One Response to Today's Difficulties: Pausing

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A Pause Might Lead to Greater Creativity

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

How are you doing? What are you doing? Write to me at norma at normahopcraft dot com to let me know. Now that I'm working remotely, I'm no longer commuting an hour each way each day and I have extra time to respond. I'd love to hear from you! What's happening in your life?

I am doing okay -- I thank God, I was able to get out of Brooklyn in mid-March, when the sirens were already sounding all day all night. The sirens were very distressing, adding to the anxiety already in the air in my poor neighborhood, among people who worry every month about making rent -- what happens now, with so many jobs shut down?

I am blessed because I was welcomed to go to Rochester, New York, near Lake Ontario, where my daughter, darling son-in-law, and hilarious 2-1/2-year-old grandchild live.

"Social distancing is so much better with other people," a friend said. 

Very true. I'm grateful for the quiet companionship.

After one week in Rochester, I caught a cold--I don't think it was COVID because my temp never went up above 99.4. "If it's not 100.4 or above, it's not a fever," a nurse told me. I had a dry cough for three weeks afterward though. 

Other than that, I've been fine, cooking up a storm. I made chicken soup yesterday, and baked cornbread, for dinner. Actually, I put so much rosemary in my chicken soup, it's really rosemary soup. I love the flavor mysteries that that tortured herb puts into cooking. There's lots of white wine in my soup too -- a generous helping of Clos de Bois this time.

I'm calling my older friends who are stuck quite alone. I hope you'll do the same.

I'm taking my grandson for walks around his neighborhood. I tell him to look for cats, for dogs, for the daffodils that are finally blooming in Rochester. The small pleasures are growing in importance as the playgrounds, library, the Museum of Play, have all been shut down.

He's learning the names of the flowers: snowdrops, crocus, primrose. He has a little-child lisp, so "crocus" comes out as "cwocuth."

I am cut off from the big excitements in New York City, like taking an acting class as part of the research I do on the theater for my next novel. Museums. Ballroom dancing. All closed.

But hearing my baby grandson say "cwocuth" takes away any regret over not having access to those grown-up pleasures.

I'm grateful for the quiet life I'm leading in the company of my family. Evenings are spent talking a bit, reading a bit. Jane Austen lived like this, and the Bronte sisters. I'm hoping that this quiet life leads to a focus of energy that results in great novel writing that I can leave behind in the world.

So there's an upside to this pause. I'm privileged to be able to enjoy an upside when so many people have lost loved ones and jobs. I thank my Higher Power and hope that people will see that they can get through everything with the help of their Higher Power.

I confess, I've also been watching TV a bit with my family. We're enjoying Shetland, a murder mystery series on Britbox. Except for one episode that I thought too graphic and violent (Season 3, Episode 2), it's been a huge pleasure. I may never get to the Shetland Islands, but I'm very happy to know that such a beautiful place exists.

One thing I can recommend to you is to enjoy Fire Island. I won't be able to go to my hiking club cabin this summer -- the cabin is shut due to Covid-19. But I have pictures for you from a stay there in 2012, just one month before Superstorm Sandy. The pictures will provide a mini-vacation at the beach for you, in time for Memorial Day. Check out the loveliness on my blog, here.

How about you? Any excellent shows to share? Do you see an upside to this quieter life we're living? Do you put lots of rosemary in chicken soup? Write to me at norma at normahopcraft dot com. I'd LOVE to hear from you! Or comment below! I'll be sure to respond.

Quirky Stories and Photos While in Search of the American Dream

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What Does a Quirky New York City Moment Look Like?

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

If you wanted to boil New York City down to its essence (of course, you can't, but if you wanted to try), this may be the quintessential moment: Dinner. At a top restaurant. At the Museum of Modern Art. Overlooking the famous courtyard with its sculpture garden.

I got to do this recently as part of my job. Whoever said the best things in life are free was so very correct!

As part of a professional networking dinner, we were served by Chef Abram Bissell's kitchen in MoMA. Our tables overlooked the sculpture garden, where twilight was giving everything that lovely blue glow.

