Taking Ownership . . .

Strawflower in Water Droplet by Jeff D. Johnston

Author Pat Conroy credits, no, make that, lauds the “genius of” his English teachers for instilling in him a love of the English language.  As he is quoted on Goodreads: “I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language. ” (http://bit.ly/1ldfCg2 ).

Me? I was too business-oriented to get that inspired by my high school and college English teachers (who were, nevertheless, inspired, and wonderful). Despite my apparent lack of interest in writing during those years, I have loved reading for as long as I can remember because I was, am and will always be fascinated with words and syntax. I love, love, love the task of putting words together to create a story so full of pictures and emotions that readers can see and feel what I do when I’m writing. I especially like to lure the readers into conjuring up the images in their imaginations. I want to make each of my stories their own.

But what really draws me to Mr. Conroy today is an excerpt from something he wrote in his memoir My Losing Season: A Memoir: 

“Do you think that Hemingway knew he was a writer at twenty years old? No, he did not. Or Fitzgerald, or Wolfe. This is a difficult concept to grasp.  . . .  But they had to take the first step. They had to call themselves writers. That is the first revolutionary act a writer has to make. It takes courage. But it's necessary.”

That’s what it’s all about. We have to learn to call ourselves “writers.” That’s a grand title I long hesitated to give myself despite having been published in several genres (and been paid for it) for several years. Now that I’ve done it, guess what? It feels good and natural. Try it. Celebrate it. Say it: “I am a writer!” I bet you’ll like it too.

I’d love to hear how you decided it was time for you take ownership of the title you earned through study, discipline and determination. 

This St. Patrick's Day wish is a wee bit tardy, but sincerely given:

      "Today may there be peace within. May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith in yourself and others. May you use the gifts that you have received and pass on the love that has been given to you. May you be content with yourself just the way you are and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love."

You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same.

cj

Coda

Dear Tracy:

This little eulogy will take a long time to write for the tears that fall cannot wash away the sorrow I feel today.

You were such a rare find: a caring and genuine friend, and I sorely miss your dimpled smile. Quick to lend a helping hand and share your wealth of knowledge about writing genres and the quirks of publishing, I know I will not be able to write a single line without wondering what would Tracy think? Where would your marvelous critiques have sent me? You had an awesome grasp of the art of story. Who will tell me all I’ve written is a good character sketch when I thought I had created a crisp, short story?

Time and space will mute the loss and dim the pain, Tracy, but the golden threads of friendship you graciously shared with me are immutable and will always brighten my memories. I miss you, lady, but am comforted by the knowledge that you are now safe from harm.

cj

Halted

I was researching agents' sites the other day and read the opinion of one that said readers in today's world are turning away from thrillers, particularly political ones, and mysteries--which are the directions I'm headed with two of my WIPs and the possible expansion of that haiku story I wrote about previously. Now what? Do I continue or do I put it all aside? The conundrum has halted me in my editorial shoes. I'm not one who ordinarily runs with a single opinion, but when the opinionator is a New York agent, I do have to think twice. I guess my WIPs will sit quietly for a time while I make up my mind, as in do more research into what agents are looking for.

I really, really, really don't like to write angst-laden literary prose. I've worked hard to get beyond my own conflicts and sorrows and have no desire to resurrect them or explore anyone else's. I also avoid movies/stories that might make me cry. My friends assure me not every story is heavy with the emotional trauma and pain of, say, A DOG OF FLANDERS, but I remain an agnostic. Sigh.

Perhaps the Writers' Police Academy conference in Greensboro next weekend will persuade me that the agent didn't quite know the reader audience as well as he thought. Perhaps.

Speaking of angst-laden prose, nine years ago, I did a fifteen-minute writing exercise as part of my journal. Just a rapid-fire, get-it-on-paper thing. The result--excerpted below--was part of the inspiration for a personal essay that was published in CHRISTMAS IS A SEASON 2008. I made sure the published story ended on an up-note and offer it now as evidence that our journals are perfect muses.

