Navigation

Archive | writing

Writing a Cow

By on August 4, 2012 in children, writing

When my son was a year old, he was obsessed with cows. Perhaps his cow-bsession originated from too many repeats of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” or maybe from visits to the local petting zoo. Either way, as a loving parent and a literary nut, I immediately acquired a multitude of books about cows which greatly enhanced my knowledge of the types of cows in the world (there’s a cow that has a white belt across her black belly) and my understanding of the various parts of a cow’s digestive system (there are too many). We had books about cows that type and cows that come home, and even one fabulous and funny book called The Cows Are Going to Paris, written by David Kirby.

The cow painting hanging in Uri’s room

Uri is still fond of cows. He prefers not to eat beef because he feels it is wrong to kill such a beautiful creature. My boyfriend Dar loves cows too and has given Uri a gorgeous painting of some Holstein cows meandering in a meadow to hang in his room. When I drive out through the hills near our house, I watch the cows roaming, and I send out a wish that they are happy cows, raised for their milk. I guess you could say that we love cows in my family.

To me a cow is a symbol of a return to nature and a simpler life. It throws me back to childhood visits to the Kibbutz (the Israeli communal farm) or the Moshav (the cooperative farm), the smell of cows hanging in the air, their melodic moos carrying in the breeze. Cows symbolize, for me, an assurance against starvation, which I draw not from life but from literature. I remember Hector Malot’s touching and adventurous Nobody’s Boy, and the thin cow which alone protected Remy and his foster mother from poverty. I knew: as long as there’s a cow, there will be milk and butter.

So when Patricia MacLachlan, author of the wonderful Sarah Plain and Tall, said (and I think it may have been a quote from her books) at the SCBWI conference, “I can’t write anything better than a cow,” and again after that, “a poem as beautiful as a cow,” I felt a deep connection to that sentiment. What is there, in our world, more beautiful than a cow? She is a symbol of mother earth, nourishing, generously sharing her milk with us. In India the cow is a sacred animal, and in Feng Shui it is a symbol for prosperity and good luck.

But if a cow embodies the mother: patient, calm, accepting, what does it have in common with a conflict-filled, dramatic, fast paced book? For me, at least, Ms. MacLachlan’s analogy evoked a feeling rather than a comparison: that a writer has created something as pure, innocent, and perfect in its own way, as real, as true to its own nature, as a cow.

Legitimizing Writing Time

By on August 3, 2012 in children, parenting, writing

Here I am, sitting on an airplane flying thirty thousand feet above a sea of clouds. The sun is just rising in the horizon, an orangy-yellow presence outside the oval plane window. I am flying to Los Angeles, where, for the next three days, I will attend the Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators conference. Yesterday I was all mother. For the next three days I get to be all writer, guilt-free.

Guilt defines much of who I am. Since the children spend only half of the week with me, I want to give them my entire attention when they are around. Partly I do this to make up for not being there the other half of the week, and partly because I want to give them so much, but I don’t have enough time. My writing, therefore, takes second place (or even third and fourth) when the children are around.

A writers’ conference, however, is a different story. It sounds so…, well, so legitimate, so important. It sounds real! Engineers, teachers, people with real jobs go to conferences. And once in a while so do I. I go to the conference and feel that I’m doing something to further my career. I’m making contacts, deepening my knowledge of the business of writing and publishing. Then, after three days of taking myself seriously, I go back home to writing on a desk surrounded by pecking chickens, barking dogs, and attention-deprived children.

The quiet before the storm — conference main room

The truth is that at home I doubt the legitimacy of my writing. I minimize my computer time when the children are around so as not to encourage them to spend time on their computers as well. Except, here’s what makes no sense about this: I am not playing on the computer or watching a teen series with too-beautiful photo-shopped young people. I am working! I am writing, and someday someone will want to read what I write. Right?

Am I working, or am I playing around? Am I indulging in a hobby which might never become a job? Certainly, I don’t treat writing as a job. I do not sit at my desk 9 to 5. And if part of the definition of a job is that it earns the worker money, then I am not exactly up to standard in that. I do what I love, and I feel privileged and grateful to be able to do that. But with an inexplicable fear of what others, my children included, will say, I don’t follow my writing ambitions, yet, with the same single-minded sense of purpose that I do other goals of my life. Motherhood, for example.

