Tag: Fannie Flagg

Seeing Fannie

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

As I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted–

Never mind.

The section that vanished when the wireless network disappeared concerned A. S. Byatt’s Possession. It’s a magnificent novel.

My comments were anything but.

So I’ll quit while I’m ahead.

Now to the update on Fannie Flagg: I heard Ms. Flagg speak last Saturday at BookPeople. She read from her latest book, I Still Dream About You, and signed.

Before the program, a BookPeople staff member announced that Ms. Flagg would stay until every copy was signed, and that she would be happy for people to take photographs. In other words, she was gracious. She demonstrated appreciation and respect for the people who came out to see her.

Ms. Flagg took her reading from the chapter titled “Hazel Whisenknott Begins.” Hazel is a real estate agent, the smallest one in the state, not much more than three feet tall. She is also dead when the book begins. When she is five years old, she starts a weed-pulling business that becomes remarkably successful.

I Still Dream About You is a murder mystery. I don’t know the victim yet. I presume it’s not Hazel. I also presume I will know who by the end of chapter three.

I hope I know by the end of chapter three. That’s when everyone says I have to have my murder taken care of. I wouldn’t like to think there there’s a set a rules for me and another set for Fannie Flagg.

In summary, regarding Fannie Flagg’s appearance at BP, a good time was had by all. Especially me.

Books in Progress

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

Baker, Russ. Family of Secrets: the Bush Dynasty, American’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.

Flagg, Fannie. I Still Dream About You: A Novel. New York: Random House, 2010.

Jacobs, A. J. The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.

Kessler, David A. The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite. New York: Rodale Press, 2009.

MacInerney, Karen. Berried to the Hilt: A Gray Whale Inn Mystery. Woodbury, Minn.: Midnight Ink, 2010.

My hero(es)

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

William is curled up in my clothes closet, either napping or plotting an outrage.

He looks so darling, wearing his little orange cream striped pajamas, that I’d like to post a photo of him here. But then you, Gentle Reader, would know more about my closet than would be good for either of us.

Moving on.

Fannie Flagg will appear this Saturday at BookPeople. Her latest novel, I Still Dream About You, is described as “equal parts Southern charm, murder mystery, and that perfect combination of comedy and old-fashioned wisdom…” That quotation appears on the Random House website but is probably accurate even though the possibility of bias exists.

Emma Hagestadt, writing in The Independent, (see link, below), says the book is “a comedy-mystery featuring a group of post-menopausal estate agents – a golden-girl romp every bit as eccentric as it sounds.” Ms. Hagestadt is an experienced reviewer who obviously knows funny when she sees it.

Here is my favorite story about Fannie Flagg: In 1975, Flagg, who had never written fiction, went to the Santa Barbara Writing Conference because her “idol,” Eudora Welty, would be there. As part of the conference, she wrote the story “Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man.” But instead of submitting it under her own name, she used a pseudonym. Flagg’s story won the contest and later became the basis for her first novel.

I don’t know which amuses me more: the fact that Fannie Flagg, an experienced actor and television writer, was too shy to enter a fiction contest under her own name; or the thought of the twinkle in Eudora Welty’s eye when she presented the prize for best story to Pearl Buck.

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Humility check

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

In the previous post, I wrote a paean to myself in honor of receiving a positive critique in a recent manuscript contest. I was shameless. Because the judge wrote Fannie Flagg twice on the score sheet, I used the name five times in my anthem.

I was moved to lavish self-aggrandizement by memory of my mother, who often quoted Damon Runyon: “He who tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted.”

Today I do a bit of un-tooting. Below is a list of things the song of myself didn’t include.

1. My entry did not advance to the finals.

2. The judge read only the first ten pages of the potential novel.

3. When the judge said that to get an agent I’ll have to find one who “gets” Texas and the South, she meant she “gets” Texas and the South and, as a result, my small-town setting and my dialogue.  If she’d been unfamiliar with the vernacular, I wouldn’t have fared so well.

