executive Director Sara Powell last Friday, had two more accounts, recent ones, as the museum prepares to open upstairs rooms as a bed and breakfast.
So as you read and watch the film, please know, that it is grounded in much less fantasy than you might first suspect.
The Making of Zelda, Almost Home
One of the first things any viewer will note is the music, Almost Home, composed by Moby and used with permission from his website, MobyGratis.com. He offers free use of his material provided it’s used for purposes like this—non-commercial and creative expression.
The film is shot entirely in Montgomery, Alabama, from June 22-25, 2017. And that is part of my commentary for shooting this, there are almost no films about Montgomery that are actually SHOT in Montgomery.
It is all shot with a Canon D60, part with a Nifty Fifty lens, and part with an 18-135 mm. The camera for the most part is mounted on a Neewer Image Stabilizer. Shots from the car the camera was mounted on a tripod.
Shot List
The intersection of Zelda and Fitzgerald, Montgomery
The street sign on the corner of Zelda and Fitzgerald in Montgomery, Alabama.
The opening shot is designed to give homage to Montgomery for honoring Scott and Zelda, while also having our Zelda set the scene that she was full of life when she lived here. It is not hard to imagine the real Zelda spinning around her street sign with glee.
Five minutes after we left the scene, I drove back through and someone had called Montgomery Police to investigate what we were doing. A patrol car was sitting where I’d been parked and was using the lights of the car to light up the street sign.
Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum, Felder Avenue
The house on Felder is now a museum. They have a fascinating collection of Fitzgerald memorabilia and are open every day of the week except Monday for tours. And they are in the process of opening an upstairs suite as a bed and breakfast so those seeking inspiration for their writing or filmmaking can soon stay in the same rooms as the Fitzgeralds for nine months back in the 1920s. This is said to be the longest the two lived anywhere together. And it was the last place they ever lived as a family.
Winter Place, Goldthwaite, and Mildred
It is often said that Scott and Zelda met at the Montgomery Country Club. But lore now suggests in fact that they met at Winter Place on Goldthwaite. Part of the tale goes is that Zelda’s daddy, Judge Anthony D. Sayre, who lived four blocks away, would not have approved of her being at Winter Place so saying they met at the country club was much more proper.
The McBryde-Screws-Tyson House, Mildred
Christian Lowry, the owner of the house, tells the tale that Zelda was friends with the girls who lived there at the time. He says Zelda used a ring she’d been given by Scott to carve their initials in a second-story window. Mr. Winter, who owned Winter Place across the street, is said to have had a thing for Ms. Zelda when she was younger and so as an admirer when McBryde-Screws-Tyson lies vacant, he sent men into the home to extract with window pane Zelda carved initials into.
The McBride-Screws-Tyson House in Montgomery, Alabama.
It is hoped, that since Mr. Winter was something of a packrat, as Winter Place goes through renovation, the original piece of glass will be found and hopefully returned to its rightful window.
But this is the sentimental importance of this shot in the film.
*I have been spelling McBryde with an I instead of Y. That’s now corrected on June 30, 2017, though I can’t change it in the YouTube post.
The Train Shed
There are stories about Zelda and the train shed in Montgomery. It was the prime way in and out of town for Zelda and Scott. But it is also said that she dressed down one day and walked around with a tin can seeking donations. News of this, of course, stirred Judge Sayre. Which is probably what it was meant to do.
The Riverfront Tunnel
The Riverfront Tunnel has changed over the years. Only recent efforts by the city to bring nightlife back downtown has led to the amazing lighting in the tunnel. The colored lights and the depth of the shot make this one of my favorite scenes in the film. I thought about going back and having Zelda walk perfectly framed up the lighted tunnel but then it’d be too staged and too fashioned, something the true Zelda would not allow.
Tallapoosa Street
This is one of the apex locations in downtown Montgomery, connecting with Commerce Street, critical to the city’s past and present.
The Alley
Over the past 15 years, the Alley has really come to life as an attraction in Montgomery, and wherever there was a party in this town, well, it’d attract Zelda.
Tallapoosa and Commerce Statue of Hank Williams
The Hank Williams Statue is now the gateway into the Riverfront Park area of the downtown area.
RSA Tower Fountain on Dexter Avenue
David Bronner has built a series of buildings throughout Montgomery over the past 40 years. The fountain this Zelda moves around was not here when the real Zelda lived. But my character couldn’t resist the temptation to play. She really wanted to get into the water like the real Zelda would have done in New York minute.
Catoma Street view of Troy State
Troy State wasn’t located here back in the day but is an important part of the downtown scene, connected to the Davis Theatre and across the street from the Jefferson Hotel where Scott and Zelda are said to have stayed, as well as being near the Rosa Parks Museum, which I believe back in the day was also the Empire Theatre, one of the first air-conditioned places in the hot of the South.
Sunny Paulk Civil Rights Mural, Lee and Montgomery Streets
Hat tip to La La Land and having Emma Stone walk past the You Are The Star Mural. Montgomery has a beautiful Civil Rights Mural here and we just had to include it. Zelda was gone before all of that came to be and so it was fitting for her to just walk past.