"You have to know that Swedes are filled with angst even on their best days. We are a staid but loving people. I remember a childhood filled with family love, not demonstrated with hugs and kisses, but in doing for each other. As it was in the winter of 1943 when two of my uncles were on their last furlough before shipping out. There was no money for gifts. Ours was a family of tenant farmers, working for the Hargrove family, but Mama gathered the family and fed them fresh baked bread and crispy fried chicken and vegetables canned from the summer garden. Mama outdid herself for her beloved brothers. To keep the kids occupied while the women got the table ready, my uncle Steve pulled a toy out of a paper bag. He had cut notches into the edges of a wooden spool that Gramma had emptied of cotton thread. And then, somehow, and very magically, he used a rubber band and a twig to make a kind of clackety toy tractor that skittered across the linoleum. I thought it looked like a jumping spider and screamed every time it moved. My uncles were so handsome in their uniforms; I thought Steve looked like a movie star. He chased me down a wet caliche road, taking care not to slip and mess up his uniform pants in the narrow tire tracks left in melting snow. It was a perfect day—a house full of uncles and aunts … and snow, the first this Texan had ever seen. It was going to be the last perfect day in a long time."

That's all for now. You keep on keeping on, and I'll try to do the same.

cj

The picture from Jeff Johnston's collection is called The Apparition.

haiku story

Back in June, I whined about learning to write a short story, well . . . I have just finished what I have to call a haiku story.

Backstory: On my schedule for late September is the Writers' Police Academy in North Carolina. Lots of Ex's will be there. Ex-cops, Ex-CIA, Ex-FBI, writer Jeffery Deaver as keynote speaker, et al. And these experts will offer sessions in forensics, investigation, and firearms training. Yep, I'll be handling a Glock. Woohoo. Anyway, all of this info is a prelude to the one contest I entered.

Contest Story Requirements: A beginning, middle, and surprise ending--a regular mystery story with all the rules attendant to writing a mystery. The kicker was that the story could be no longer than 200 words, and that included the title. Plus hyphenated words counted as two words. So, in order to get the word count function to accurately report the number, you had to delete the hyphens then put them back in. Two hundred words total. Now THAT's what I call a haiku story and I loved the task! The winner gets the Academy's Golden Donut Award--named in honor of the LEOs I presume. (Not presuming that I would win. Only thinking about the donut, one of my favorite food groups.)

The neat thing is that when I finished my haiku story, I sent it to a poet friend in Georgia and his comment was that he thought I was off to a fast start to my new novel.

He may have missed the rules of the contest, but come to think of it, he just might be right.

You keep on keeping on, and I'll try to do the same.

cj

The Jeff Johnston photo is of Jenne's Farm in New England. Looks like a perfect fall day.

End of the story . . .

I can't believe I've left the blog idle for two weeks. My excuse? The house repair/remodel is just about overwhelming.

I also can't believe we're less than a month away from autumn, not that the weather here in Mobile is any indicator. It's been raining and in the high 90s for two weeks now, and everything is green . . . including the first three bricks high on my house. Sigh.

Now, the conclusion (thus far) of my writing life:

After I moved to Mobile, AL, my desire to write bubbled to the surface. Retirement, it seemed, was not simply the start of a new chapter in my life, rather it is where a yet unwritten book began. A class in creative writing at the University of South Alabama sent me on my way.

I write because I like the rhythm, the music of the words. I write because I like my characters--they are not complete fabrications. I know them personally--or at least some part of them. I see them in my mind's eye. I watch them walk. I see their gestures as they speak, hear the tone and timbre of their voices, understand their meaning. All of this visualization is a result of the screenwriting course. Though I have to admit there are scenes that tell my own story . . . I'm the one who has been there, done that, said that.

Sometimes the words flow across the page like the broad strokes of a house painter's brush. Sometimes each page comes to life slowly, as if it were a rendering of a copse of Alabama's long needle pine trees being completed by single strokes of a pen and ink artist.

When I write, I turn on the television to the Weather Channel. I need a voice other than the one in my head to keep me tethered to the real world that I abandon to create my own version of some protagonist's reality.

And when dark and stormy nights keep me awake, it is only the strobe of a lightning bolt followed by thundering applause that keeps me in bed, lest I plug in my computer and risk again its electrical annihilation as I wend my way through the night hours on a flight of fiction. On those clichéd nights, the pen and notepad on my bedside table are generic substitutes for electronic keys because I cannot wait to write--the morning is too far away.
***
That's it for now, but I'll keep on keeping and hope you do the same.

cj

The Jeff Johnston photo is called "End of the Road." 'Nuff said.

