Tag: writing

Pantsing

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized
Loon Pants
Image via Wikipedia

I am a pantser.

I wish I could say that isn’t as bad as it sounds, but I can’t.

Pantser is one of the words I’ve learned since starting work on my novel. It means someone who writes by the seat of his pants, without an outline or other planning tools.

It’s the opposite of plotter. The plotter thinks things out before beginning. He may have a detailed outline, a timeline, character sketches, spreadsheets, charts, who knows what.

I certainly don’t know what. I’m a pantser. I start with a character, a setting, and a sentence, often a line of dialogue.

When I described my method, or lack of it, to a published writer, she was not amused.

Well, actually, she was. She laughed and told me I’d better get to outlining.

I tried. Outlining, as I’ve said before, gives me the fantods.

If I know what I’m going to write before I write it, outlining is no problem.

Some things must be planned. If I’d tried to write my master’s thesis without an outline, I’d still be sitting in front of that baby blue Smith-Corona electric typewriter, wondering where to start.

But I’d already gone through an entire year of reading, recording, scribbling, mulling over, talking to myself, boring my office mates, and engaging in various other obsessive-compulsive behaviors commonly known as pre-writing, before I typed the outline onto that official form and presented it for my adviser’s signature.

I have to approach fiction in a similar fashion. Until I know my characters–their names, their relationships, their backstories, their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their secrets, dreams, desires–I can’t outline the plot.

The only way I can know all those things is to let the characters tell me. And before they can talk to me, I have to write.

So. Knowing I’m a pantser (though the term yet), and being told I had to be a plotter, I gave plotting one more try. Then I slid into the Slough of Despond.

But for three things, I would be wallowing there still. First was an article in which mystery writer Tony Hillerman identified himself as a pantser and described how the process worked for him. It was slow, he said, but he eventually got there. If someone of Hillerman’s caliber could pants his way through novel after novel, perhaps there was hope that I could turn out one.

Second was a panelist at a meeting of the Writers’ League of Texas who said–and I quote–“I start with a character and a setting and a line of dialogue.” I was sitting in the front row that night, and when she came out with that confession, I wanted to run up and hug her.

(She also said she doesn’t plow through her first draft to the end, but periodically stops, goes back, and revises. “Sometimes,” she said, “when I get the language just right, that sparks a new idea, and I suddenly have a new path to explore.” Well, bless her heart. I do the same thing, and I’d thought that was wrong, too.)

The third thing that helped pull me from the mire was the fact that I do, in some circumstances, have the sense God promised a monkey. I knew there had to be more than one way to write a novel.

Still, the process–going where no woman has gone before without map or compass, making it up as you go along–is backward and contradictory and just plain scary. For control freaks, it can be paralyzing.

I’m a control freak. An impatient control freak. I want to do it right the first time, and I want to do it right now.

When I recently confessed to another writer that I’d been stalled for a while, she said, “Why?”

At least a half-dozen things have contributed to my inertia, but for the most part it comes down to the desire to control. And poor memory. And impatience. And lack of faith.

I forget that the surest way to get unstuck is to relax and let the story tell itself.

When I find myself so tangled up in words that all I can do is talk about how tangled up I am, I head for the bookstore. This time I came out with Jane Vandenburgh’s The Architecture of the Novel.

It’s a good book. It says, as I knew it would, to relax and let the story tell itself.

But Vandenburgh goes further. The story knows how to tell itself and it will find its own plot. First, write scenes–no backstory, no memory, no flashbacks, no thinking, no summary, no cause and effect, no consequences, no chapters, no sequencing, no beginning or ending. All those things belong to plot. Structure belongs to plot. No why—why belongs to plot.

Just tell what happens, be a witness, a noticer, a sensate camera.

I spent over an hour today reading Chapter 2, slowly, taking notes. I wanted to rush–Confession: I’ve had the book for nearly a month, and I’ve rushed through it several times and come out with nothing. It’s not a book to be hurried. I made myself read, think, record. I made myself sit in a coffee shop for over an hour, reading,thinking, recording.

It was like being in school again.

