Starting Over

If I had a penny for every day that has passed since my last blog posting, I'd have enough money for a movie ticket, maybe. But not in 3D or for popcorn and a coke. Needless to say (but I'm saying it anyway), a lot of time has gone by, so much in fact, that I had to Google a string of quoted words to even locate my blog.  I searched for "Lisa Marlin" "penny chronicles" "wishing penny" "1973 cent," etc., until finally! There it...I...was!

Recovering my sign-on name and password presented another challenge. If I had a penny for every email account and name change I've had in my lifetime, it's quite possible I'd have enough money to make a movie! But I persisted and discovered the code to get here. Obviously.

So here we are again. Me and my penny stories. 

On January 1, 2013, I resoluted [lisa-speak for made a resolution] to write 300 words a day on my penny novel. Or was it 300 syllables? Maybe letters. Whatever my pledge, I figure I still have plenty of time left in the year to catch up. As if. No, I won't catch up. But I will start over, or at least from where I left off. 

Callie is my 14-year-old main character. She's been stuck in Albuquerque since early February, waiting for me to write her onto the next page. I left her holding a 1973 penny that she is attempting to trace back to one of its original owners before her medical condition worsens. Her recovery and the fate of a want-to-be rock star named Tommy hang in the balance and I'm the one holding the scale.

Encourage-cent

I was leaving my friend's office the other day where I had stopped for an "atta girl" that I had desperately needed. It was one of those drizzly, gray, heavy-hearted days, when I saw it. Pressed into the wet, gravelly road, I knew it didn't belong there. I pulled my car over and stepped back out into the chilly rain. Was it really what I thought it was? Waiting here? Just for me? Prying it free with the short tips of my fingernails, I enclosed it in my trembling hand and returned to the warmth of my car. Opening my palm, I held it closer to my eyes. Yes.

As is my habit, I squinted to see the penny's mint date, but this little cent was so battered and scraped, it was impossible to tell. With a scratched-up Lincoln Memorial on its backside, it could have been minted anywhere from 1959 to 2008. Glimmers of shiny copper made me think it was possibly a penny of the 90's. Maybe even newer. Still spendable, I'm sure. But I wouldn't do that. I laid it on my dashboard instead.

How did it get so beat-up? How did it land on this road? How was I able to see it there? I felt a connection to this worldly-worthless penny that had been lost, but then saved. The sky was darkening, the rain got heavier; my windshield wipers worked harder. The penny shifted across the dash, then flew into my lap. My heart lightened. I smiled. Atta girl.
_______________________

It has been more than six months since my last posting and it could possibly be another few before my next. Not because I have given up on writing, telling and listening to penny stories;  on the contrary, I have been busily doing all of that, and trying to be more organized in those endeavors. I'm working on a new website, working with more kids who are eagerly learning how to listen to pennies, and working, still, to gain the attention of a publisher who sees the value in all of this...just as I had in my rainy-day penny.

Lost in the sofa

How else do I explain my absence from my blog page? Like a penny that slips silently from a pocket into the deep swallows of couch cushions, the twists and turns in my life since the last posting have sent me to places I'd never expected to be in 2010. But, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Like that cent in the sofa, I've listened to a lot of interesting conversations, felt some rather odd sensations, and finally arrived at the realization that I've been just where I needed to be...up until now.

A little blonde-headed, hazeled-eyed girl, in search of a missing pink Barbie slipper, approached me with great excitement and showed me--not a tiny plastic shoe--but a tarnished penny that she'd discovered under our sofa cushions. The one question she asked was all it took for me to get back to penny things. "How do you think it got there, Mommy?"

And so, with new vim and vigor, I polished the found cent, set it by my laptop and began to listen for an answer to my daughter's question. I am also now working on updating my internet presence. Please check for future postings on my new blog at http://pennystory.com/.

Penny Chronicles–1938 / first 355 words

I am going to take a bold step and share a draft of the first page of my second novel here. At all the writing conferences I have attended, there is always a session where editors read the first page of a writer's manuscript and comment as to whether they would want to read further. If you can't grab them on page one, it does not matter how brilliantly written pages 54 and 112 may be! So, as I begin writing about my 1938 penny's journeys, I ask you, would you want to read more?

CHAPTER ONE

July 9, 1943

Glenn kicked the dirt, grunted, and then fell to his knees at the edge of the haystack. He hated his little sister. Well, maybe it wasn't hate. But at times like this he certainly did not like Gwen very much. He scooped up a handful of hay and picked through it. Nope, not here. He chucked it over his shoulder and then thrust his hand deep into the prickly pile.