AFDOC 27 and 28 And a Sad Day

This week Mobile lost a wonderful writer and editor and a major asset to the writing community. You would never know it on-line because she will continue as part of our Lyrical Pens consortium, but those of us who live in Mobile are sad to see Tracy Hurley move away. Tracy and I founded the Mobile Writers Guild in 2004 and through that enormous effort we met and became friends with many excellent writers and community members interested in promoting the arts in Mobile. Tracy, alone, was responsible for bringing many well-known authors to speak and work with local writers.

I am happy for Tracy that she is moving closer to her family but I am deeply saddened to be losing her electric smile and bubbling giggle in our midst. cj, Tracy, Linda Busby-Parker, and I have worried our way through many a manuscript in critique sessions and were all the wiser for Tracy's input. Thrilled with my first published personal essay that she had read over and over again with the patience of a saint, I bought her dinner when it was published. She went with me to my first signing and I'll cherish that magical evening forever. Thanks for never losing sight, Tracy.

Tracy was the regional representative for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and helped numerous new authors in Alabama to write and promote their children and young adult material. She took the lead in gathering and hand delivering care packages for SCBWI in the midst of Katrina's catastrophic legacy - books, flashlights, etc. to almost 100 needy children.

Maryland, you are indeed fortunate to have this proactive and dynamic writer and editor headed your way and we hope you treat her kindly. Tracy, keep us updated on your new life and Maryland's writing activities.

AFDOC has been buried under a stack of manuscript reviews that were due and other writers waiting for feedback and helping out with my daughter's store and Tracy's move. Yet, I did make a good deal of progress with adjectives and adverbs and fleshing out almost all of the characters that needed work. 110 degree heat with 90% humidity does not bode well for leaving the house, so any time between projects was spent with the novel and making improvements. Never fear, I tell myself, you are almost at the end {and that's a joke as all writers know} so I forge ahead and every day spend at least one hour in the fictional world of Glance, Georgia where Caroline once had a Tiny Tears doll.

Shedding tears for Tracy. Mahala

Toe in the water so to speak

c j sez:

Okay, I'm officially blogging -- new concept for me, sharing conversations with the wunderkin of writing. And if you're on this site, you MUST be a wunderkin of writing. Introductions are in order. My particulars are: c j petterson, live in Mobile, raised two sons, enjoying three grandchildren, been single for more years than I was married, and on Aug 25, am one year post-heart surgery . . . which was a real surprise because I didn't know I had a problem heart. I worked out, ate "moderately well," and worked in my two-acre yard. Stay alert out there, ladies.

On the writing side of my personal info, I didn't get quasi-serious about writing until 2003, and I've enjoyed a bit of success recently. Three of my short/short personal essays were published in anthologies in 2008 ("Cup of Comfort for Divorced Women," "Christmas Through a Child's Eyes," and "Christmas is a Season, 2008").

I'm now re-energized to get back at a real writing schedule. Fellow Penster Tracy Hurley and I are scheduled to attend a writing retreat in Connecticut in late September, the facilitators are published authors S. W. Hubbard, Roberta Isleib, and Hallie Ephron--fellow Sisters in Crime members. The really good thing about the Seascape Retreat is that I now have to set a working schedule in order to meet the deadlines for critique pages. Sigh.

I have several works-in-progress, but the one I'll be using for the September retreat is something called "Deadly Star" (action/adventure, woman-in-peril stuff). It's in its third revision, and I think/hope it's going well. I have two other W-I-P pieces, one short story to be submitted before July 30 to Excalibur Press for consideration in "Christmas is a Season, 2009." (IF you’ve got a story you’d like to have considered, Excalibur’s website is under construction, but Linda Busby Parker is the contact and her blog site with instructions is: http://www.lindabusbyparker.typepad.com/)

The other piece in my mind is a young adult story—no working title yet and only about a thousand words into the storyline. The teenaged protagonist is one Erik Matheson with an unusual problem.

I’ll keep you updated as I progress because I’m jazzed about learning a new genre.

That’s all for now, folks. I’ll just keep on keeping on, and you do the same.

c j