Tomorrow I’ll type up my notes, read the chapter again, push away the compulsion to move on to Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 is about plot. I’m not ready for that yet.

First I have to go back to pantsing, this time bare bones, telling the story in scenes stripped of backstory and digression and what Vandenburgh calls beautiful language. I have to relax and let the story tell itself.

How will that work with my need to get the language just right in order to spark new ideas?

I have no idea. The question makes me, quite frankly, a little queasy.

Image by BBODO at en.wikipedia [Public domain or Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

Sores on the tops of the horses

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

Writing about his college years, James Thurber tells the story of Haskins, an agriculture student who takes up journalism, “possibly on the ground that when farming went to hell he could fall back on newspaper work.”

Haskins is assigned the animal husbandry beat, which comprises cows, sheep, and over two hundred horses.

Unfortunately, he is shy and doesn’t know how to use a typewriter. He writes slowly, and his stories are dull.

One day Haskins’ editor assigns him to bring in news from the horse pavilion. Haskins later comes back saying he has a story.

The editor, hoping for something more interesting than he’s been getting, says, “Well, start it off snappily.”

A couple of hours later, Haskins turns in a paper that starts with the following sentence:

“Who has noticed the sores on the tops of the horses in the animal husbandry building?”

That’s the other reason I’m not a journalist: When it comes to writing leads, I’m several steps behind Haskins.

Under most circumstances,  I wouldn’t care. I don’t make my living working for a newspaper.

But a lead sentence corresponds in at least one way to the first line of a short story or novel. They both catch the reader’s attention, draw him into the text, make him want to read on.

And there’s this novel I’m working on. And this short story…

And, like Haskins, I’ve heard from some of my critique partners that my first lines leave something to be desired.

After some thought and a brief cooling-off period, I’ve forgiven them and admitted they might be right.

The sad thing is that before my abject humiliation, I never paid much attention to first lines. The sadder thing is that I can quote so many.

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom noticed it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were.

This is the saddest story I have ever heard.

He was born with a gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

While Pearl Tull was dying, a funny thought occurred to her.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken near the elbow.

When the lights went off the accompanist kissed her.

All children, except one, grow up.

Well, I have broken the toilet.

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter.

I woke this morning with a stranger in my bed.

Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again.

They used to hang men at Four Turnings in the old days.

And so on. With all those lines suspended in my brain, you’d think I’d have caught onto why I remember them. And why they’re important.

Here’s the way it works.

A bookstore browser sees a book on the shelf. If the writer is lucky, it sits face out. He takes the volume down, looks at the front cover, the back cover, the first paragraph…and then either buys it or walks away.

And the whole process happens in under ten seconds.

The first line of a novel can make the difference between a sale and a return. Between another advance and a canceled contract.

There’s a lot riding on Scarlett O’Hara not being beautiful. And our not knowing Huck Finn. And what happened when the lights went off.

How does one get to be that good?

The same way one gets to Carnegie Hall, I guess.

Practice. Practice.

~~~~~~~~~~

And blog blog blog.

Because my concern isn’t just for novels and money and fame. I’d also like the gentle readers who land on To write… to linger longer than the first sentence.

~~~~~~~~~~

And please discount the business about money and fame. Unless you’re Tom Clancy or Stephen King, those aren’t really part of the package. But they sound good, so I throw them in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry about that linger longer. Against some things there is no defense.

Pushing the envelope

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

Twenty-three minutes to post, a cat in my lap bent on playing with the touch pad, several ideas in my head, none of which can be explored in twenty-two minutes. An unpredictable wireless connection.

A cat on my lap licking my wrist as I type. I don’t like to be licked as I type.

My evening critique group has had an online conversation today about typing vs. keyboarding. Are papers still typewritten? Are papers still papers, for that matter. Do we come to the page or to the screen?

The cat has stopped licking my wrist and has hidden his face against my arm. He’s stretching his foreleg to pat the mouse, which lies on the arm of the recliner.

There’s another one: mouse.

Forty years ago, the sentence, The cat is patting the mouse, which lies on the arm of the recliner, would have sparked an image entirely different from the one it creates today.

Someday, perhaps, cat will have a meaning in the cyber world. Perhaps it already does.