My son tells me: “Why are you on the computer all the time?” “Blogging,” he answers his own question, and a tone of hurt (or is it contempt?) sneaks into his voice. Once again I realize how important it is for me to feel the legitimacy of my writing, make room for WRITER in my definition of self. It’s ok, I think, frightening though it is for me to say, not to be 100% mother all the time. I wonder what will happen when I stop being afraid of being more than mother, and give myself permission to feel sometimes all writer inside….

Interview with Fabulous Writer Denise Harbison

By on July 30, 2012 in rejection, writing

 For a while now, I’ve been playing around in my mind with the idea of interviewing writers who are still seeking to publish their first novel. It seemed to me a fun (and fine) idea. After all, hardly anyone thinks to interview those still seeking publication. Having decided to begin, I, of course, asked Denise to be my first interviewee. I’ve known Denise for seven or so years now, and we’ve been meeting again and again in the same circle of conferences, each of us lugging behind her a novel, the subject of so many hopes and dreams. Thank you so much Denise for agreeing to this interview and giving me (and the readers) your time!

You and I met for the first time at the Big Sur Conference in 2005. Can you tell me a little about the path you followed to become a writer?

I can’t say I’ve always wanted to become a professional writer. 7th grade was when I became intrigued with analyzing literature for metaphor, symbolism, etc. In high school, I had teachers praise my creative writing, which was sort of defiant because I didn’t especially like being forced to write. In 9th grade I wrote a memorable horror story about ants. The teacher wondered if I’d plagiarized it; I like to think she thought it would take a lot of writing talent for a nice girl like me to come up with something that unsettling (ha ha). In 11th grade, for the required mock-epic poem, I took the “mock” aspect to it’s full potential and wrote about the war between the Peanut Buddies and the Chocolateers. They ultimately joined forces–melting into one–playing off the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercials that say, “Two great tastes in one candy bar.” In 12th grade, I got an A on a persuasive paper about the importance of lipstick. I went on to college and studied marketing and advertising, which requires a good deal of writing, creativity, and knowing your target audience. All these things eventually came together in writing for kids.

When did you know that you were writing for children rather than adults?

I never considered writing books for adults. That just doesn’t seem fun.

I remember that your novel is located in Hawaii. Can you tell me about the background to choosing to locate the novel in Hawaii?

The Hawaii novel (I’m surprised you remember it!), for middle graders, comes from my unique experiences while living there as an outsider. I wasn’t local, and I wasn’t a tourist. It gave me a certain perspective. It’s details from my backyard. It’s about adapting and overcoming.

What is your writing routine like?

My sitting-in-front-of-the-computer writing time is when my 3 kids are in school. That is total submersion time–when I focus on the story, even if I take a break from the chair. Sometimes I think I hate summer vacation because everyone is around all the time, interrupting…, but the fun and excitement of it forces ideas to the surface. I love hanging out with my kids in the summer, and it’s not like I don’t like having fun, but I start feeling the muse poking me to get back to work. Then I can sit down and write some more. It seems like there is always a story working itself out in my head.

Which books do you most remember from your childhood?

Growing up, I really loved the Boxcar Children and Island of the Blue Dolphins. I’d dream and dream about what I would do if I were on my own–all the good, adventurous things. Not scary things, like battling ants. (ha ha!)

As a young child, I loved the book The Monster at the End of This Book, Starring lovable, Furry Old Grover. That book will live on my shelf forever. It tickled me the way Grover tried and tried to stop me, and I won every time, and he was so embarrassed…it still cracks me up. Though, for the record, my high-schooler says I’m really immature.

Do you have a favorite snack while you write?

I do snack when I write. Favorite mix for success: Goldfish crackers, pretzels, and chocolate. 🙂

You told me that you had an article published with Highlights Magazine. That’s so great! The road to publication can be long and depressing. Do you have an advice to writers who are still on their way to see their words in print?

It helps to know that my work has been chosen before, that it’s been good enough for publication. But that only proves potential. I still receive rejections. And I still have a lot to learn. The only thing to do is keep working at it.

We’re going to see each other in LA in less than a week! Yay! What are your hopes for the conference?