In a quirk of fate, I sat next to someone who, in her private life, manages the business side of her husband's writing and publishing. We talked non-stop as the wait-staff did great work whisking plates away and bringing delicious food.

We talked about book marketing, how time consuming and involved it is. She recommended Lisa DeSpain, whom I immediately contacted. After doing due diligence, I officially hired her yesterday! We're going to launch my romantic suspense novel, Why Spy? She'll teach me how to do the digital marketing so that I can do it for the two prequels to the novel I've already written. 

So not only did I get a delicious dinner and professional networking time that night, I also enjoyed a serendipitous meeting of the minds. I got help for the way my digital skills were overwhelmed by the labyrinth of techie things that needed to be done -- and all the techie things I don't even know need to be done. 

So I enjoyed a New York City evening in a great location, with great food, great company, and a great solution to an impossible challenge. 

Free. 

Thank you, HP!

The courtyard at MoMA. The vivid blue rectangles at the top are the twilight sky. I love the quirky black sculpture. Looked up the artist's name but couldn't find it.

Our table.

Dinner. It was delicious!

A peek into Chef Bissell's kitchen.

Another glimpse of the sculpture garden. How about you? What free (or extremely inexpensive) things do you enjoy? A cup of coffee at home, for example? A walk in the park? Comment below!

American Dream Come True: A Fab Wedding in Quirky Setting

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Quirky Stories: A Wedding Overlooking a Green Pond

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

As a Brooklyn writer who craves greenery, I do my writing in Prospect Park from late April to early October, weather permitting. 

I sit under a tall quirky tree whose branches sweep downward. Its needles are blue. Never saw anything like it. I call it a weeping blue spruce.  

My father loved blue spruce trees more than any other tree. The year before he died, his kids gave him a dwarf Alberta blue spruce that was six-feet tall and as round as a butterball, We called it Fat Albert. 

After his house was sold, I went by it again. Fat Albert is gone, just like the man who loved him.

So I sit under a weeping blue spruce in Prospect Park, near the odd sparrow hotel I photographed for you here, and write what I have to write.

When I’m stiff and sore, I take a break to walk the park. Today there’s a saxophonist under the bridge, taking advantage of the acoustics. That’s what I do as a writer: go for resonance.

A few weeks ago I went under the bridge – no saxophone, just a small child on his father’s shoulders shouting “No!” and listening to his echo.

Just beyond, people picnicked on one side of the path while a bride and groom had their photos taken a few feet away. People are always less than a few feet away in New York City. Every patch of sidewalk is contested. The crowding oppresses me.

But there are upsides. Like Prospect Park. I walk here almost every day. I’m getting to know its quirks and secrets. 

I now know where to sit to hear red-winged blackbirds trill their summer song. I know where to go to watch turtles sun themselves or to swim lazily by the lake’s edge.

The bride and groom weren’t wandering around looking for idiosyncratic wildlife in the midst of a jam-packed city. No, they were looking forward to sitting on the terrace of The Boathouse and celebrating their happy day. Much of Brooklyn was looking on. That wouldn't be my style, but to each his own.

Picnickers on one side of the path...

...and wedding photography on the other.

The Boathouse set up nearby for an outdoor wedding.

The view of the waterfall, which you can see from The Boathouse terrace.

Another lovely feature of the park: the steps at Harry's Wall. How about you: going to the park today? Comment below! If you like this post, would you Tweet it? See the icons immediately below this post. Thank you!

An American Writer's Dream: To Live and Write in Paris

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Quirky Stories and Pics from my Search for the American Dream

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My life—which is my writing life—qualifies as a quirky story. It depended on a pot of carrots, my Higher Power, 3 heartbreaks in a year, finding a special book, terror, and courage.

Carrots Led Me to Paris 

by Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

(first appeared on writer Elaine Stock's blog)

I stood with a pot of carrots in my hand, looking at my small children’s shiny, blond heads as they ate dinner. I was divorced for one year, and hoped that the worst of the grief was over. What was I going to do with my time?

