We’ll bike, walk, hike, ride boats and the train, drive my father’s twenty-plus year old station wagon. We’ll eat fifteen-hundred different foods, try new wines, the house special of a mom and pop winemaker, we’d never find in the stores here. We’ll meet old friends we’ve known for 40 years.

Best of all we’ll see my father, my daughter and my sister, nephews and brother-in-law. Family is what it’s all about.

Readers have Neither Time nor Patience

I don’t know about you, but the typical visitor spends only seconds on a site. If the site doesn’t catch your attention, you’re on to another one of the millions of webpages out there. That goes for blogs just as well as selling a service, product, soliciting donations or simply conveying information.

Here are some of the common ailments of today’s websites:

-          Confusing layouts

-          Bad design

-          Flash

-          Too much content

-          Too little (also as in boring) content

-          Using the homepage as a dumping ground

-          Wrong content – written for people in the industry, not target audience(s)

-          Nondescript/confusing tabs

-          Illogical/non-user friendly content organization

-          Aged look and/or content

I could go on, but you get the picture.

What Makes a Good Website?

Effective websites consider their target audience(s). What are the benefits, what’s in it for your customer/visitor. Is the copy clearly written, conveying understandable key messages? Is the content short and succinct, logically organized? Do messaging, art and design support the brand? Do you apply search engine optimization (SEO) such as headers, keywords and tags to draw attention to the site?

Next time, you’re hurrying away from a webpage, ask yourself why. If you own a site, take a critical look. Select a handful of trusted clients, have them to review the site and provide feedback. You may be surprised what you learn.

Many books have been written about effective web communication. But then, that’d require visiting the library or old-fashioned reading. Maybe that explains it.

Consider the target or should I say treasured celebrity of the fly-fisher(wo)man, the elusive trout, a delicacy that thrives in cold streams. In order to catch trout, we use a “fly,” an artificial bug offered in more colors than a rainbow (I’m thinking fish again). The hook is just large enough to seize the trout’s bony lip and hold tight through the dance of reeling it in. But let’s start at the beginning.

Fly-fishing requires standing in icy water up to your waste for indefinite lengths of time. While the lower half of the body gradually turns to slush, the top swings the pole — thankfully light — in a sweeping pattern across the river to land the “fly” on the surface, acting “naturally” and swimming with the current. The fisher(wo)man watches for the tiniest change in the behavior of the bug. A dip may mean that the trout has just taken a bite. But wait! It’s disgusting, unworthy of being eaten.

Above the water, this is the moment: We jerk the pole to set the hook, the line whips the air and … the fish was quicker. The movement of swinging the line, placing the bug, focusing and waiting continues… Every time the fly lands, new hope emerges. This time, the trout will like to eat.

At last, we yank and hook at the correct instant. The pole bends like we’ve caught a whale — all is relative when considering the typical trout weighs a pound and the pole less than eight ounces. We reel as anxiety mounts. The fish is still beneath, next to impossible to see in the dark shadows of the stream. It darts back and forth, close then far. It must be huge. We begin to salivate. Almost there, grab the net.

The line goes slack. Mr. Trout has escaped with a new lip ring — our fly. By now, fingers are frozen and refuse to knot the thin and nearly translucent line to a new fly. Not to mention that our eyes hurt from staring at the stream and refuse to focus on the tiny loop the line has to navigate. We wade to dry land, ready to warm our frozen extremities, ready for hot coffee or something stronger. Definitely something stronger!

For the uninitiated who don’t see the connection. Here it is spelled out in plain English:

Like fly-fishing, writing requires

• Skill
• Patience
• Perseverance in light of uncertainty
• Dealing with discomfort
• Lots of time
• Luck
• Timing

There are more, but you’ll have to find them yourself. Those that love to fly-fish will always want to do it. Those that write must write. What else can I say?

No matter how good the odds, I don’t win. Considering that more than a thousand submissions land in an editor’s or literary agent’s inbox on a monthly basis, lots of luck is required to draw the agent’s attention. Even if I have painstakingly followed every submission guideline, had my query reviewed, critiqued, edited and revised at least 65 times, success still requires catching the very busy, overworked and distracted editor at the right moment. Further complicated by the evermore uncertain publishing environment: the shrinking number of book stores and the shaky fate of the printed page. Brrrh! Even digging for gold in Alaska seems to promise better chances.

The harder I work the more luck I have. John Heywood

Therefore, I’ve decided to bet on perseverance. Didn’t John Heywood say, that “the harder he worked the more luck he had?” I’ve decided this attitude is the only way, I will succeed. Especially after reading in one of the writer magazines that one of its successful authors had submitted a story 87 times before achieving first place and publication in a well-known literary magazine. She also shared that she’d been turned down by the same magazine for the same exact story a few months earlier. Amazing!