I’m looking forward to the social gathering in L.A.–seeing you and other writer friends from all over, supporting each other, and being energized by the excitement of the crowd.

Thank you Denise for visiting my blog and good luck in getting more articles, novels and stories published!

We love your comments! You can ask Denise any questions you’d like. You can also find her on Facebook under her name, Denise Harbison. Look for these interviews every Monday, and please comment and let me know if you are a writer who would like to be interviewed as well.

The Over-Arching Story

By on July 25, 2012 in book review, writing

Lately I got into habit of reading several novels at once. At this moment, I listen in the car to the sixty-hour audio book of War and Peace, and I read Rachel Hartman’s YA fantasy Seraphina and Robin Hobb’s adult fantasy The Assassin’s Apprentice. All three received great reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, but my enjoyment of them differs. One I love, but I have not lost my heart to the other two.

The fabulous Audio book of War and Peace


War and Peace has a clear, over-arching storyline: normal everyday life in Russia, marriage and love are at risk because of the approaching war with Napoleon. I long to know: will Natasha and Boris marry when she grows up? What will be the fate of the little Princess? Will Maria marry rakish Anatole? What will happen to innocent Pierre who just inherited a vast fortune, and to Nikolai, Sonia and Julie. The characters wander through the pages of the novel, busy with their own lives, worried about the war, each contributing a thread to the over-arching story.

The other two novels are well-written, each creating a world that is detail-oriented and believable, filled with interesting, complex characters. And yet I am not living the story or breathing it in like air. To me it seems they are missing an over-arching storyline. I am half way through Hobb’s Assassin’s Apprentice, and I am not sure how the narrator will be affected by the forging, what dangers he will face, or what part he will play. He sits in the castle, taking classes in poisons and riding, and other than one venture into the world, he has not done much at all.

The danger threatening Seraphina of Rachel Hartman’s novel is very real, or so she tells me. And yet I wonder. Seraphina was born, her mother discovered to be a dragon before witnesses, and yet no mob came to lynch her and her father. They escaped town and established a new life under the same names, and no one seems to have ever searched for this man who married a dragon against all the rules or for his half-dragon daughter. Seraphina’s father still lives in fear that they will be discovered, but he already was discovered and yet lives.

I am not yet sure where Seraphina’s story is leading. I think the overarching plot will have something to do with her being half dragon and the tensions between humans and dragons, but I don’t know what this conflict will be. I lack a clear direction, and so I have a harder time merging, mind and soul, into the world of the novel.

When I read, I like to experience what happens as though I am right there in the same room. I like to feel that I know the characters as though they are my friends. Fantasy is usually a great gateway for this kind of reading, and I hope that by the time I reach the ending of Seraphina and The Assassin’s Apprentice I will have found a way in.

The Distiller

By on July 24, 2012 in imagination, writing
The Distiller on a good day

There is a part inside me that sees the world in black and white. She measures my successes in one hundred percent parcels, working day and night to protect me from criticism, judgements and failures. I call her the Distiller, distilling right from wrong, success from failure, black from white. I see her in my mind’s eye. She’s a little girl, six or seven, with braids in her hair and innocent eyes as large as the world. In her stockinged feet and with her little girl’s hands, like a miniature Atlas she helps me hold up my globe of self confidence, self appreciation and self love.

The Distiller believes that criticism will end my writing. She also believes I cannot handle praise. She has records and can prove her point. I’m right, she tells me, her braids swinging. What will happen when someone dislikes your book, as inevitably will happen if you get published? she asks me. You’d better not publish, she advises. But you can write, if you must.

She loves me, the Distiller. I can feel her affection for me, the caring which she puts into weighing every situation, determining if it is something which will break me. She thinks me fragile as a hollow porcelain doll, as though too much content inside will make me break. Tirelessly she beseeches me to do less, work less, write less, take more help. She comforts me whenever I am tired, urging me to rest. You don’t have to write right now, she urges me. You’re tired. You’ll be even more tired after you write. And I listen to her and go rest, even though my Inner Judge huffs and puffs and lets out a string of complaints.

