Passion = Project

Say the word passionate and it brings to mind a whole slew of terms: Fervent, Ardent, Zealous, Obsessive, Hot-blooded, Adoring, loving, and Enthusiastic-- Just to mention a few.

I have been passionate about a lot of different things in my life’s journey. In the 60’s and 70’s it was equal rights for people of color and for women in the work place. During college I was on my way to Alabama to march in the big protest movement, unfortunately I didn’t’ have the funds to go. This was my “hot-blooded passion” showing up.

Then I picketed against Vietnam, and got yelled at. On the other hand, I sent our soldiers packages filled with toiletries and cookies. Talk about an oxymoron! I justified being involved with the soldiers at the USO on Guam and sending cookies to the troops, because most of them were drafted. Those boys didn’t have a choice to join up or not.

The other half of the 70’s and the 80’s I was passionate about raising my children and being the best mom I could. PTA, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and 4-H; I car pooled kids and volunteered. I was lucky enough to stay home and raise my children at least till my youngest was in seventh grade. This would be my “loving phase of Passion”. Family, hearth and home, and I finished college during this period.

Kids are grown with children of their own now. My husband, whom I am passionate with, and I moved to Oregon last summer.

Now my husband claims I’m most passionate when I have a project. I guess that comes from working since my youngest was thirteen years old, and now I don’t have a job to go to. Some days are a bit funky for me as I am adjusting to not having a job outside the home.

I’m currently in a phase of “creative Passion"

I am writing most mornings during the week to finish my novel (extremely enthusiastic about that) .

I am working on getting my husband’s and my web site up, (taking a class for that which I am enjoying!), getting our Etsy site up and learning all the ins and outs of Etsy, PayPal, and Pinterest etc.

I took on the project of making rustic looking tags for my husband’s crafts. It took all of one day. My husband said I smiled more that day than any other day since moving.

So give me a project or a cause I can get involved with and I’m a passionate, happy camper!

How have your passions changed over the years?

(This is a re-post from a previous year.)

A Little Too Appropriate

by M. L. Buchman

As a writer, I often seek both the appropriate and the inappropriate.

The inappropriate makes me think, jars me out of preconceptions and frames of reference that otherwise would echo with dull familiarity through my stories (and my life). I'm drawn to the writers who force me to think, who take my view of the world and jar it loose with a sharp nudge of their pen. Hesse, Rand, King, Clarke, their names we know without their given names even being needed. Go to any list of "the hundred best novels of all time" and their names will be listed there. They have broken the ground of the familiar and made themselves memorable to millions.

The appropriate has a different power: it is that which makes us comfortable in a story. That winds our minds and our emotions down a path and makes us feel safe. These storytellers make us feel hope, joy, possibility, or, if they do their job well, wonder. These names are no less familiar: Tolkein, Heinlein, Roberts, Wiggs, Gabaldon, Austen, and this list goes on as long as the other. Surprisingly few show up in those "100 best ever" lists outside their own genre, but they touch us, move us, and, I think most importantly, make us feel safe. They make us believe that the world has order and purpose.

When I set out to write, I spent years attempting to discover what were my criteria, what was going to guide my writing. I found it over a decade ago in a class that said, "Writer a story like you've never written." After a lot of thought, I chose my criteria. I wrote in first person, which I'd never done before--I got so deep into the head of my character that I never made it up to the word "I." And I wrote a villain, a true villain, one with a different morale standard. It was the nastiest, most evil place I've ever gone as a writer. This is a power in that place--a carnival-like draw that makes us click through on the latest news story about a murder or an explosion in China, that causes gawkers' blocks along the other side of the nation's highways.

That story was never published and the novel that character still demands over a decade later will never be written, because that story helped me find my simple guideline. All of my writing follows a single precept:

To champion the human spirit.

If it fails to do that, I'm not interested in the story. I want to live in a better world. I want my amazing step-kid to live in a better world. I want to pass on a better world than even the one I received if I can find any way to do so. Therefore, all my writing shares that one common thread.

I now live in Oregon, I lived in Washington State for almost thirty years. I wake up in the morning and watch the smoke-red sunrises from the wildfires that burn for to nearby, I read today that Washington State is now suffering from the largest wildfire in its history (over a quarter of a million acres, 390 square miles). That one fire burns over some of the most beautiful hills you can imagine. It is a quarter the size of Rhode Island and still growing. One more growth spurt the size of last night's shift and it will be bigger than the five boroughs of New York City. There are presently 32,000 men and women fighting fire across the west. Sixty-six of those are classed as large fires and complexes (multiple fires joined into a mega-fire), Only 12 of those are classed as 75% contained or better by the National Interagency Fire Center (20 are rated at 0% as I write this). 

My last two novel releases and my latest short story are about honoring the men and women who fight wildfire. The books were written before this fire season had truly begun and the short story a month ago before we knew quite how bad a one it was going to be. I love these stories. They are about hope, commitment, and love. They are about passion for the firefight and for each other. They are about that world I wish to pass on.

