Vacation Report: Wildlife viewed from a houseboat

How do you find a manatee? Look for clumps of people staring down into the water at a marina like this:

 We were hugely excited when we saw our first manatees surfacing at the South Seas Plantation Marina. They’re an endangered species so we figured it was pretty special to catch sight of them. Then we saw them at the next marina where we docked…and the next one…and, well, the thrill sort of settled into a comfortable familiarity. However, we still took gazillions of photos, some of which I share with you here.

 Often your first hint that manatees are in the neighborhood is the sound of air being expelled explosively as they lift just their nostrils above the water to breathe. My Darling Daughter had an authentic encounter when she was sitting on the dock, dangling her bare feet over the edge. A manatee nose rose just under her and blew manatee snot all over her toes.

 

Fun facts: Manatees grow up to 12 feet long, and can weigh 1,200 pounds, most of which is NOT fat, contrary to their rather rotund appearance. They eat vegetation, such as manatee and turtle grass. They can hold their breath for as long as 20 minutes when resting. As far as we could tell, they rest a lot. My brother-in-law, a stern New Englander, was quite appalled by the manatees’ apparent lack of work ethic. In truth, they spend a lot of time feeding—6 to 8 hours a day–where we can’t see them. Manatees are closely related to the elephant although this one looks more like a seal.

 They move slowly and breed slowly, only once every 2 to 5 years, so it was pretty cool to see this mom and her baby. The baby was quite playful, spiraling around her mother in the water, and swimming away and back as though teasing her to play chase, something I can’t picture an adult manatee doing.

 In addition to manatees, we saw lots and lots of dolphins. They move a lot faster than manatees so they’re much harder to capture on film. Most of our photos barely show a fin, and my Darling Daughter is convinced the dolphins were deliberately taunting her every time she got out her camera to photograph them.

We caught quick glimpses of sea tortoises (way too quick for photos) and saw lots of fish.  On land, we met another endangered critter, the gopher tortoise (one of the Earth’s oldest living species). Doesn’t he remind you of the Slowskys in the Comcast television commercial?

And we found a colony of fiddler crabs, reminding my sister and me of childhood days at the beach.

 Despite all our critter encounters, we still missed Brodie the Devil Dog who was visiting Rover Ranch and Spa while we were gone. We were happy to get home for a fur fix.

Vacation Report: Houseboating in Florida…in August!

You all know my penchant for going on vacations that stretch my fairly meager spirit of adventure.  Well, this was one of those.  My sister somehow convinced us to rent a houseboat and cruise the Intracoastal Waterway in Florida with her and her family (who rented their own houseboat—I don’t like my sister THAT much).

Mind you, none of us had ever captained a vessel larger than a canoe before.  None of us had experience reading nautical charts or coaxing diesel generators into running.  None of us had a clue what we were getting into.

 However, we traipsed down to Fort Myers, Florida, to meet Roy and our transportation, two 41-foot Gibson houseboats.  Roy gave us a tutorial on how all the systems in the boat work (mostly involving the septic and electrical systems, two hugely important components of one’s life at sea).  Then Kirk from Connecticut gave us a two-hour hands-on lesson in how to steer a Gibson houseboat and how to read a chart.  I use the word “steer” loosely; the boats are about as nimble as garbage barges.

We spent the night docked and arose the next morning, ready to cast off for the high seas.  One glitch: getting a houseboat out of a narrow marina without smashing any of the multi-million dollar yachts parked around us proved to be a major challenge.  With the help of Roy and a couple of dockhands, we avoided the boats and only hit a few wooden pilings—gently, since Kirk and Roy advised our intrepid captains to proceed very, very slowly when maneuvering in tight quarters.

 My husband took the helm.  I was elected navigator because I like maps.  However, a nautical chart is the reverse of a map.  The land is just a greenish blob while the water has all sorts of numbers, swirly lines, and squares and triangles.  You have to re-orient your thinking. 

This is my navigator’s station.  Note the tools of the trade: waterproof chart, binoculars (to spot teeny-tiny channel markers miles away), and cell phone (to call harbormasters for directions to their marinas, something Captain Ahab didn’t have the benefit of).  The television was used by teenaged crew members to play PS2.