The Distiller hushes him. She’s the intermediary, the gate keeper to his harsh opinions, sometimes soothing them, sometimes letting them through. I know that together with the Judge, the Distiller blocks my ambitions as a writer, and yet I like her. In her way she only wants what’s good for me. She simplifies my world. I think of the Distiller as my doorway, and if I can get her to crack the door open just a little bit more, perhaps there will be space enough for me to spread my wings and fly.

These last few days have been good for my writing, but I can do better than this. Stories bubble within me, eager to come out. My imagination spins tales, and my hands can’t move fast enough to type them out. I want to open up a dialog with the Distiller. I’d like to explain that success and failure are many shades of grey apart, that we together, she and I, can define what success and failure mean, and that even our new definition can be flexible. Let me fly, little Doorkeeper. I promise to behave. I know I can depend on you to support me and to care, but together we can understand: changing our definition of success is the best and most foolproof method to insure that I do not fail.

The Fairies Save Me from the First Line

By on July 16, 2012 in adventure, writing

Interspersed in my novel are sentences which have managed to hang on through five revisions and come out unscathed. There is one chapter that I love just the way I first wrote it: the dragons attacking, the aquatic monster raising curtains of water, and a young girl standing atop the monster’s watery shoulder, shouting suggestions in her ear. No part of the novel changed as much as my first line. After all, first lines are the first thing the reader sees in the book and must tantalize him or her into wanting to read more. Writers often attach great importance to their first words. In one sentence they try to hook the reader, give a hint to what comes next, present the world, the character, the action, and create a sense of mystery and suspense.

My favorite beginning of a novel comes from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead: “Howard Roark laughed. He stood naked at the edge of a cliff. The lake lay far below him. A frozen explosion of granite burst in flight to the sky over motionless water.” Can you see him standing there? I can. I read those words and knew this story would be extraordinary, that Roark would be different from anyone else I’ve ever known. It helped, perhaps, that I read the book very young. I’m not sure what I would have thought of Roark’s rigid perspective of life as an adult. This beginning, however, influenced me, and I have always striven for a similar effect in my writing, an unbending and clear introduction of what my story is about.

Of course, I have loved novels with less dramatic beginnings. The first two sentences of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat always leave me feeling confused: “There were four of us — George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about how bad we were — bad from a medical point of view, I mean, of course.” Somehow, these two bewildering sentences appeared endearing and characteristic after I got to know the narrator, but when I began the novel, I could not figure out why Jerome names six men when he says they were four but the book is titled three, or why he uses so many commas.

A great first line can be a treat, like the first bite of a truly delectable dish. “It is a truth universally acknowledged,” writes Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice what is universally acknowledged as one of the very best first lines ever written, “that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” My first line, not quite there, might still change and change again. I wouldn’t be so sure that it might not end up simply being: “Once upon a time in a faraway land there lived a princess who was not going to go on a birthday adventure.”

What is your favorite first line in a novel?

The Siege of Adverb

By on July 13, 2012 in writing

I have a problem with adverbs. You know, that part of speech that ends with ly and can modify a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Readers who looked at my manuscript commented on my use of adverbs and advised: “Get rid of them.” But, wait a minute, all of them? There isn’t one single adverb that can stay? Are they all so singularly, vehemently, and disgracefully bad? There’s none among them that usefully earns its keep or helpfully, gratefully and profitably provides my words with extra meaning?

Writers today are anti-adverb. Stephen King writes in his book On Writing: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Mark Twain called adverbs a plague and said, “They confuse me. They mean absolutely nothing to me.” Though Twain did use absolutely to describe his feelings against adverbs and King used usually twice and seriously once in the first paragraph describing the overuse of adverbs, the current sentiment is clear (and I’m quoting King again): “Adverbs are not your friends.”

Is the dislike for adverbs a new fashion? As an experiment, I picked out three books from my shelves. I chose Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, an eighteenth century gothic novel that was a must-read in its time and is quoted or mentioned in many later novels, Henry James’ classic The Portrait of a Lady, and C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” I opened each book at random and looked for adverbs. Radcliffe, in a dramatic paragraph that has Montoni attacking Emily as she attempts to come to her aunt’s aid, did not use a single adverb. James, in a long-winded two-page monologue, wrote the adverbs really, horribly, fortunately (3 times), certainly, absolutely, exceedingly, parenthetically and definitely. Lewis, in a paragraph describing Edmund’s first interactions with the witch, employed no adverbs.