He held up another fistful of hay and slowly opened his fingers, watching it rain to his knees. A round, brown object plunked his kneecap before hitting the ground. Finally. Glenn snatched it up, but as soon he touched it, he realized it was only a small stone. He tossed it over his shoulder.

"Ow!" came a voice from behind him.

Glenn closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Daddy!" the voice shrieked. "Glenn hit me in the eye!"

Glenn jumped to his feet and turned to face his curly blonde headed sister. "I didn't even know you was there," he said, his eyes burning a hole into Gwen's forehead. "You snuck up on me."

"Did not. You hit me on purpose."

"Ah, go back inside," he said, turning back to the haystack. "I can't be bothered with your whining. Gotta find that stupid thing before it gets dark."

"It ain't stupid. You are."

At this point, Glenn agreed with his sister, though he didn't let her know that. After all, if he'd been smart, he wouldn't be plucking through hay looking for a penny that bore the same date imprint of his sister's birth year: 1938. If he had it all to do over again, instead of actually throwing her coin in the haystack, he'd have only made her think he did. When Gwen tattled to their father, he would've shown it lying on the porch or near the tree swing and then swore his sister had left it there all along. Maybe she would have gotten in trouble this time. But probably not. She rarely got punished and it was especially unlikely to happen on her fifth birthday.

Hooper/Harlem penny pals

The fun just never ends around here! On Dec. 14, the 4th grade students in Mrs. Jen McQuitty's class in Hooper, CO, and their counterparts in Steve Bergen's computer class in Harlem, NY, shared what books they are reading with each other. Forty kids in all took turns stepping up to webcams in their classrooms with their books and reports in hand. They discovered that they like to read a lot of the same authors, play the same sports and some of them even have first names in common. Harlem's Dylan and Jasmine smiled broadly when they were introduced to Hooper's equally happy Dylan and Jasmine.

Even as their teachers signed-off, the kids' work was not finished. They'll be emailing book reports to each other, along with pictures of themselves. Of course, with me involved, there's a plan in the works to include pennies in their future correspondence. We're calling it Penny Pals. More to come on that.

Where did you see 73?

Louise saw the 1973 minted penny in her coin purse, so did Kelly; in fact Kelly saw two 73s when she dumped the contents of her wallet on her desk! Darryl found a 73 in a handful of change. A nurse in Alamosa freed three 73s from her husband's coin jar. Some Colorado fifth graders discovered a 73 lurking among the pennies they'd brought in for a school fundraiser. Texas fourth graders didn't know for sure which one of them gave a 73 a ride to school, but there it was in a pile of pennies turned in during my Penny Project presentation at their school in October.

I have seen a 73 in the "leave a penny take a penny" dish at convenient stores and restaurants. I take these 73s and but I always leave another year behind in their place. On an outing with my son to see a friend's musical at Buena Vista High School, I discovered a 73 along the ticket line. I immediately phoned my husband and told him, "You'll never guess what I found!" Of course he didn't have to guess because he already knew. "You found a 73. I can hear it in your voice," he replied.

All these 73s, and still, none of them profess to be the 73 I met years ago. This 73 had dropped into my palm as change in a drive-thru window at a fast food restaurant in East Texas. I'd noticed its mint date and wondered aloud where it had been during its years in circulation. Amazingly, it told me and I wrote what it spoke. But within months of capturing the tales of its journeys in my manuscript, "Penny Chronicles," I misplaced it!

Did I spend it at a store somewhere, toss it in a wishing well, drop it on a sidewalk, donate it to a penny fundraiser, lose it in a washing machine? I don't know. But I've been asking everyone I know everywhere I go: Where did you see 73?

(And for anyone wondering if I have lost my mind: Nope. Just my 73.)

Giving thanks from Hooper to Harlem

From the New York City skyline to the purple mountains majesty, second grade classrooms in Harlem and Hooper came together on Nov. 16 to work on a Thanksgiving project. With webcams focused on each classroom, the children wrote and drew in unison about things for which they are thankful. Each student then took turns stepping up to the camera to share their papers, even "shaking" hands with one another!

It was great fun watching our Hooper students--who attend a school surrounded by potato fields in a town of less than 150 residents--share this activity with kids who attend a school overshadowed by tall buildings in the borough of America’s most populated city. From two time zones, on opposite sides of the camera, the kids gave thanks for many of the same things, including their moms and dads, cousins and pets. One child shared that she was thankful for her brother, even though he is mean to her. Admittedly, I almost shed a tear when a youngster shared that he was thankful for pennies. I told the kids that it was, in fact, Abraham Lincoln who signed a proclamation declaring Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

KENY-TV reporter Kari reports on the classroom skype at: http://www.kenytv.com/video/sangre-de-cristo-2nd-graders-share-thanks