My father, a Navy man, always told me that when looking at buoys, remember “red, right, returning” which translates to: keep the red markers on your right when you’re coming back to port.  The question is: which port are you returning to?

 

Not all went smoothly.  We nearly lost our anchor due to an overconfident crew member (that would be me) uncleating the rope before the anchor was fully stowed.  My husband raced onto the deck and dove into the murky water, seizing the rope before it sank out of sight.  My hero!

We discovered that nautical folks are not very precise in giving directions to their marinas so we had to wing it several times as far as where we should park the boat when we arrived after the dockhands had gone home.  One harbormaster came in the next morning, surveyed our neatly tied boats, and said, “Wow, I never knew a boat that big could fit into those slips.”

 

Here we are: crammed into our itty-bitty slips.

We didn’t tell him that it had taken us 30 minutes to maneuver into the slip, and that we had cheated by putting part of our crew (that would be me and two kids) onto the dock and using ropes to pull us in, while we cursed like, well, sailors (under our breath, so the children couldn’t hear).

 And, of course, the septic system clogged up…but we won’t discuss that issue in polite company.

 Whatever disasters we faced, the ONE humiliation I did NOT wish to suffer was calling for “Sea-Tow”.  Our maritime radio was constantly buzzing with distress signals from boaters who’d run aground and needed to be towed off a sandbar.  As the navigator, it was a point of pride with me that we never suffer that ignominious fate.

 

I took this photo of the dreaded tow-boat only as we came back into our final dock at Fort Myers, knowing that I could hold my binoculars high in triumph.  No matter how many pilings we’d dented, no matter how much entertainment we’d provided laughing dockhands with our inept boat-handling, no matter how many times we’d called Roy to explain to us how get the generator started again, we’d never, ever spoken the terrible words “Sea-Tow”.

Check back soon for more “Adventures in Houseboating”.  There might even be a prize for a lucky reader.

Conference Report: Professionalism

Two smart, young literary agents, Jennifer Schober of Spencerhill Associates and Laura Bradford of the Bradford Literary Agency, presented part of a workshop titled How to Catch Flies: on Professionalism and Choosing Your Own Business Reputation. I say “part” of a workshop because it got interrupted by a fire alarm which meant everyone attending had to exit the Marriott and wait for the all clear. However, Ms. Schober and Ms. Bradford picked up right where they left off as soon as we were allowed back in the building because they are—you guessed it—professionals.

This workshop interested me for a few reasons. One, I think that, of all the folks in the publishing biz, agents have to be most concerned with projecting a professional persona, so they know a thing or two about how to do it well. Two, I hoped it would give me new insight into how agents think. Three, I had a question I really wanted to have answered. All three of my reasons for attending were addressed.

Here’s a summary of my notes:

 1) Don’t let your business persona just happen. Be thoughtful about how you wish to appear to the public. This is especially important in the on-line world. Remember that anything you put on-line stays there forever for anyone to access. This means your Facebook page, your blog, your website, your Twitters, etc., should all contain material that enhances your reputation as a professional writer. Even your Flickr photos should not show anything that could prove embarrassing, or even just too personal. Be careful what you say in emails on email loops, even closed ones. Things get forwarded.

2) There are four things an agent expects from a good working relationship with an author:

               a) Timeliness;

               b) Respect and common courtesy;

               c) Confidentiality;

               d) A sense of responsibility and a strong work ethic.

 3) Have attainable benchmarks for your career. There is so little that you can control about the publishing business; set goals you CAN have an effect on. It will make you feel better.

4) Communication is very important. Talk to your agent first about your needs and/or concerns. Both agents stressed that they nurture communication with their clients. They don’t want you to stew and be unhappy, nor do they want to be blind-sided by problems you haven’t discussed with them.

5) You can get ahead by being “kind”. Ms. Bradford mentioned that some people seem to feel you must be a “squeaky wheel” to succeed in publishing. She disagrees. Kindness pays dividends.