Oakwood Cemetery, Plot 28, graves of Minnie and Judge Anthony D. Sayre
There is a memorial plaque for Scott and Zelda, their daughter Scottie Smith, and Zelda’s parents, Minnie and Anthony D. Sayre in Oakwood Cemetery. When we arrived for shooting, the sunset was alive with color and emotion.
The first shot is of Zelda mourning over the plaque. She then runs her hands over the stone above her father’s tomb. Out of love and emotion, the Zelda character in the film lies down on the stone above Minnie and puts her hand on Minnie’s name. By then it was too late to see, but the poignancy should not be lost. Zelda would dearly miss her Momma for many reasons all of us would.
Old Alabama Supreme Court Building, Dexter Avenue
Justice Sayre served on the Alabama Supreme Court from 1909 to 1931. Zelda would visit this place and miss her daddy.
Old Alabama Supreme Court Building.
The Alabama Capitol
The Capitol is just a stone’s throw from the Old Supreme Court Building.
Chris’ Hotdogs, Dexter Avenue
Chris’s Hotdogs is 100 years old this year. I don’t know if Zelda ever went there to eat before she left town, but the odds are pretty good that she would have. They have served every sitting Alabama governor since they opened. It makes sense the lead Flapper Girl would have been a customer, too.
Court Street Fountain
Many a girl like Zelda has climbed the fence at the fountain to wade into its waters looking down Commerce Street toward the Alabama Riverfront and up Dexter Avenue toward the Capitol.
Sunroom window, The Fitzgerald Museum
The sunroom at the museum would hold special value to Zelda. Scottie, their daughter, wrote about its importance during the Christmas the family spent in the home. As a ghost looking back, she would totally take time to look into this room and remember the gem of joy they experienced there as a family for one of the few times ever.
The Museum at night, Felder Avenue
Day or night, the museum is a treasure of Montgomery.
My Own Zelda Ghost Story
So, the night before we began shooting while walking up the drive to the museum, a white and tan cat came running out of nowhere and up to me. I am allergic to cats and don’t care for them. This one, as I was standing in the drive looking at shots, avoided my Zelda actor, (Angie Tatum Weed) and began curling around my legs. I finally said, “Hey Zelda!” and the cat stopped.
My late, maternal grandfather was an artist. One of the most important things he ever taught me was perspectives on life–the way of looking at the world.
When I was in second or third grade, grandpa brought me a small microscope to K.I. Sawyer AFB in the upper peninsula of Michigan on one of his visits. It had a little lamp he’d been using to reflect off the mirror under the specimen platform. But grandpa had done something quite clever. He’d used double-sided tape to stick colored specs of see-thru plastic to the mirror so as I moved the mirror and looked through the microscope, the specimen changed so I could see it, literally, in a new light.
In my teens, when we would visit the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art he’d encourage me to turn my head and look at the paintings sideways, even upside down if I could.
Years later, when we moved to Castle AFB in Atwater, CA, grandpa came out several times and would disappear during the days, no matter the season, to go up to Yosemite National Park. My love for this one area of the country has grown through the years and I make a trip to California whenever possible, now with my daughters, to enjoy this national treasure.
MORE ON PERSPECTIVES
I know several people in my world right now who are going through some fairly significant trials. The tasks before them, and me, seem monumental to say the least. Here, look at this picture of El Capitan from the Yosemite Valley perspective.
El Capitan in Yosemite from the Valley floor.
That’s pretty ominous, isn’t it? If I’d not shot this with one of my grandpa’s film-based Canon’s in the late 2000s, I could blow it up and show you blue, red and green spots of humanity clinging to the face of El Cap, braving the forces of nature and working their way toward the top–like all of us do in the problems we face in this life.
I’ve never tried to climb El Cap, but my girls and I walked pretty close to the base of the face to look up. That is an even more daunting view.
I’ve made no secret that when my time on Earth has come to its end, I should very much like to have my ashes sprinkled somewhere off the trail on the way up to Sentinel Dome. Probably not legal, no, but in the vast long run of the eternity to come, will it really matter if what remains of me is left in some off-the-beaten wind swept path? I think not. I desire this knowing that in spirit I will be in Heaven with my maker, but the thought of my ashes resting in view of Half Dome and the hundreds of miles one can see in a 360 panorama all around, well… I digress.
I want you to look at this second photo now, taken from atop Sentinel Dome in Yosemite, looking over at El Capitan.
El Capitan from atop of Sentinel Dome in Yosemite.
Quite a different view, isn’t it?
I submit to you, those of you who feel like you’re at the base of a real-life mountain, that how you view your task is monumental to your success in overcoming it. El Capitan doesn’t look so big from higher up, does it?
Now imagine what our problems look like to our Lord, who rests higher still than these photos show.
PERSPECTIVE
Perspective is everything in this life. If we let the world around us dictate how we are left to see what is before is, the tasks will almost alway seem like they will be impossible to overcome.
I encourage you to consider these two photos regularly when life seems to be getting the better of you. Remember, God’s view is even higher than what we as humans are able to perceive. You should also know that you’re never alone in your walk. I promise, if you look hard enough, like the climbers half way up the face of El Cap, you’ll find someone who is willing to lend you a helping hand because they’re on the same walk as you, just maybe on a different path, higher up, or coming up from behind.
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