I relied on my Higher Power, so I was supposed to say, “God, what do you want me to do?” So I did.

But I knew he wasn’t going to write it on a wall in my apartment. He would write it on the wall of my heart. As long as it was moral, exciting, and developed my talents, that was his will for me.

I was working at the time as a reporter in Central Jersey. I had wanted to be a writer ever since I read my first sentence, “See Sally run.” It was magic that little black squiggles on a page made pictures in my mind. I wanted to do that for other people.

After many twists and turns in life, I stood divorced, contemplating carrots and what to do with all the time that no longer had to go into husband-care. From that carrot-scented moment on, I wrote while the kids did their homework. I got a corporate communications job writing business news. I wrote on the daily train to New York City and on the weekends that the children were with their father.

I took my work to critique groups. The group interplay was fascinating, but what fellow writers said about my work stung. I jotted down every criticism, prayed to use each one to get better, and persevered.

Eventually the kids grew up and left. In spite of a huge effort, I got laid off from the job. I used the small package they gave me to make a dream come true: I circumnavigated the United States! On a Greyhound bus! I visited 20 cities in seven weeks. You can see my posts from that trip in October, November and December 2011 in this blog (in the righthand column). I stayed in hostels and met people from all over the world. 

I found another job. I wrote. I listened carefully to critiques at writers groups. I weighed what was said against my instincts, I read the classics and the Pulitzer Prize winners. I prayed to develop my God-given gift for writing, such as it was, and to use it to the glory of God. 

For me, this did not mean writing “Christian fiction.” Instead, I wanted to write compelling fiction from a non-judgmental Christian worldview for the audience I wanted to reach—non-Christians. For me, writing to the glory of God meant seeking artistic freedom to portray a wide range of humanity, including the evil.

I sent work to agents and literary magazine editors. I had two successes and then nothing—for years on end.

I wondered if I should keep writing, but wrote down any encouraging thing people had ever said to me. One of the best was from my elderly Dad, who had been a huge criticizer as I grew up. This time he said, “You have what it takes.” 

It didn’t seem that he was right, with all the rejections that I had, stored in envelopes. But I tried to believe.

In spite of a heroic effort, I got laid off from the next job too. I watched in horror as my savings dwindled. I worked like a stevedore on the docks to look for a job. I prayed for God to open up a spot for me so I could stay in my little house. I loved it, and it loved me back. I wanted to keep living there just about as deeply as I had wanted to stay married.

I screamed and cried and cursed and bawled like a baby because the answer was “no.” Then my fiancé and I broke up. I rented out my home and went to live with my widowed mother—almost as painful to accept as the divorce.

In a bookshop near my mother’s house I found a book, “A Writer’s Paris.” It said that, if you were an American writer, you really needed to spend time in Paris, a week, a month or better yet a year. “You can do it,” the book said. “Just go.” 

My mother died, I had a tiny windfall, and I was free to go. I was very scared. I didn’t know a soul and not a word of French. But courage is fear that has said its prayers. I rented a room over the internet and bought a one-way ticket to Paris. That was one of the great thrills of my life. A one-way ticket to a fabulous city!

Every time I crossed the Seine I rejoiced that God had turned, in just one year, what felt like three tragedies into a glorious opportunity. I lived on a shoestring, but I was living in Paris!

Three years later I live in Brooklyn and I’ve published The Paris Writers Circle.

Perseverance. Prayer. Read the best writing. Listen at critique groups. Sift through every criticism, go with your instincts, and use everything to write better. 

And see where writing takes you! Around the country. Around the world.

Just go on. 

You’ve got what it takes.

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Next is pics FROM me in NYC but OF PARIS. They are all riffs on the theme, "Every time I crossed the Seine, I thanked my Higher Power that things had turned out this way, that I was in Paris on a full-time creative writing sabbatical."

How about you? Are you an aspiring writer? Are you someone who, like me, is hoping for outcomes beyond your wildest dreams? Stick with HP! and comment below!