4. The selection process is subjective. I once wrote an entire post on this topic, but the story bears repeating: Five years ago an entry I submitted received a score of 80. The next year, in the same contest, the very same (unrevised) entry garnered 18 points. Judge #1 said the entry was funny. Judge #2 said that I should take a lot of workshops, read more books, and use MS Word to identify my egregious grammatical errors. And that my pre-teen protagonist’s parents were guilty of child abuse.

Oh dear. I thought I’d made peace with that. My point: if I’d drawn another judge this year, I might have come out with a much lower score, and my paean would be different in both tone and content.

5. In a sentence beginning, “My concern,” the judge says she “would have liked” something that last year’s judge, who read version #1 of the ten pages, would have liked as well. I’ll have to fix that–change the material without sacrificing the current dialogue, pacing, tone…

6. The novel isn’t a novel. It’s potential. It’s a WIP.

7. There’s many a slip ‘twixt the cup and the lip.

To summarize–Opening that envelope and finding compliments inside encouraged me. It lifted my spirits. It showed me a glimmer of hope.

But it didn’t complete the manuscript, get me an agent, offer me a contract, hand me an advance, put me on the best-seller list, fill my coffers to overflowing, or ensure me a spot on Letterman.

In short, I have work to do. Continued self-aggrandizement will only get in the way.

After all, I’m already fighting background noise. Radio station KFKD plays continuously in my right ear, reciting my virtues. The constant yammering makes it hard to focus.

On the other hand, the “rap songs of self-loathing” pouring into my left ear don’t exactly speed me on my way either.

So I’ll take the critique sheet from the envelope, and with a loving hand smooth it flat, and place it in a spot where it will be visible as I write.

Fannie Flagg has been in the back of my mind for years. It’s time to move her right up front.

********************

Thanks to Ann Lamott, author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, for exposing radio station KFKD for what it is.

Thank you for noticing.

Posted on by M.K. Waller in Uncategorized

For the past month and more, my writing has been on hold. There are two reasons for the lapse. First, I’ve been short on energy. Second, I’ve been afraid I don’t have what it takes to read a novel, much less write one. Fear played off lethargy. Lethargy played off fear. I played Bejeweled.

Bejeweled is not an activity that gives the subconscious mind freedom to explore and create. It’s an activity that requires no neural activity at all.

But I’m getting back on track. There are three reasons for that. First, my internist, who appears to believe I have a brain even when it feels like it’s made of cotton, diagnosed vitamin deficiencies and an electrolyte imbalance. He prescribed supplements. I’m taking them. Synaptic transmission is once more in progress.

Second, a few hours ago I received the judge’s critique from a manuscript contest I entered last February. The score is good. Very. Much better than I’d expected. The judge pointed out the positives, the negatives, and the watch-out-fors. He said that although it is “a fun and entertaining read,” I will need to find an agent who understands the South. I will also need to pitch it “in the tone of a Fannie Flagg novel.”

Fannie Flagg! Fannie Flagg’s name appears on my critique sheet! Twice! Not that the judge was comparing our writing, of course. He was just comparing pitches.

I don’t know how to pitch in the tone of a Fannie Flagg novel. But I don’t have anything to pitch yet either. There’s time to figure it out.

(I do a pretty decent impression of Fannie Flagg doing an impression of Ladybird Johnson: “Whenever I see a candy wrapper on the ground, I pick it up and give it to Lyndon….Lyndon collects candy wrappers.” I saw her perform that on the Garry Moore Show when I was thirteen. I suppose the material is dated, but then so am I.)

Enough of that. The point is, a good critique can do wonders. It’s like B12 for the spirit.

Which brings me to the third reason I’m writing, and the most important: someone noticed I wasn’t.

The knowledge that a reader is paying attention and registering my absence means a lot, especially when the going is as tough as it has been for the past couple of months.

Thanks, Susan Woodring, for noticing.