I just wish my romances, which I'm very proud of, were a little less appropriate to the season.

All my thoughts and good wishes are with the men and woman who have answered the call to face the fire. I hope that my words reveal even a tiny slice of the amount of heart that you are bringing to what you are out there doing for us right now.

M. L. Buchman has over 35 novels and an ever-expanding flock of short stories in print. His military romantic suspense books have been named Barnes & Noble and NPR “Top 5 of the year,” Booklist “Top 10 of the Year,” and RT “Top 10 Romantic Suspense of the Year.” In addition to romantic suspense, he also writes contemporaries, thrillers, and fantasy and science fiction.

In among his career as a corporate project manager he has: rebuilt and single-handed a fifty-foot sailboat, both flown and jumped out of airplanes, designed and built two houses, and bicycled solo around the world.

He is now a full-time writer, living on the Oregon Coast with his beloved wife. He is constantly amazed at what you can do with a degree in Geophysics. You may keep up with his writing at www.mlbuchman.com.

Passionate About the Past

I am passionate about history. I think it started with my grandfather, who talked to me about his experiences during World War II and loved reading books about the Civil War. He was a book collector and particularly took the time to acquire history books. He preferred American history. My love is British history. Grandma's family was from Britain, so perhaps that explains it.

Matthew MacFadyen as Mr. Darcy

It's no coincidence that my favorite type of romance is historical romance in a British setting. Those are also the kinds of stories I feel the most compelled to write. When I imagine a hero, he is inevitably wearing 19th century clothing. If you think buff breeches, shiny black boots, and an elegant waistcoat equally sexy, then perhaps you share my passion for the past. Put a man in a cravat and he's immediately more attractive to me. Maybe it's Mr. Darcy syndrome. If so, I am perfectly content to be afflicted.

Box Hill, Dorking, Surrey, UK

I have traveled to England and Ireland and even lived in both countries for a time in order to quench my passion for British history. I visited Box Hill in Surrey, England and couldn't help but be transported back to the early 19th century and Jane Austen's imagined picnic there with Emma Woodhouse and Mr. Knightley. I wanted to know the real history too and learned that two barrows (burial mounds) on the hill date from the Bronze Age. 

Not surprisingly, when it came time to decide on a major in college, history was my first choice. Everyone told me there was nothing I could do with a degree in history. The warnings scared me, but I ended up enjoying every single class I took for my major. I also discovered something that I could do with a history degree. I could share my passion for the past with students by becoming a teacher. History teaching jobs are few and far between, but I have had the pleasure of teaching American history to middle school age students and it was the most fun I've ever had in the classroom. 

Fort Vancouver National Historic Site

During graduate studies in history at Portland State University, I discovered a local historic treasure here in the Pacific Northwest and had the opportunity to work there for a time. Fort Vancouver is a National Historic Site and sits right on the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington. The original buildings from the 1820's are gone, but the National Park Service has done an amazing job of reconstructing many of them. At Fort Vancouver, I got paid to talk about history. I was encouraged to share my passion for the past with every visitor and even got the chance to dress up in 19th century costume for certain events. Is it wrong to admit that I actually enjoyed wearing a corset for the presentation I gave on 1860's army wives?

The best thing about being a history lover is that there are so many ways to indulge your passion. Popular shows like Downton Abbey generate interest in the past. History books line the shelves at bookstores and talented historians continue to produce new research. I get to visit the past by researching and writing my historical romance stories. Others join historical re-enactment groups to dress in accurate costume and truly "live" in the past for awhile. Sites like Fort Vancouver also offer another way to get involved in the past by seeking volunteers to lead tours. 

Do you have a passion for history? If so, how do you indulge your passion?

Follow Your Passions...

Follow your passion, and success will follow you.  ~Terri Guillemets

I'm passionate about a lot of things. My husband, my family, my cats, my friends, chocolate, and that's just for starters. One passion my husband and I share is for books. Both reading and collecting them. I was one of those kids who'd rather stay home and read than go out and play.

One of my brothers said it best. "Elaine, if you were down to your last five dollars and had to choose between books and food, you'd choose books." My reply was "Of course, I have enough friends and family to feed my body. Books feed my soul.

The happiest day of my life was when I got my library card. A building full of books to read? Yea! Then when I could cross the main street in our neighborhood, I could go to the library myself. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. 

I learned about wars and peace, queens and kings, airplanes, farming, and was introduced to some of my heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt, Florence Nightingale among them. I learned about religions, and saints, the fact that yes there are bad people in the world. However I also learned the good people outweigh them.

When we were dating, my husband and I used to spend our weekends searching used book stores. Yes, I married into a family of book lovers as well. My husband and his mother were both librarians in a previous life. Is it any wonder both my husband and I are writers?