He’s now stretching both forelegs toward the mouse and using his elbow to control the touch pad. The cursor jumps around. Boxes pop up, offering me the opportunity to do things I have no intention of doing. I have to take a hand off the keys to move the box.

He has shifted. Now he’s resting his head on my right hand. His left foreleg rests on my left hand. A minute ago he tried to rest his chin on my thumbs.

He’s shifted again. There are two forelegs on my left hand. His head is still on my right hand, but his whiskers are sticking straight up. Another stretch. Another shift. His head is up again.

Another shift. A paw on the keys.

I took the time to click Save.

The purring vibrates the chair. I hope it doesn’t dislodge something the laptop needs to keep going.

Two minutes. No time for a photograph. Time to post.

Review (again): A Broom of One’s Own

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

I wrote the following post two years ago to answer a “challenge.” I intended to post it at the end of September 2009. I got all tangled up in words and couldn’t write a thing. I intended to post it at the end of October. I still couldn’t write it. I think I managed to write it after the October deadline.

In the middle of the “process,” I considered posting the following review: “I like Nancy Peacock’s A Broom of One’s Own very very very very very much.”

But the challenge specified a four-sentence review, and I had hardly one, and I didn’t want to repeat it three times.

So there’s the background.

I must also add this disclaimer: I bought my copy of A Broom of One’s Own myself, with my own money. No one told, asked, or paid me to write this review. No one told, asked, or paid me to say I like the book. No one told, asked, or paid me to like it. No one offered me tickets to Rio or a week’s lodging in Venice, more’s the pity. I decided to read the book, to like it, and to write this review all by myself, at the invitation of Story Circle Book Review Challenge. Nobody paid them either. Amen.

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

I like Nancy Peacock’s A Broom of One’s Own: Words About Writing, Housecleaning & Life so much that it’s taken me over two months and two missed deadlines to untangle my thoughts and write this four-sentence review, an irony Peacock, author of two critically acclaimed novels, would no doubt address were I in one of her writing classes.

She would probably tell me that there is no perfect writing life; that her job as a part-time house cleaner, begun when full-time writing wouldn’t pay the bills, afforded time, solitude, and the “foundation of regular work” she needed;  that engaging in physical labor allowed her unconscious mind to “kick into gear,” so she became not the writer but the “receiver” of her stories.

She’d probably say that writing is hard; that sitting at a desk doesn’t automatically bring brilliance; that writers have to work with what they have; that “if I don’t have the pages I hate I will never have the pages I love”; that there are a million “saner” things to do and a “million good reasons to quit” and that the only good reason to continue is, “This is what I want.”

So, having composed at least two dozen subordinated, coordinated, appositived, participial-phrase-stuffed first sentences and discarded them before completion; having practically memorized the text searching for the perfect quotation to end with; and having once again stayed awake into the night, racing another deadline well past the due date, I am completing this review—because I value Nancy Peacock’s advice; and because I love A Broom of One’s Own; and because I consider it the equal of Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird; and because I want other readers to know about it; and because this is what I want.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


My hero(es)

Posted on by Kathy 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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Minding my own business

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

I was sitting here, working on a story, minding my own business, when I glanced at the clock.

11:08 p.m.

And today’s post is still a figment of my imagination.

Or it was. Or, more accurately, they were.

The process never varies.

I spend the day writing, reading, laundering, driving, meeting, critiquing, shopping, cooking and whatever other –ing happens along. And all the while, ideas whirl inside my head: I’ll write about this–and this–and this–and every this comes bearing its own first line, flawlessly conceived, flawlessly phrased, flawlessly flawless.

But by the time I open the screen with the words Add New Post emblazoned across the top, I find creation vaporized, all my pretty chickens taken in one fell swoop.

O hell-kite.

All right, that’s not what happens. Not literally anyway. Except for the hell-kite part. It’s genuine.

What happens is that I forget. I don’t carry little index cards in my pocket, as Anne Lamott says I should, or a little notebook in my purse. I don’t stop to record my epiphanies. I keep on whirling.