Of course, to make my experiment more accurate, I could have chosen three novels of the same genre and perhaps compared American novelists to their counterparts in other nations to see the global changes in the use of adverbs over the last three centuries. A different nineteenth century writer could also have given a different result, because Henry James, interestingly enough, is known as having expressed great love for adverbs: “I adore adverbs; they are the only qualifications I really much respect.” But I am not writing a doctorate, and that’s the only experiment I’m going to conduct today.

I wonder if, in the world of words, adverbs are trembling with fear. Will they be banned from dictionaries? In one hundred years, will they find themselves mentioned only in history of linguistics books, sitting covered with cobwebs in a dusty, dark corner, like old no-longer useful relatives of other words? The English language is a living, breathing entity which changes all the time. Its dynamic nature is why I love it so much. But still, I hope the current scorn of adverbs will not last. I happen to like adverbs very much.

A Whole New World

By on July 10, 2012 in adventure, fairy tale, writing

Remember Disney’s Aladdin, when Aladdin, dressed as Prince Ali, takes Princess Jasmine on a carpet ride? They fly over Egypt, Greece and China, with wild horses, pelicans, and soft, huggable clouds. For Princess Jasmine, who lived all her life inside her father’s palace, and for Aladdin the orphan boy, any place on the face of this earth is a whole new world.

There’s a sense of wonder in this particular Disney song that appeals to me. The magic carpet ride gives Aladdin and Jasmine an opportunity to view the world, sitting in comfort much like a reader does when reading a book, while the view (or is it the story?) unfolds before them. Books, like magic carpets, are a vehicle for adventure. And lately, at least, it seems to me that most fantasy novels are taking us farther and farther away from what we know, into foreign, author-created lands.

There are so many fantasy novels published in the United States these days, whether for adults or younger readers, and so many of these fantasy novels take place in an entirely new world which the author has written into existence. This new world often comes complete with a map, new customs, people in colors and natural abilities different from our own, and exotic wildlife. It’s not that fantasy worlds have not been imagined before — Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Ursula K. LeGuin (to name my favorites) have all written a whole new world for their fantasies — and yet the sheer number of fantasies published these days amazes me and makes me wonder. Are authors reinventing the world, writing new countries and oceans into existence because the world has become so small? A global village, Hillary Clinton said. Perhaps our adventurous spirits as writers and readers long for new lands to explore?

Takes place in Greece-like Attolia, Sounis and Eddis

No more than a few years ago, Earth itself was a mystery. Many places were yet to be discovered: the heart of Africa, the tallest summits, Antarctica, the Amazon. Books reflected the Earth’s still pulsing potential for exploration. Fairy tales and early fantasy were located in the ambiguous “Once upon a time in a faraway land,” while myths, and stories of adventure took place in magical, as-yet-unreached places like the golden city El Dorado, the lost island of Atlantis, or the seat of the Greek gods on Olympus. The reader could aspire to see these places one day. After all, they were located here on Earth.

The dystopian fantasy world of Range

Today such faraway places as the Forbidden City of China or the Taj Mahal are familiar to most of us. With a click of the mouse I can see Antarctica and the summit of Everest without setting foot outside. If I chose, I could go there in person, and it will be my photos others will see with a click of their mouse. The world really is small, and I, for one, am grateful to writers of fantasy. You are stretching this planet’s mysterious magical appeal and my sense of wonder with your writing.

The Revolution of Small

By on July 3, 2012 in rock climbing, writing

A micro-universe

Last night I got to thinking about my blog from yesterday and its earthquake-writing metaphor. As a little human speck, the earth’s origins — the wrinkling of its crust, the mighty glaciers, the erupting lava and the ice age — seem to me huge forces of nature. Yet I lack perspective, for in a cosmic point of view, these throes of creation were but a feathery tickle, the smallest wave breaking into foam in the midst of a never-ending sea.

Other forces change our world on a slower, less grand scale. Every river, creek, spring and drop of rain carves its way through dirt, stones, and sometimes rock, flowing, wearing out an intricate

tattoo on the topmost layer of our earth. Trees weave in the wind, suffusing our atmosphere with the gases we breathe, and every living organism is engaged in the game of evolution, ever-changing, ever-adapting to the conditions of life.

