Tag: Writing

DNC – Day One

On By VickieIn Current Events, photography, politics, Writing5 Comments

Before I get started on this post, I need to apologize for not following through with my plan to post after each day of the DNC. So much was going on each day that I didn’t get home until pretty late and was absolutely exhausted. I did little more than upload my photos to my computer each night before collapsing in bed. And then Friday morning, I left town for a family memorial, meaning I didn’t do any writing while away. So now is my chance to catch up!

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Day One of the DNC was promised to be the day with the largest protest, led by the Coalition to March on the DNC which represented over 200 groups. They advertised that they were expecting tens of thousands. Not quite. But thousands did show up.

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DNC: The Pre-Convention Protest

On By VickieIn Current Events, photography, politics, Writing5 Comments

When I woke up Saturday morning to take a walk, I was surprised to find chain link fences surrounding the historic Water Tower. I especially love the large blue sign hung on the facade facing Michigan Avenue stating, “Chicago DNC Welcome.” Half of the sign is obscured by the fence. In addition, the streets on each of the three sides of the Water Tower, as well as a couple of other streets, were also blocked off. In addition to the fences are stations to conduct searches and obstacles to stop cars from crashing through.

Apparently everyone was surprised to wake up to this sight. It had not been previously announced and was completed under cover of night. Turns out that VIPs, including Kamala Harris, are staying at hotels on those streets.

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Election 2024: traveling to the RNC and the DNC

On By VickieIn Current Events, photography, politics, WritingLeave a comment

What started as a single exercise to get me out of my comfort zone has grown into a regular gig photographing protests here in Chicago. Over the past two years, I have improved my skills dramatically, I have found the courage to photograph people unapologetically, I have claimed the authority to record what is going on out in the streets, I have befriended a handful of photographers who are doing the same thing as I am, and I have learned a LOT about people, politics, and propaganda.

We are about to embark on what is likely to be a crazy timeline to be living through (as if the past four + years haven’t already been insane!) as we count down the days to the 2024 presidential election.

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The Best of Times: Thoughts on Teaching

On By VickieIn Education, teaching1 Comment

Watching the current protests occurring on university campuses has gotten me thinking back on my own teaching career and the controversies and protests that I lived through at my own campus.

I spent 25 years as an English professor in Los Angeles, and when I moved to Chicago in 2019, I stepped back in my career and sought a part-time position at a community college in the Loop. Unfortunately, a month and a half into my first semester there, politicians imposed the “14 days to stop the spread” lockdown, which ultimately lasted for multiple semesters. It also resulted in my decision to permanently walk away from teaching. 

I have no regrets. I simply refused to teach under the circumstances given to us during COVID lockdowns. Remote teaching for an at-risk population with limited resources, such as at Harold Washington College, was useless. Maybe not for all classes but certainly for a developmental English course. So I refused to participate. 

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Thoughts on the Demise of the Tooth Fairy

On By VickieIn familyLeave a comment

In the early 2000s when my kids were very young, I wrote a monthly column for a Los Angeles parenting magazine, but I also spent my free time away from teaching writing opinion pieces, narrative nonfiction, personal essays, political commentary, and anything else that interested me. Some of those were submitted to (and often published in!) a variety of magazines, newspapers, and even websites. Others were never sent anywhere but served as a means of honing my craft. After all, according to Malcolm Gladwell and his book Outliers, I needed to clock my 10,000 hours. So I wrote and wrote.

What follows is an essay I wrote in 2003 – over twenty years ago! The fun part about this is I completely forgot about the day my daughter discovered I was the tooth fairy, leaving me eternally grateful for having captured this in words. 

How about you? Do you remember when your kids discovered that you were the tooth fairy?

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Thoughts on Books and the Family Dog

On By VickieIn Captain, Captain and the Greyhounds, Dogs, family, WritingLeave a comment

Today is a huge milestone for me.

Seven years ago I started this blog, and I had no idea what I was doing. But the first two posts take on whole new meaning for me today. The first blog post was titled “Captain!” It was only a few paragraphs about the family dog and the fact that he was the inspiration for a screenplay I was woking on.

The second was titled “Captain and the Greyhound.” It’s purpose was to announce the name of the screenplay (which has since changed to Captain and the Greyhounds!). It also consisted of only a few paragraphs.