And then it’s 11:08, or in the instant case, 11:52 p.m. and counting, and I’ve said I’ll post daily, so I have to post something, so I just catch the nearest way. And tonight this is it.

Ham

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

“In the morning,” [John Cheever’s] daughter, Susan, wrote, “my father would put on his one good suit and his gray felt hat and ride down in the elevator with the other men on their way to the office. From the lobby he would walk down to the basement, to the windowless storage room that came with our apartment. That was where he worked. There, he hung up the suit and hat and wrote all morning in his boxer shorts, typing away at his portable Underwood set up on the folding table. At lunchtime he would put the suit back on and ride up in the elevator.” ~ “John Cheever, Former UI Faculty,” UI Pulitzer Prize Winners

“Reading Bailey’s biography reconfirms an impression of Cheever that I’ve carried around in my locket for years—that the man had a lot of ham actor in him, which he served pretty thick.” ~ James Wolcott, “It’s Still Cheever County,” in Vanity Fair

New Year’s is a time for looking back as well as looking forward, for taking stock of what one has accomplished over the past twelve months.

My personal inventory amounts to this: I shined my sink, wrote one scene that really really works, and baked a ham.

The ham got in just under the wire. I bought it on impulse, and we had it for dinner on New Year’s Eve, with baked sweet potatoes and fresh green beans. What was left over went into the freezer, and the bone is destined for a pot of navy beans. I found a website featuring 377 recipes for navy bean soup. By next New Year’s Eve, I’ll have had time to sort through them and find one I want to tackle.

 

As proud as I am of the ham and the scene (we’ll speak no more about the sink), I admit 2010 wasn’t a stellar year. My writing didn’t progress as it should have. I didn’t treat it as a business. I didn’t focus. I wrote at home.

Unfortunately, I need more structure than can be found in a laptop, a recliner, and a couple of cats. I need an office. A schedule. A dress code. The idea of working in pajamas all day, though tempting, doesn’t spur me to much of anything at all.

So this morning I did the writerly thing: I donned a business suit–jeans and a turtleneck–and set out for the nearest coffee shop. Six hours, a cup of mocha, a slice of banana bread, and 761 words later, I packed up and returned home.

Tomorrow I’ll do it again. And then again. And then again. With any luck at all, the focus will increase. With any luck at all, the word count will increase.

With any luck at all, my 2011 EOY report will list something more significant than ham.

 

Let the universe work

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized
 In the matter of resolutions, I look to Henriette Ann Klauser’s Write It Down, Make It Happen.

Instead of focusing on action, Klauser focuses on objective: what do you want? Make a list, she says. Then put the list away. Relax and let the subconscious and the universe work.

In her book, she profiles the experiences of a number of individuals for whom the process has worked. The story that impressed me most concerned one of her sons.

He was a teenager when he showed her a list he’d found, I believe, on the floor of his closet. The implication was that it had been buried there for a while. He said he’d made it several years before–just written down five or six things he wanted. What was really interesting, he said, was that even though he’d forgotten about the list, everything on it had happened.

I read Klauser’s book at a time when I specialized in reading self-help books. I rarely took any of the advice in them, but Klauser’s plan required little effort–no getting up early, jogging an hour a day, giving up caffeine, eating seven helpings of vegetables–so I tried it.

I wrote the list: things I wanted, things I had no expectation of, things I could not imagine happening.

And then I lost the list. Buried it, in fact.

Five years later, during one of my feng shui periods, I ran across the book and remembered the list.

Everything I’d written had happened. I had it all.

So for 2011, I’m not writing resolutions. Instead, I’m going to make another list.

The only question is–why have I waited so long?

Nobody’s going to make you

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

 

I don’t wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. ~ Pearl S. Buck

I planned to say that I’m not in the mood to write, that for two weeks all I’ve wanted to do is watch Netflix from dawn to dark (dawn being in this case a relative term), that I don’t foresee a time when I will give a flip about writing novels or blogs or even grocery lists, for that matter, but that, as someone, maybe Stephen King, maybe not, said, if you don’t write, nobody cares and nobody’s going to make you, and as Pearl Buck said, you can’t wait for moods, you just have to buckle down and write, and that it would be a shame if I quit now, because as William Blake said, there’ s no mistake so great as the mistake of not going on.

