Planning a Western MA Wedding

Many of you are in the beginning stages – and the final stages – of planning a wedding in Western Massachusetts. Congratulations!

I’m planning a transition, too. I’m just about ready to do a full launch of my business as a Wedding Officiant! I bet we are sharing some of the same feelings of excitement and nervousness. I’m feeling great exhilaration in the unknown.

Here’s how I planned my wedding:

Nearly ten years ago, my partner and I decided to get married because Marriage Equality finally became the law in Massachusetts. We  knew we wanted to get married outside in the summer, so we looked in the Yellow Pages (remember those?) for a Justice of the Peace. We called her, she agreed that she would marry a lesbian couple, and then I wrote the ceremony. She delivered it warmly but deviated a bit from the script, which disappointed me. There was more than one person at the wedding who recognized her as the JP of another ceremony that they observed, and one who had been married by her! She was absolutely professional, but I really did all the work of creating the ceremony, and she was just the legal representative.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning of my career as a Life-Cycle Celebrant. I love the ceremony I wrote for my own wedding, and I’ve loved every ceremony I’ve written since. I am so lucky to have found a way to use my writing skills for the most joyous purpose – marking life’s transitions, particularly to join people as they create new families.

So, if you are planning a wedding here in Western Mass, I would be honored to write your ceremony! As a Celebrant, I am certified in ceremony construction and my code of ethic demands that you approve every word of the ceremony, so there will be no surprises like there were on my wedding day. This might be the first time you’ve heard about Celebrants even though you’re deep in planning your bug day, and you might have already hired a JP or convinced your cosign to Solemnize your marriage as a JP-for-the-Day. I can still help! Even if I don’t perfume your ceremony, I am happy to write the ceremony you’d like someone else to perform. Please email me for more details.

As always, remember that I offer a free initial consultation in my Amherst office or in your favorite coffee shop. Accept my congratulations as you plan your big day – and know that I’m right there alongside you, planning my own big day.

Western Massachusetts Wedding Officiants and Justice of the Peace

What is a wedding officiant?

A wedding officiant is someone who is authorized to perform or solemnize a legal wedding. These include Justices of the Peace, members of the clergy (including Life-Cycle Celebrants who are non-denominational ministers), and judges. Anyone can apply to be an officiant for the day (a one-day solemnized), and if their application is approved by the governor, they can marry one specific couple. 

In Western Massachusetts, there are a small number of Justices of the Peace. Why? 

The population of western Massachusetts is small, and since Justices are assigned based on town population, there are fewer JPs to perform weddings. That’s part of why I became a Life-Cycle Celebrant – to offer a service to my community! My town is small so there is only one JP. He is great, but shouldn’t everyone have options?

What’s the difference in training between a Life-Cycle Celebrant and a Justice of the Peace? 

Life-Cycle Celebrants are trained in ceremony construction and ceremonial public speaking. We have taken the equivalent of two semesters of coursework to be certified, and the core of our practice is the creation of custom ceremonies. JPs are judicial officers who have been appointed by the governor. They are legally authorized to solemnize marriages, but are not necessarily trained in ceremony construction.

ASK YOUR OFFICIANT if they are trained in ceremony construction. 

ASK YOUR OFFICIANT what elements of their ceremony are standard and which are customizable.

Why choose a Life-Cycle Celebrant instead of a JP?

If you would like a custom ceremony with personalized elements, seek out a Celebrant. Life-Cycle Celebrants always include a professionally-crafted telling of Your Love Story as part of the ceremony. Through interviews, we find out about your history together, and using our specialized skills, we tell that story as part of you custom, unique ceremony. 

If you are looking for a standard ceremony or an elopement, you may find both Celebrants and JPs offer quality service. My elopement rates are the same as the state-mandated JP rates – $100 in my town of residence (Montague), $150 in all other towns.

In general, I do not schedule weekend elopement ceremonies; I reserve the weekends for my standard or custom wedding clients. Those rates begin at $250 for standard weekend dates, $500 for custom written weddings.

My brother would do a great job as a JP for the day. Why not choose him?

A close friend or family member may be the ideal person to solemnize your wedding. If so, go for it! Having a loved one pronounce you married is a wonderful moment to remember. However, if they are not skilled writers or familiar with ceremony construction (the order of the elements, readings, etc), you may want to consider working with a Life-Cycle Celebrant as a consultant only. If you don’t need me to perform the ceremony, but you would like me to write it, I’m happy to do that! Email me for more information

Upcoming Workshops

In April and May I will be teaching my introductory workshop “Write Your Birth Story.” It is a transformative evening of inspiration and exercises. Register through Grow here. 

You will walk away with a new understanding of why your story is so important and a concrete plan to write a keepsake birth story for your family.

Email me with any questions!

Making a Living As a Writer

I know that many of you, like me, are resolving to get more writing done in 2014. 