To an ant, a raging river is a mighty force, but so it can be to me if there is no bridge on which to cross. Climbing the Matterhorn, I sat on rocks that had been piled on it as though by giants, a precarious perch which had stood stable for thousands of years. When climbers climb the Nose on the famous El Capitan in Yosemite, they ascend via a granite formation called the Texas Flake that hangs halfway up the monolith and is slowly detaching from the main rock face. But climbers go up the Texas Flake daily, trusting that in geological terms it will not fall just yet.

I would like to be an instrument of change in the world, but my wishes are interlaced with much fear. Which is the more effective way: the gentle trickling of water or the noisy, jarring repercussions of a big earthquake, and are they really as different as I think? With the limitations of human time, would a gentle change register? and in a brutal, irreversible revolution, would I not find the cost, the casualties too great?

Perspective: Muir Camp on Rainier

The lens of fear is hard to remove: what if no one reads what I write because it’s too mild? what if no one reads what I write because it’s too blunt? what if I get hate mail? what if I lose my privacy? What if my writing ends up hurting my family? And I know that none of these questions makes sense. They are phantom fears.

In rock climbing, looking up or down strengthens my fears. Best to keep moving up, one hand and foot at a time, and the holds appear, like magic, in the face of the rock. When writing, I write one word at a time till a sentence comes, a paragraph is born, a page, and a world of characters and action, till I can say, like God in the creation of the world, It is good. It is enough. And then I will send my novel on the water, like Miriam sent Moses in his crib of bamboo on the River Nile, to let it find its own fate, pave its own way, and wreak its own path of change. That is enough.

Earthquake!!!

By on July 2, 2012 in imagination, writing

Writing is like an earthquake, a force of nature to be reckoned with. At least, that is my greatest hope and fear. Once the imagination starts shaking and spouting out words, who knows how many casualties there will be? Mountains climb out of the ocean or are wrinkled into crags. Dinosaurs rise from the dead, pterodactyls soar in the sky. Dust hides the sun. Volcanoes erupt where none existed before. Archipelagos join into continents, and landmass breaks into islands. Writing is creative and dangerous. Life changing, world shaping. Think of Marx, Rousseau, Hitler, the romantic poets, Mary Wollstonecraft, Harriet Beecher Stowe.

One of my friends from middle school is a geologist, and he once said to me: “Sigal, I hope for your sake that you won’t be in California when the Big One strikes.” “Will it be that bad?” I inquired. “Oh yes,” he responded with the avidity of a true scientist. “It’s going to be bad.”

We live in an area that is criss-crossed by so many faults! Looking at a google earth map of the Bay Area boggles my mind. What will really happen when that Big One strikes? And what if California becomes separated from the rest of the U.S., and floats out to sea to join Hawaii? Little earthquakes rumble along our fault lines every day, relieving, possibly, some of the pressure, but according to the USGS website, they are not enough to prevent the Big One from coming. Of course, according to the USGS website, it’s alse fiction that California will one day fall into the ocean.

Like the earth crust, in order to relieve the pressure in my writing fault lines, I write these blogs, little foreshocks to the Big One that is yet to come. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s not enough. The blog teaches me how much I long to interact with my audience, how much I want to be read. It is giving me a creative outlet for my thoughts, feelings, worries. But I want more. The tension in me grows strong. A novel needs to be born out of the lava and the rocks, the heat and the gems, the layers of millions of years of geological activity.

So exciting! Painful, hard, strange. Dangerous, too, of course. Risky. And yet other people do it every day. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that I’m not alone. Just here in the Bay Area are thousands of writers, poets, journalists, columnists, bloggers. Like the fault line spread all over California, so are fault lines and writers found everywhere in the world. I am not alone. The danger not only mine. But the power to shape the world is divided among all of us perhaps unequally, and the responsibility to use it wisely given to each of us on our own.

Yet I feel some relief. Now maybe, I can sit down and write. I won’t cause an earthquake, or turn the world upside down. After all, I’m just writing a fairy tale, a fantasy, for fun.

Sigal Tzoore (650) 815-5109