There is no mistake so great
as the mistake of not going on. ~ William Blake

But I got sidetracked by the chairs pictured in “The Poets,” cited below.

They’re folding chairs with built-in lamps. One chair is named William Blake. The other is called J. W. Goethe.

I won’t elaborate–you can see for yourself–but I find them fascinating. I want one, preferably the William Blake. Although as a right-hander, I might need the left-handed J. W. Goethe.

I wonder whether the Goethe comes in green.

No matter. Neither will be in my stocking this Saturday morning.

But they’ve served their purpose. They made me smile, lifted my spirits, and put me in a mood to get down to work.

And to avoid the mistake of not going on.

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

Day 20: No-no words

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

A writer-friend introduced me to a new concept: the no-no word.

That’s a word you’re not allowed to use when you write.

She assigned her elementary students a composition, then told them they were not allowed to use the word was.

There’s a lot of talk going around about was these days. Several bloggers have written about the advisability of using it, and one of my online discussion groups examined the issue.

Should writers use was?

The answer to that question, I believe, is, It depends.

If I can find a more active or specific or colorful word, or a better construction, I use it. If I can’t, I write was.

When my teacher-writer-friend termed was a no-no word, however, and described the restrictions she had put on her students, I decided to step up to the challenge.

I stepped up.

I wrote.

I stepped down.

It was an enlightening ordeal.

Will I post the result?

NO.

 

~~~~~~~~~~

The image of No made out of jigsaw puzzle pieces used courtesy of Horia Varlan via Flickr, under Creative Commons 2.0 Generic license.

Day 19: Worrying about Harry

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

Last week, I worried about Harry. Now it’s Harry and the whole of London.

Based on reason, experience, and the fact that MI5 is neither science- nor speculative fiction, I presume London and the majority of its inhabitants will survive.

Harry I’m not sure about.

That is darned good writing.

~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote the Harry passage last night. I intended to post it last night. But I didn’t.

I would offer a legitimate reason for breaking my promise to post every day in November, but–

The truth is, I got bogged down.

After writing about Harry, I inserted an attractive divider (see ~~~ above) and addressed a second topic. I intended a series of brief observations connected only by their brilliance.

I never got to topic #3. In just minutes I saw that even brilliant observations can reek.

So I cut the part about Harry, saved it for another post, and continued writing about topic #2.

I wrote, deleted, wrote, deleted, wrote…

After a while, it seemed a good time to look for a photograph.

I used to post text only. But those posts reminded me of the websites about writing that cropped up back in the 90s: words, words, words, no graphics, just words all over the page. It was obvious they’d been designed by people who hadn’t become accustomed to reading graphics.

In other words, people like me. But now, a surfer of some sophistication, I like to throw in an image here and there.

So, interrupting the sequence of write-deletes, I went in pursuit of the perfect picture.

So many choices, none of them acceptable.

By the time the search ended, the clock had struck midnight. November 19 was gone.

After eighteen consecutive days of posting, I had slipped.

Worse yet, it wasn’t the first time. Day 18 was posted after midnight on Day 19. Day 17 was posted on Day 18. Day 16 was posted on Day 17.

I won’t belabor the point.

My only consolation is that, although I have not posted every single day, by the end of November 20, I will have put up twenty posts.

If I hurry.