But that’s not really a resolution – that’s something I remind myself every day when I wake up. Sometimes I try to quantify it by setting word counts, or by setting some blogging goal (once a week, a substantial post!). Getting more writing done really just serves that part of my soul that is bending under the weight of untold stories.

This year, though, I do have a shift in mind. For years, I have made the majority of my living from teaching skills to others – writing, mostly, with a little life lesson sprinkled in. For years, I have helped set the bar, asked students to achieve, and assessed their ability to meet my guidelines.

I’m done with that. I’m finished with assessing others and their writing – this is how I know I don’t want to go into editing or being an agent. I’m done with grading papers or even coming up with clever writing assignments. Teaching writing is NOT the only way to make a living as a writer!

This year, I’m ready to make my living from selling my words. 

Now, to many people that means traditional or independent publishing of fiction. Yes, that is on my radar, and that is where I intend to put the bulk of my energy this year. I am much closer to that than I’ve ever been, and it’s because of this manuscript that is itching to get out the door and into the hands of my dream agent. But that’s not the only way to make money as a writer, and I think that it is important to make that clear to young or new writers. 

I am making a living as a writer, that much is true. I beleive that 2014 is the year that my income stream really will shift from selling my teaching skills toward selling my written words. Wahoo! Now, back to the revisions!

Beyond Words: Aaron Becker’s Journey – My (Mock) Caldecott Winner

The most distinguished picture book of the year combines fantastical worlds with an engaging narrative arc. In Aaron Becker’s Journey, every illustration showcases the evocative power of watercolors and underscores the main theme of adventure. 

 

Journey is about a lonely city girl who journeys into new lands through the power of her red marker, and it is this world-building that sets Becker’s work apart from his contemporaries. Though he demonstrates an eye for perspective and a definite talent with ink and watercolor, the success of his paintings is a result of how each distinct setting reflects the emotion and conflict at the core of the scene. For example, the initial full-bleed double spread indicates the girl’s loneliness and detachment from others: her family members are in separate boxes and the other children are separated from her by the gutter. When she attempts connection with the family, she is rebuffed and retreats to her own gray box, floating in an airframe, a wonderful depiction of her increasing loneliness. The next full-bleed double spread of the forest is magical and expansive, indicating an emotional shift toward hope. The two double-spreads of an outrageously complex waterfall city include detailed illustrations of an innovative castle, but it is the friendliness of the soldiers and her mid-page placement with upward diagonals that suggest a hopefulness at this point in the journey.

It is here that Becker’s storytelling skills become most evident, and he begins to focus on external conflicts. When the girl’s red boat drop out from under her, she recovers by drawing a hot air balloon. She shares a goodbye (and the verso) with the friendly guards but is placed in a new world, the clouds. In the next spread, the red of her balloon dominates the page and the girl is large, closer than she has ever been to the reader. However, our attention is attracted to the purple bird on the recto, and this careful use of expansiveness and the gutter heightens the tension of the scene. The series of illustrations that follow are dreary, and just when the flattest, gray composition implies that there is no hope, the page turn brings the warmth of a sunrise and the return of the red marker. The girl draws a magic carpet to escape and is transported to yet another world.

If Becker’s world-building is a mark of excellence, it is the art on the blank white pages that distinguishes this book from other wordless picturebooks. Every white page is a moment during which the protagonist takes action and changes the story. If the full bleeds give an understanding of place, the white pages give an understanding of the character. In the beginning she is lonely: she is ignored by her three family members. She is imaginative: she draws a door out of her boring life. She is resourceful: she draws a boat, a balloon, and a flying carpet when the need arises. She is brave: she climbs onto the golden pagoda and she steals the bird. She is empathetic: she fights against the guards that hold her. She is friendly: she co-creates a tandem bicycle when she meets the boy with the purple marker.

One of the great joys of the wordless picture book is the trail of hints left by the author. The repetition of modes of transportation on the end papers is only the beginning of the visual nods to travel. The children playing in the first spread have objects related to transportation, a bicycle and a skate board. There are a number of signifiers for movement in that setting as well: the stairwell, and the bird, and a winged figure on the top of one of the buildings that is the same shape as that which will appear on the golden pagoda. In her room there are symbols of voyage: a map, a poster of egypt, a hot air balloon hanging from the ceiling, stars and planets on her dresser, and a plane in the window. Even the title page is rich with symbolic images of travel: the scooter, the street signs, the intraiconic representation of the bus. It’s particularly fun to note that it is only when the cat moves off the drawing supplies (heaven knows how cats want to be on paper!) that she sees the marker that will be her escape. Each new read of this book reveals another layer of visual storytelling, and for these reasons and more, Journey deserves the Caldecott Award.

Write Your Birth Story – Workshop

I’m so excited to be offering my workshop “Write Your Birth Story” next month at Grow in Northampton. Fun and creative writing activities to get your birth story down in words!