I don’t know if I’d have the stamina to submit one story this many times. I’d hopefully seek and receive feedback long before and keep revising. But I am convinced that my stories will conquer. Especially after submitting one of the chapters in my first competition and placing as a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Fiction Open. I had to mention it one more time. Now, back to work — luck is on its way.

Nowhere else is this more obvious than when communicating with non-writers. How do you explain that you just spent four hours revising a few pages of text? Alone in your room, oh, and you forgot to eat, answer the phone — and the kitchen is a mess. Your husband comes home and looks at you strangely. What have you been doing all day?

Em, write.

I expect that the new Broadway comedy “Seminar” with one of my all-time favorite actors Alan Rickman will exploit this theme. No better person to express the strangeness of writing and writers. It’s supposed to be super funny and I’d love to see the play. In the loneliness of our offices, often struggling with the next word, phrase, paragraph, okay, the entire structure, we could use an Alan Rickman to teach us a few morsels of wisdom. If nothing else, he’d make us laugh, and of course pant a bit. Can you tell I’m a fan?

So here is the link to a special give-away “Seminar” which promises tickets to a lucky blogger, tweeter or FB addict.  Do I feel lucky? Do I?

Many of us who live somewhere other than where we grew up, consider home in two places, a split personality of sorts. My original home is in Solingen, Germany, where my father still lives in the same house he moved to in 1946 — where I spent my childhood, went to school, dated boys and became an adult.

I moved away more than 25 years ago, yet I still consider it, I admit a bit nostalgically, my home. Not much has changed inside my parents’ house. The furniture, the decorations, the garden, even the smells of my mother’s soap are just like I remember them. Meanwhile, Solingen has gone through a huge transformation, most of it for the worse. The familiar shops are gone, the hills behind my father’s house cramped with new villas and high rises.

Despite its similarities I feel like a stranger when I visit. I don’t quite belong despite the fact I still have old friends from high school. The more I seek to retrace my steps and look for the familiar, the less I find it. Nothing quite fits any more.

I think of people who seek but can’t go back to their homes — like the pioneers who left their homes and countries never to return — because they are unable to travel or because their villages and homes no longer exist. At least I am lucky that way. My father still lives and even my home still stands.

I return to plunge into my past, scenes edged into my memory, my grandfather, Opa Artur, digging in the garden, my mother sitting under the plum tree knitting yet another immaculate sweater. But memories are fickle, they are fleeting and the more I try to attach myself, the fuzzier they get. Yet I am lucky to have them as part of my past and I commit to cherish them. I get my fill and soon return to my other home — in the U.S., my sweet husband, my children and my dog. Where I belong — too!

Writing Routine

Thousands of web pages give advice on writing routines, when to write, how long to write, how many pages, not too much, not too little. Some say you should write every day and some say, you should take time off to rest. Aside from the advice columns there are the authors describing their writing schedules. Now it gets really weird. Some authors and we are talking published, well-known writers write in the shower – how do they do this without getting everything wet – on a typewriter, in a coma-like state of day and night writing. As varied as the written word – that’s also the name of our writers group – as varied are the habits of authors.

I think every individual will decide for themselves what schedule works best. It only becomes a problem if the writer can’t write. This avoidance behavior, also called writer’s block, leads authors down the path of spring-cleaning, taking out garbage, sorting office files, paying bills and doing yard-work. All meant to distract from the fact that they should sit in front of their computer, laptop or paper pad to create a story.

Anyway, I write every other day to allow time to work outside the home – yes I still have to and want to keep my writing, even though it’s copywriting fresh – and no, I am considering my stories a labor of love and not work.

Disappearance Act

Writing makes me disappear from earth. I get so involved when I am spinning my characters and their mishaps that I forget the time, the chair I sit on, my dog who snores on her bed next to me, the phone, even Facebook and e-mail. Nothing matters. By the time, I resurface my back hurts, my mouth is dry and I am starving. Isn’t it strange how the brain lets us escape?

Mood Swings

The worst parts about writing are mood swings. No, I always feel great when I write. I love it. It’s power in my fingers. My characters must sweat, ache, cry and suffer and I am enjoying their struggles. I mean the bad feelings that surface when I am sending out chapters or researching agents and publishers. And wait for the decline letters or the silence which also means “no, thank you.” The doubts that nag deep down about how well I write and how good my stories are and if indeed anyone would want to read them. Yet, I keep going. And feel good again.