~~~~~~~~~~

P.S. London is fine. Harry, however, is in a pickle.

~~~~~~~~~~

Image of Freemasons’ Hall, London courtesy of damo1977 via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Freemasons’ Hall stands in for Thames House, home of MI5, in the TV series MI5 (Spooks).




Day 17: Perpetual writing

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, “Damnit, Thurber, stop writing.” She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph. Or my daughter will look up from the dinner table and ask, “Is he sick?” “No,” my wife says, “he’s writing something.” ~ (James Thurber, in an interview with George Plimpton and Max Steele. Paris Review, Fall 1955)

Surrounded by crucifers, I calculated the odds that today’s cauliflower would make it to the dinner table rather than mummify in that mausoleum otherwise known as the vegetable crisper.

Candy to left of me, Cosmo to right, I pondered twenty-seven ways to lose fifty pounds by Thanksgiving and ninety-two prescriptions for gaining it back.

Crossing the parking lot, I put in a grocery store between the hair salon and the antique shop.

Then I hired a manager.

Joelle currently does cuts and perms–she was Margaret, the assistant postmaster, before youthening and changing her name and her career–but she could operate the grocery, which carries better stock than the Abomination out on the highway. And her husband, Scott, could take over when he retires.

I don’t know when Scott will retire. I’m not even sure his name is Scott. He used to be Herb, the postmaster. He took that job just before Margaret turned into Joelle. But he’s awfully straight-laced, and Scott suggests a certain amount of elasticity…

Grocery shopping isn’t the only endeavor that detours into writing. Sometimes I’m in the shower. Sometimes I’m driving to an appointment.

In the middle of a romantic birthday dinner at the Clay Pit, I erupted: “Ooh! I just thought of somebody else I can kill!”

That’s not the way to win friends and influence people, especially if you’re seated in the little room downstairs, where voices ricochet off stone  and land in the neighbors’ chicken korma.

No matter. People look at me funny, and they think I’m scatterbrained, and rude, and some no doubt think I’m criminal.

But there is one advantage to this perpetual writing, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Ever since fifth grade, when I heard a high school prose reading contestant perform “The Night the Bed Fell,” I’ve aspired to write like James Thurber.

And now, if I think about it in just the right way, I can say that I do.

Day 12: Ten more minutes

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

Harry Pearce is in trouble.

Big trouble.

And I’m sitting here, heart rate elevated, breath coming fast, as worried as if Harry were real.

Several months ago I discovered MI5. It’s running on the local PBS station. Programs from an early series air on Thursday nights at 9:00. Programs from a more recent series air on Friday nights at 10:00 and rerun Sundays at midnight.

I’m hooked. I watch them all.

The scripts are well-written, suspenseful, fast. They assume a modicum of intelligence on the part of the viewer.

And they’re unpredictable.

The writers kill their stars.

I’ve seen several go. One was dispatched just now.

I knew it was going to happen. A couple of months ago I read some plot summaries online.

I almost never read ahead, but in this case I’m glad I did. I was able to prepare myself. Knowing made things easier.

The thing is, I didn’t read far enough. I didn’t know Harry would be threatened.

If the writers did away with all the others, there’s no reason they should flinch at disposing of Harry.

So I don’t know what will happen.

And I care what happens.

Ten more minutes…

 

Day 9: Emoting

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

 

Austin Mystery Writers met tonight.

I was prepared. I bought frozen stuffed peppers Sunday evening and at 4:40 this afternoon turned the oven on to 350. David took it from there.

Frozen stuffed peppers is our Tuesday night default. David is the default preparer of frozen dinners and cleaner-upper of kitchen. For all this I am grateful.

I wasn’t prepared for the blog, of course. That slipped up on me. I’ve given myself thirty minutes to write and post.

The AMW meeting was productive. CP and I exchanged manuscripts–sounds a lot like fourth grade: “Exchange papers with the person across the aisle and we’ll check our answers”–and read and discussed them.

We spent most of the time talking about what wasn’t on the page: real plots and false plots, what our characters want, how to increase suspense, plot points and midpoints.

For at least the tenth time, we hashed out my structural dilemma.

Originally, I had a perfectly good plot. Then I decided to make a major change. I’m now dealing with fallout.

Periodically I say, “I can’t make this version work.”

CP shows me how I can make this version work.

I repeat, “No, I just can’t make it work.”

CP says, “Okay, then, go back to the way it was. Kill Mr. X.”

And I say, “But I don’t want to kill Mr. X. I want to kill Mrs. Y.”

That’s a classic strategy: I argue that I can‘t until my partner agrees with me. Then I argue that I can.