An American Dream: Writing in Brooklyn, for Love (and Money)

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Quirky Stories from a Brooklyn Writer Who Writes for Love – and, to be honest, money

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I write, I'm afraid, with a double motive.

First, I write for the sake of writing. Being a writer who needs ideas for her texts forces me to stay awake to the world. It makes me more alive. Writing keeps me company during the hours that go into it. Writing gives me a chance to make art out of my life, which has quite its share of anguish, i.e., useful fodder.

I love to write something that I think will delight readers. There’s nothing I like better than knowing that I have a good book to read at home, to help me escape the harsh realities of life. I want to give that gift to people.

I love to find quirky, unexpected people, stories, pictures, and to share them with readers.

Do I wish that my writing’s sales helped me not to be a burden on my family someday, when I’m very old?

Yes, I wish it. So I write for money too.

But when the money disappoints, as it’s most likely to do in the writing business, it’s time to reset the button to “doing it for its own sake. Do it for the love of it.”

That’s where the walnut-sized bit of energy is – the same amount of mass and energy that our universe was born from. I believe it was held between God’s fingers. And then he let it go. For love. Scientists say all the laws of physics were in place within nanoseconds of that letting go. They say the laws are true in every spot in our ever-expanding universe. And God didn’t end his love for the world there. After creatures and humans populated the earth, he courted humankind, and when the time was right he came here and lived his life as an example of love.

So what is the walnut-sized bit of energy, inspiration, joy that can fuel this day’s writing.?

It’s doing it for the love of it. For the joy of connecting with readers. For knowing what my own thoughts are. For giving the world something good, made with love.

So here are some quirky pictures from my quirky life in Brooklyn. I live a 12-minute walk from Prospect Park and I’m there nearly every day, year round. I especially love the park in blizzards, which is bizarre but true. See a recent one here.

Come along and enjoy spring with me in Brooklyn!

There were whitecaps on Prospect Park's lake this day! 

A magnolia glorying in its glory.

The tree's trunk and branches are peculiar, quirky, and beautiful too. 

How about you? Do you do something creative for love, money or both? Comment below!

A Brooklyn Writer's Dream: Find Spring in a Chaotic City

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An Oasis in the Midst of Brooklyn 

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Spring has quickly sprung past these photos, taken a week ago. 

But they illustrate a timeless truth: With persistence you can find a place of beauty even in a gritty city like Brooklyn.

Very grand, very old trees have survived in Brooklyn's Prospect Park despite generations of people encroaching on them constantly.

A stand of white daffs (foreground) and a mystery beyond the top of the hill.

A garden hut a la Brooklyn.

The entrance at the corner of Flatbush, Empire and Ocean Avenues.

Brooklyn trees love to bask in their glory, just like blooming trees everywhere.

A quick visit to Bryant Park in Midtown Manhattan. Soak up spring wherever you might be!

A Brooklyn Writer's Dream: To Live in Paris

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By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Read a brief account of perseverance and how ashes got turned to the joy of a creative writing sabbatical in Paris!

I reveal the difficulties of a 30-year writing apprenticeship at my writing friend Elaine Stock's blog:

Please take encouragement from my story!

Every time I crossed the Seine, I thanked God for the way things turned out.

Unexpected in Brooklyn!

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A Brooklyn Writer's American Dream: To Float Through A Big Brooklyn Mansion

By Norma Hopcraft

My eyes pop wide open when I see the block after block of big old mansions, not far from me in Brooklyn. It's the last thing anyone would expect in Brooklyn.

I dream of owning one, floating through room after room on gleaming parquet floors. I step out on an upstairs balcony, off my bedroom, wearing a flowing peignoir, to check the weather before I get dressed in the morning. I have the coolest writing room. Utter creativity in beautifully designed, well-proportioned spaces.

Then I return to reality and walk back to my studio apartment. It has parquet floors, not freshly varnished before I moved in, alas, but I do the floor with Murphy's and hope to make them gleam eventually.

I face a courtyard of bricks and windows, not trees and grass.