Read more: Thoughts on Books and the Family Dog

If fact, it should be no surprise that the dog in the blog photo is that same dog, Captain.

Since then, this blog grew into something completely different. I only wrote two other posts concerning the screenplay. As part of my research, I visited one of the few remaining greyhound racing tracks still in existence: Tucson Greyhound Park. The place was completely run down and close to closing. And the few people who were there were very suspicious of me, an outsider, assuming I was there for nefarious reasons. You can read about my trip to Tuscon in Part 1 and Part 2.

The rest of the posts on this blog have been a sharing of my thoughts on a very wide range of topics. I love writing here. It has served as a great outlet for my ideas and inspiration. 

I did complete the screenplay. I shopped it around and een had some bites. But then Trump got elected and those bites ran scared, certain that the economy would collapse and World War III would break out. People were hesitant to fund unknowns, especially in entertainment.

Many years have passed. I still have Captain, who is now 15 years old, and I live in Chicago, having lost track of my Los Angeles contacts since then.

But I have now come full circle. Today, the book Captain and the Greyhounds, a children’s chapter book aimed at 6-11 year olds, has been published!

It’s about an adventurous terrier mutt who is busy planning his escape from the people who adopted him – until the greyhound next door goes missing, and he learns the importance of family.

If you have children, grandchildren, know children, know people with children, or you enjoy reading, you can order the book on Amazon! And let me know what you think. My goal is to turn this into a series of books.

Also, please don’t forget to leave a review!

Just released!

Captain and the Greyhounds by Vickie Oddino

Available on Amazon

Thoughts on Funerals and Rebirth

On By VickieIn family, Writing1 Comment

When my son was in high school, the wife of one of his baseball coaches passed away in her thirties, leaving her husband with four young children. The Catholic funeral was packed with people, literally standing room only. The Mass was beautiful, moving, and also heartbreaking. And I had an important revelation.

Even though I attended a Methodist church with my family when growing up, I have not belonged to any church since graduating high school. And I didn’t raise my children in a church either; however, I did send them both to religious schools. I felt like the education provided was better than the local alternative, and I appreciated the focus on character and values. But that didn’t mean I raised them in a religious household.

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Writing Process (Part 6)

On By VickieIn Cassandra's Daughter, Writing4 Comments

Today’s post is the last installment of my series on the writing process of taking Cassandra’s Daughter from idea to print, a process that took years in the making!

If you haven’t read the series from the beginning, you can start HERE. In the previous post, I got my draft pretty darn close to being finalized. The main step that was left at this point was preparing the manuscript.

This was the stage where my experience with Clara’s Journal proved the most valuable. I should probably also point out that what a lot of people may not realize is just how much the traditional publishing world has changed. I had pretty much decided that I would go the self-publishing route. The cons for going with a traditional publisher simply had too many cons on the ledger. 

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Writing Process (Part 5)

On By VickieIn Cassandra's Daughter, WritingLeave a comment
First cover attempt

What follows is Part 5 of my discussion of the writing process I went through to get Cassandra’s Daughter to print. In this installment, I am coming close to feeling like I might actually have a final draft. And I should point out that when I say a final draft, by no means did that mean I thought it was nearly finished. I had just gotten it close to a point where I might be willing to let someone (other than my children) read it.

At this stage, the story was not quite told in chronological order. I was still trying to mix things up – for dramatic effect. Each chapter was devoted to the third-person perspective of a single character, and I had chapters devoted to many more characters than just Cora, Leah, and Cassandra. There were chapters for Bessie, Kevin, Dr. Pendergast, etc. 

But I wanted Cassandra’s story to be told differently. I wanted Cassandra to be rendered voiceless and unable to create as a result of the generational secrets kept from her. But as she discovered the truth, she would be able to gain her voice, to create, to tell her own story. This would mean that I wanted her to tell her own story in first person by the end of the book. But how to make that transition?

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Writing Process (Part 4)

On By VickieIn Cassandra's Daughter, WritingLeave a comment

Some people have been asking about how I ended up writing Cassandra’s Daughter, and so I started this set of posts. If you are just finding this, you can go back to Part One to start from the beginning. In the previous installment, I discussed some of the “big picture” decisions I was making during the early drafts of the book while living in the Outer Banks.

At this point, I was mostly spending my time imagining, finding connections, solving puzzles, doing research, and telling stories.

As I would read through each latest draft, I would constantly find myself asking questions:

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