Writing Retreats

I haven’t been here 24 hours, but it has already proved to be fabulous. I’m in the hills of Pennsylvania at the Highlights Foundation for the Whole Novel Historical Workshop. The location is superb, the food is fantastic, and the opportunity to have a week of writing and reflection time is thrilling.

We each have our own cabin with a coffee maker, a fridge, and a bathroom. Our cabins are set atop a hill and it is peaceful and quiet. In fact, the only noise I heard last night was early this morning about 5 o’clock. I think it was a dog, but it might have been a coyote…

Bright and early this morning I dragged myself out of bed to shower and get up for dawn yoga – 6:30 am. Refreshing, engaging, and wonderful. I wonder why I don’t get myself to yoga class every day, never mind once a month. It renews my interest in nurturing my yoga practice.

After breakfast this morning, I met with the agent who is my mentor (Linda Pratt of Wernick and Pratt). She is both encouraging and clear about what works in my novel and what still needs help. I agree with her wholeheartedly, and as soon as I’m done with this post I’m going to settle in with some pastels and storyboard to get the story arc down a little bit more, then settle into crafting new scenes for the book. An hour to talk with someone who has read your entire novel-in-progress is truly wonderful. Having someone care about your story as much as you do is a gift indeed. 

Later this afternoon, a Newbery Honor author (Kirby Lawson, author of Hattie Big Sky) is going to give a lecture about writing historical fiction. Then we have our appetizers and wine, followed by dinner, and trivia night. What a day!

If you can ever get the opportunity to come to Highlights for a workshop, go! It’s only the first day and I’m already feeling so happy I did!

I might even keep up with NaNoWriMo since I might need a break from the piece I’m working on now. But even if I have to make up a bunch of words in the last three weeks of November, I think that will be okay. I’m going to leave here refreshed and inspired, I can tell.

NaNoWriMo and Me

Okay, so it’s my third (maybe fourth?) attempt at winning NaNoWriMo. Twice I’ve tried Camp NaNoWriMo and at least twice I’ve thought about the November session – so, yeah, fourth attempt at getting 50,000 words in one month.

But this month is different. This month I feel the pressure. I have a manuscript (at least the first third of it) due in January, and another third every month until my April revisions. Granted, it’s not for publication (yet), but these mentorship due dates are really and truly firm, so I need to get these done. One doesn’t mess with deadlines and publishing professionals.

This month is also different because I am spending the first week of the month at a writing retreat. Sounds like a perfect time to NaNoWriMo, right? Well, except that my work in progress for the retreat is already written. So that can’t count. The NaNoWriMo is partly written, and I won’t use those chapters except as padding (I am wriitng another 50,000 words, I am!), so I will need to be a little bit fragmented if I am going to work on this manuscript while I’m away at the workshop.

While all this is going on, I am also going to try to do a daily blog. Doesn’t take much more time than a tweet, but it is more substantial and helps me organize my thoughts much more than a tweet. I have four blogs, so I should be able to beef those up a bit as the month progresses.

So, join me, and let me know how many words you’ve got. I’m already about 500 words behind, but it’s Saturday, so maybe I’ll get ahead somehow!

Art of the Journal

Western Massachusetts folks – check out my next writing workshop.  

Saturday, October 19th

The Art of the Journal – memoir writing, journal making, and blogging

at Greenfield Community College, downtown campus.  Check out their Lifetime Learning page for more information.

Manuscripts

I’m at this point in my writing life – the point where I start using the term “manuscript.”

That doesn’t mean I’m using the term “working writer” but I do have a complete manuscript.  One that real people are reading. People other than my classmates, my partner, my kids, my students.  People who have a career in the publishing field.

You’d think I would feel excited!

And I do, but I also feel nervous.  Most days I feel my manuscript is so underdeveloped I might as well have given them a story written by my eight year old.  I get paralyzed with the fear of being exposed as a horrible writer.  I give in to every horrible thought I ever had about myself, as a writer, as a student, as a person.  It’s pretty horrible.

But then I remember this: when I sent out my manuscript, no one laughed.  No one tore it up and told me to go back where I came from and stop putting words to paper.  And then I remember that even if they did, I would still be putting words down.  here, and in one of my notebooks, and on the sticky notes I can’t seem to stop using.  Asking me to stop writing is a lot like asking me to stop walking.  Yeah, I did it once when I was confined to bed rest, but I didn’t completely stop, and I still walked to the bathroom, and I knew I would start back up again. 

So I go back to writing, and writing when I feel good and, now that I have deadlines for revision, writing when I feel vulnerable.

I may not be Kate DiCamillo, but I can try to write as beautifully as she does.  After all, it’s those moments of getting words down that finally add up to that elusive thing: the manuscript.  

Now, if I could only *sell* it…..