I have no way to test the weather other than to wave my hand out a window.

But I don't have to maintain one of these palaces either. Content with what I have (most of the time :)

Can you believe this is in Brooklyn? 

Note the scaffolding on the right. Constant dollars...

The entrance. It looks like it belongs in the Deep South.

Same house, another view, another upstairs balcony.

The chimney, right, probably needs to be repointed. Notice the beams holding up the corner on the left. Dollars! But what a beautiful room behind those curved windows!

The Flatbush-Ditmas Park neighborhood is replete with houses like this. Surprised? Not your mental picture of Brooklyn? Not mine either, but it's real!

Another fabulous house. That's my writing room, under the eaves...

Another fabulous house, with a great tree in the yard. In my yard I have a fire escape, moss on the broken concrete, and a collection of garbage.

How about you? Would you like to float like a prince or princess through houses like these? Comment below!

Unexpected Today in Brooklyn: An Oasis

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A Brooklyn Writer Finds Respite in Prospect Park

by Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I work in Manhattan and live in Brooklyn. 

That means my eyes, my soul, are hungry for trees, space, wildness. 

Well, Prospect Park is heavily trafficked. The only wildness in Brooklyn is in the people. Especially on a Saturday night. Everyone's on their way to a party, it seems.

Mother Nature is throwing a party for my eyes in Prospect Park today.

Spring green. 'Nuff said.

A Few Trees in Brooklyn

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An American Writers Dream: To Live in Brooklyn

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

       I've always wanted to live in NYC. Especially in Brooklyn. It seemed like a place where things HAPPENED, not like my sleepy suburb in NJ.

       Now I live here.

       Brooklyn can be tough--tense and crowded, with many people needing groceries, cash from the bank, service at the post office--lines, lines, lines and soooo many people. I'm having trouble adjusting to it.

     So I escape to Prospect Park.  Here's a few scenes to bring you along with me.

A friend said she was in need of Spring yesterday, so I stopped on my way to the Brooklyn Central Library and took a picture of magnolia buds waiting to bloom.

In the center is the magnolia tree, covered with a thousand similar buds.

Here's a cherry tree in bloom, the first courageous one to brave this cold spring.

Toddlers playing soccer in the park -- that's a sign of Spring too.

The doors to my destination, the mother ship of all the Brooklyn Public Library branches. I'm not crazy about this building, I don't feel great walking in its doors, the way I feel entering other buildings, especially historic ones in Paris : ) But I've found a work area on the third floor that has big windows that look out on the trees of the park. I can write there.

How about living in Brooklyn? Or do you prefer the leafy suburbs, or the country? Comment below!

Prospect Park: A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

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By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I seek ease for my eyes in Prospect Park almost daily. After the harsh brick, six-story apartment buildings crowding around me, hard sidewalks, asphalt roads that mostly go as straight as rulers--I need to see a curving path in a park. I need to see trees.

Now I'll take you to Park Slope, on the opposite side of Prospect Park from me. It has a lovely public library.

I spent a productive Saturday here, getting lots of writing done. Tons of kids, a traffic jam of strollers in the lobby, babies making their presence heard. A delightful place. How about you? Do you like to sit in libraries? What do you like to do there, read books? newspapers? magazines? Watch people? Comment below!

A Writer's Dream: A Studio in a Historic Space

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Durham, NC, home of Brightleaf Square, formerly a tobacco factory

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I visit my offspring in North Carolina as often as I can, especially since there is a bouncing baby boy involved.

The men of the family, in plaid.

We visited Brightleaf Square in Durham. Please note the excellent brickwork details, especially under the eaves and above the windows. 

Inside, a spectacular staircase. How would you like to climb this every day to go to your studio?

Tucked under the staircase is the romantic entry to a restaurant.

The windows have their original shutters, which show some signs of wear and tear.

I'd like to look out of my studio at this beautiful tree with bright red berries.

Brightleaf still has all of its historic shutters. How about you? Do you enjoy American historic architecture? Comment below!