My mother and I spent most of the 1984-85 school  year engaged in that conversation. I was working at a university as an assistant instructor while writing my thesis. I was to receive my M.A. in August and then return a couple of weeks later as a full-time lecturer.

The catch was that by early July my thesis had to be approved, typed, signed, copied, and submitted for binding.

No thesis = no M.A. = no lectureship = no income.

Hence the weekly discussion:

K (wailing):  I’ll never finish my thesis in time to graduate.

M (in the soothing tone that was both patronizing and irksome):  Oh, you’ll get it finished.

K (louder wailing): No, I won’t. And if I don’t finish, I won’t have a job next year.

M (dropping the soothing tone and sounding frighteningly reasonable): Well, if you don’t think you can finish the thesis, maybe you should start looking for another high school job.

K (hysterical, offended wailing): You don’t think I can finish it! I’m going to finish it! I have to finish it!

Somewhere along the line, I think about March, my mother stopped bothering with words and began substituting, “Um-hmmmm.” Having heard predictions of academic doom since my freshman year (“I failed my biology test. No, really, I failed this one.”), she said her lines mostly to appease me. She knew I had to vent.

I suspect CP, like my mother, has figured out her role in the drama.

Image of Elisabet Ney’s Lady Macbeth by cliff1066, used under terms of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

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Day 8: Connecting

Posted on by Kathy Waller in Uncategorized

My high school English teacher read the Day 7 post, the one in which I wrote that she told students we had important and relevant things to say.

That is the problem with blogging. At some point, you make a remark, a perfectly innocent remark, and the person you remarked about happens across it and reads it and calls you on it. Especially if you link the post to Facebook, and that person is one of your friends.

Anyway, said English teacher (who taught me in grades 8, 10, 11, and 12, so you see what we were both up against) asked whether she really said relevant and important, or whether she said, “Hush up and write.”

I admit it. “Hush up and write” was more her style.

And I really went overboard with relevant. I don’t think anyone I knew said relevant. It was one of those television words, ubiquitous and meaningless. The curriculum wasn’t relevant. School wasn’t relevant.

Relevant isn’t complete in itself. It needs something more. Relevant to what? And in whose opinion?

The 60s didn’t get to my part of Texas until late. And being as contrary then as I am now, I rebelled against the rebellion.

According to my husband, people should never send e-mails they wouldn’t want Ted Koppel to read on the air. David is correct. That goes for Facebook and blogs and all media, I’m sure.

Although I agree with his policy, however, I don’t follow it. Anyone who has read this blog knows that.

My one hope is that any potential employer who googles me and reads my work understands self-deprecating humor.

In other words, I’m neither as dumb nor as ditsy as I portray myself. Fiction is fiction and fact is fact, and in between there is irony.

If hired, I will be on time, work through breaks and lunch and do overtime, meet deadlines, take a personal interest in my work, and play well with others. I will spell correctly and use the serial comma. And I will not write about you on my blog.

I’ve been thinking about starting every post with that paragraph. Especially the post about my hereditary tendency to burn toast.

Although I write about my flaws, or pseudo-flaws, I am a private person. I want to choose what I tell and when and to whom. I don’t appreciate Facebook’s rabid desire to help me extend my social circle. I really really don’t appreciate Facebook’s sharing my information and not telling me, or making it difficult for me to lock down information I don’t want to share with people I don’t know.

There are days when I would like to close the account completely–as if that were possible, given FB’s determination not to delete it–but I’m in too deep. Closing out of FB would be like disconnecting both the telephone and the television. I don’t use either appliance very often, but giving them up would put me completely out of the loop.

No more pictures of Kenna wearing her little pink hat and grinning.

No more surprise messages from students I haven’t seen in years.

I’ve had the good fortune to “connect” with two women I first knew when they students. They were back-to-back winners of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest, Young Adult Division. One has signed a book contract with a publisher. The other recently signed with an agent.

When their books come out, I’ll be jumping up and down.

I hope the high school from which they graduated will honor them by inviting them back to speak to current students. I hope the elementary and middle schools do the same.

I hope the school district makes a BIG DEAL of their accomplishments.

Let me say that again.

I hope the school district makes a BIG DEAL of their accomplishments.

Not for the writers’ sake, but for the sake of children who need to see that telling stories is important, that publishing a book is an event to be celebrated, that kids who once sat in those same classrooms grew  up to be writers.

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