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to a lecture by Tim O’Brien, most famous for his short story collection “The Things They Carried.” In front of a packed audience at Indiana University, Tim spoke about Vietnam, about his young sons and the effects war has. He said war never ends. It doesn’t end when the soldier goes home, when he reenters civilian life, it doesn’t end when he dies, it doesn’t end when the soldier’s mother and father die and his children grow up. War affects everyone connected. Until everyone is gone. That’s precisely what I’ve tried to wrap my arms around when I wrote “From the Ashes.” I cannot even begin to understand how people, my grandparents and parents included, during and after the war, a war that lasted nearly six years, could go on and pretend that it hadn’t happened. That all was well. All I know is that they didn’t talk about it. Nobody talked.

Two Heads

Tim O’Brien also used the metaphor of having two or more heads. He said he hoped most of us had more than one head, meaning we have multiple, often opposing thoughts that keep us going back and forth, allowing us to see the gray between the black and white, the nuances to contemplate. Two heads allow us to think and comprehend that life isn’t one way, that there is more than one answer and more than one choice. I loved that. And people that have only one head may be dangerous, fanatical and unable to see the whole picture. Here again, I thought of WWII and how the world looked and still looks at Germany, when all things German during this time were and still are considered Nazi and evil. Murderers of Jews. Instigators of cruelty. Everyone. One head.

My mother, Helga, age 12 in 1944

Somehow I felt vindicated when listening to Tim. I am trying to make people see with two heads. That not all Germans, especially kids like my parents, were bad. How could they be? And if we knew more about what went on — precisely why I wrote the book — we might grow more heads — to be able to see better, maybe not understand, but think about it.

Not that having two heads would allow us to know the entire story, but it’s a step in the right direction. Who knows, maybe we’ll develop a third and fourth head. Thank you, Tim O’Brien!

Black Forest

Our first stop took us to the Black Forest, its wealth of wild game represented in its dishes. You’ll find all types of venison concoctions, ragouts and roasts of wild boar, deer and Hirsch,

Hirsch Ragout Venison with Spaetzle

the male deer, also rabbit, hare and wild trout. Accompany that with Spaetzle, a thick oddly shaped noodle, ideally suited to sop up gravies, and variations of potatoes, like Kroketten, mashed potatoes shaped into roles and deep-fried, and you’ll have an assortment of mouthwatering dishes, topped only by the real Black Forest torte.

Schwarzwaelder Kirsch - Black Forest Torte

Wait a minute, you say. I have eaten Black Forest cake from the local grocer. Not really. The original black forest torte cannot be compared with anything being baked or should I say faked in the U.S. The cake is made with Black Forest cherries, a small variety of sour cherries only grown in the region and Kirschwasser, a clear, high octane, unsweetened schnapps, distilled from the same cherries. Add to that chocolate cake, covered with chocolate, mountains of whipped cream and more chocolate sprinkles and you get a Black Forest paradise, even a full stomach can’t resist.

Mosel Region

Deeply set between steep hills, the Mosel meanders in snaking loops toward the Rhine. Two-thousand years ago, the Romans settled here to enjoy hot springs and teach locals how to grow wine. Hundreds of family businesses still compete with a few large producers to grow Riesling, Mueller-Thurgau and the occasional pinot, each with their own interpretation, designs and crazy names like Kroever Nacktarsch or Bernkasteler Doktor. No meal is complete without trying the house wine. On the menu, a cornucopia of pastas with meat, rump steak with green pepper sauce, more venison dishes, potato cakes and vegetables. No sauerkraut. Not one dish. Not even cooked cabbage.

White Asparagus

Instead we found separate asparagus menus, German restaurants offer during May and June. Compared to our green asparagus, the European variety is white and much thicker. Peeled and steamed in salt water, it tastes milder than its American cousin and is typically offered with boiled potatoes, accompanied by smoked or cooked ham, schnitzel — yes, I was going to mention them — and of course the queen of sauces, hollandaise.

Mid-Rhine Region

The majority of German towns offer regional or citywide specialties, and the Mid-Rhine Region, including Cologne, Duesseldorf, Solingen and Krefeld is no exception. In Cologne you can order a “Halve Hahn” which translated means half a rooster, except that it has nothing to do with meat. Can you guess? It’s a bread roll with Gouda cheese. Another staple on most menus is the lowly herring. While we may be familiar with the sour herring, the virgin

Matjes Herring in Cream Sauce

herring, called Matjes, tastes mild and melts in your mouth. It is served plain with onion rings, mixed with cream or chopped with apples in herring salad and accompanied by potatoes. We still didn’t find sauerkraut.