6) Now for my own burning question. I always hear folks say that they pitched to an agent or editor “in the elevator” at a conference. Okay, I hate pitching, my room was only on the fifth floor so the ride was very short, and I can’t imagine doing more than smiling and saying hello in an elevator. Is this really something I should attempt to do?

Ms. Bradford laughed and said that if she’s at a conference, she expects to be approached by writers looking for representation. Her script was:

Writer (reads agent’s nametag as she enters elevator): Hi, Ms. Agent. I’m Nancy Herkness. I wondered if you’re interested in representing romantic suspense?

Ms. Agent: Yes, I am.

Writer: May I send my romantic suspense proposal to you?

Ms. Agent: Of course. Here’s my card. Please email it to me after the conference.

Elevator doors open.

Writer: Thank you. It was nice to meet you.

Writer goes directly to bar and has three Cosmopolitans to calm frazzled nerves.

All right, the last stage direction was my own addition to the script. However, I was relieved to hear that it’s considered acceptable to approach an agent at a conference without prior contact. Of course, I would never do anything rude, like interrupting a conversation or stalking them into the Ladies’ Room (these things have happened, evidently). That wouldn’t be professional.

A Nod from Nancy: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Often sad, sometimes frightening, always compelling, Still Alice, the story of a Harvard professor with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, is told with a clear-eyed compassion which keeps the reader racing to turn the pages.  I was afraid this novel would be depressing, but amazingly it isn’t. 

This is not a caregiver’s handbook; it’s fiction, but it will instill in any reader who knows a person with dementia a more profound understanding of how to better communicate and simply be with them.  For those fortunate enough not to have a friend or family member affected by the disease, Still Alice offers insight into how our own brains function…or not.   If the true measure of a book is whether it changes your perception of some part of the world you live in, then this is a great one.

Still Alice begins with Professor of Psychology Alice Howland tracking down her equally academic husband’s glasses for him as he tries to get to work on time.  While she feels the usual wifely exasperation at John’s inability to find his own keys, etc., she also empathizes since she has recently noticed that she’s losing things too, such as her Blackberry, which she later finds plugged into its charger beside her bed.  Alice chalks this up as normal for a multi-tasker who’s fifty years old.  The reader finds it more ominous since author Lisa Genova has opened the book with a single dramatic paragraph saying that “there were neurons in her head…that were being strangled to death, too quietly for her to hear them.”

After Alice goes running and can’t find her way home from Harvard Square, a place she knows like the back of her hand, she begins to worry that her forgetting is more than just a menopausal woman’s typical memory difficulties.  Without telling anyone in her family, she begins the process which results in the diagnosis of early on-set Alzheimer’s.  As she reads a list of activities which will be affected throughout the progression of the disease, she finds the items:  “Has given up reading.  Never writes.  No more language.”  Alice is a specialist in neurolinguistics, the study of the mechanisms of language.

            She looked at the rows of books and periodicals on her bookcase, the stack of final exams to be corrected on her desk, the emails in her inbox, the red-flashing voice-mail light on her phone. … She had experiments to perform, papers to write, and lectures to give and attend.  Everything she did and loved, everything she was, required language.

In clear, lucid prose, Ms. Genova shows us how Alice’s family responds to the diagnosis, how she tries to compensate for the symptoms as she continues to teach at Harvard, how her colleagues avoid her once the diagnosis is made public, and, most important, what Alice herself is thinking, feeling, and struggling with.  In a very unusual and gutsy choice, the author tells the story from Alice’s point-of-view.  The reader lives in Alice’s mind as that mind betrays her with increasing frequency.

And yet, there are gifts the disease gives her.  As she loses the ability to absorb words, her sensitivity to body language increases.  Her relationship with her youngest daughter improves dramatically.  She no longer bases her entire identity on her achievements at work.  She comes to understand love on a deeply felt level.

Interestingly, the author spent a year querying and being rejected by agents who said no one would want to read a novel about Alzheimer’s.  Frustrated, Ms. Genova decided to self-publish the book, which is so well researched it received the stamp of approval from the Alzheimer’s Association.  After a year of selling Still Alice out of the back of her car, Ms. Genova was contacted by an agent who sold it to Simon & Schuster for half a million dollars.  Now the book is a New York Times bestseller.