Lake Constance

Traveling around Lake Constance, or the Bodensee, in the southwestern corner of Germany, we came across the famous Bodensee Felchen, a lake trout, fried in butter and lemon, smoked or boiled “blue.” We found — like most places in Germany — Schnitzel variations, either made with traditional pork tenderloin or veal, breaded and fried, combined with toppings, including plain with a wedge of lemon, hunter-style with mushroom sauce, Hungarian with red or green peppers or baked with spinach and cheese. Or topped with a fried egg as a snack for in-between. Thanks to Germany’s Italian neighbors, we enjoyed baked tortellini with chicken in cream sauce, spaghetti with vegetable and cheese toppings. Most places even offered a

Spaghetti Vegetarian

handful of vegetarian dishes like roasted vegetables with baked Gouda or baked brie with Preiselbeeren, tiny red berries that taste similar to cranberries. And there were always salad platters with and without meat. Still no sauerkraut.

Baked Brie

Germans love cheeses and meats, maybe, because they are close to France and Holland where cheese-making has a long tradition or maybe because of the thousands of butchers that craft the most savory lunch meats and smoked sausages. Okay, here I finally get to the brats. Yes, you will find them everywhere and their variety is staggering. Smoked or fresh, made from pork, chicken, horse (sorry) or beef, sausages are a main ingredient in many dishes, not as much for main courses, but breakfasts and Brotzeit or

Homemade Sausage Platter

Vesper, the in-between afternoon meals for lighter appetites.

But of course, Germans must eat sauerkraut. Somewhere. That’s correct, I have to admit. Though we didn’t visit all sixteen German states, I know, sauerkraut is prevalent in Bavaria. Most other places rarely consider it a restaurant-worthy dish.

My American friends were convinced. But they still want to eat my sauerkraut.

Then my daughter weighed in. It was not enough to write the story. It had to be read by my still living father, who, after all, is one of the two protagonists. Except for the small problem that it was written in English and my father neither spoke nor read English. He must read it before he dies, my daughter urged. But I don’t have the time, I argued. And my German is rusty. It doesn’t matter, my daughter said. It’s his story and even if it doesn’t get published, he needs to read it.

It’s no surprise for anyone multi-lingual that the speaking and writing of languages requires constant practice. As soon as one stops speaking for a while, the active memory begins to shrink. It’s like working out. The linguistic muscles shrivel just like your thighs.

I’ve been living in the U.S. since 1987 and though I have continued speaking German regularly, my written German is less than stellar. Over the years, English syntax has crept in, the use of prepositions has become less familiar and in general, my internal thesaurus is much smaller in the German language than in the English.

But dad is 82 and I was heading to see my father in May, when a few weeks before my trip I decided it was time. And so I set to work translating. The first page was torture, the second still painful but with each page, translation became easier, smoother. Thank goodness for online translation resources, my old-fashioned paper thesaurus and dictionaries.

I worked through the first 50 pages and presented them to my father upon arrival. I warned that much of my writing was imperfect, flawed with questionable grammar, definitely rougher than the English version. And that most of all, it was my interpretation of events.

My Father's Personal Book Cover

He sat down within the day and began to read—and wouldn’t stop until all 50 pages were finished. What had taken me weeks to do, he read in three hours.
“So,” I said. “How did you like it?”
“Interesting,” he said.
I waited for more, but he remained strangely quiet. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.
“What did you think?” I asked.
“It’s hard,” he said. “Difficult to read as I am diving into memories that were long buried.”

I thought I’d made up most of the situations, dialogue, etc. but here was my father, telling me, that it was coming back and that it seemed real.

I only imagined how my father must have felt, when his father, then his brother (17) were drafted. How he, compelled by hunger, slaughtered a horse with a hammer and dragged carts of quivering meat to his mother. I only imagined how he felt when he was drafted at 16 and, with his friend, hid in the woods until the end of the war. Only to find out that all his classmates had disappeared. He had told me facts. But I filled in the feelings. Was it too much? Was it tearing open his heart with a pickaxe?

“Remember, Vater, I made up a lot of it,” I offered.
He nodded.
Had I expected accolades or praise? That he would be happy and laughing. I don’t know. I had tried to do the right thing and write his story. But was it the right thing? Or was it cruel to take him back to what must have been the worst time of his life, a time of horrific danger, bombs, unending hunger and emotional hardship?
“How long is it?” he finally said.
“More than 400 pages.”
“I see. Will I get to read the rest?”
His curiosity about what I had done with his life and heart on paper seemed stronger than the pain of revisiting his past. I will finish translation, one word, one sentence and one page at a time. However long it takes, but quickly. For my dad. Because he deserves it.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ll get to read it all.”

The Author and her Father