How to Confuse Readers

While on a trip to Whistler and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada last week, I read several books. The one that interested me the most was Cheryl Strayed's autobiography Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail. Never have I been so full of conflict about a book. If I do not care for a book, I put it down. I did not care for this book but was challenged to find out why.

The writing was both bad and good. The main character had a few likable traits but mostly I did not care for her and her choices. She related parts of her life experiences, real or not, that were foreign and distasteful to me. I disliked her language and morals. I disliked her family. I found it hard to believe that she went on a 1,100 mile long trek along the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) which runs from the Mexican border to Washington state, is rugged, and traverses through some serious wilderness areas. It was especially hard to read knowing it was written 17 years after she did the summer long hike. She based her recollections on her journal which she never mentioned writing.

I was not of the demographic for this book: young 20 year old somethings who were looking for  answers and adventure without actually working for either. So why did I read this long book? I kept hoping for a major change in the author because she finally took charge of her life instead of letting serendipity and dumb choices rule her life. Was she ever going to learn? And if so, what was she going to learn?

Most of the book was driven by her inability to accept the tragic death from cancer of her young mother, aged 45; Cheryl was in her early 20's when this happened. I am sure she was devastated but never possessed the skills or support system to be able to work through this challenge. She says she was able to understand it by the end of the hike. Hmm.

Strayed, an illogical made up legal name, took on a solo hike without any preparation except some wrong advice from a outfitters store and an old copy of someone else's experience hiking the PCT. She did not practice before hand, packed her back pack the night before she started the hike without knowing how to use many of the items she tried to carry. She had not broken in her hiking boots and was woefully unprepared for what life always hands you: unexpected often dangerous situations.

Again I wondered why I read this book. Strayed used metaphors poorly, left the reader hanging on some precipitous literary overhangs and with questions about the veracity of her sentences. BUT...she kept my interest through out. I kept expecting her daily struggles to be more interesting. I wanted her to learn some things along the way. I kept hoping for both. Instead, Stayed returned again and again to flashbacks to explain her present circumstances as if they were an excuse for her poor choices. Doing heroin for months on end, assessing every man for his potential for sex (should I ask him or will he ask me?), and marital and familial infidelity all were big events in her life. Unlike other readers, I did not mind the flashbacks as disabling to the concentration of the reader. She was able to move the story along seamlessly through them. Her days were monotonous with she wrote each line using the same description ad nauseum of how stinky and dirty she was, how her toenails were black and falling off and how often she laid in her tent at night wanting to read but not being able to. Yet I kept reading.

If I could understand the reasons for my reading this tome, I would write a best seller about an unsympathetic person who spends her days making poor choices and not bathing. It will be about a woman who professes to have read great literature but then has no intelligence to prepare to hike along miles of rugged desert territory. I will meet people along the way but distance myself from then because "I vont to be alone!" but never uses the time alone to think through her the reasons for her past choices or plan for a more stable future.

If we writers could let go of what we have learned about writing and try some absurd plot, maybe we too would be famous. Obviously there are points I did not understand about Strayed's writing. She has written several other successful books which I will not read.

I should have known I would not like this book when I realized it was an Oprah 2 book club choice. I never like the books Oprah chooses. This book is a national best seller and an about to be released movie starring Reese Witherspoon.

Have you read books you did not like and not because your book club was going to discuss them next week? Why did you do so? What compels us, especially writers who should know better, to read a book where we do not care for the main character or believe in the supposed veracity of the tale?

The Beauty of North Idaho & Local Authors

                                                

    What comes to mind when you think of north Idaho? Is it fishing at Dawson Lake in Boundary County? Snow skiing at Schweitzer?  Sailing on Lake Pend Oreille,  or perhaps paddling the deep blue  waters of  Lake Coeur d Alene?  Is it the pristine beauty of Priest River,  and picking huckleberries in  late  summer? Maybe the rich heritage of the  Coeur d Alene Indians or   historic Cataldo Mission, the oldest standing building in Idaho - also known as the Mission of the Sacred Heart, founded by Jesuit priest, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet  in 1848.

    How about the  Route of the Hiawatha Trail, the old Milwaukee Railroad line making its way through Wallace ,  now a popular mountain bicycle trail popular with locals and tourists, or Camp Sweyolakan, one of the oldest resident camps in the United States with nearly 300 wooded acres on the shores on Mica Bay, with one of the largest fleets of classic war canoes [for more about Sweyolakan, see my stories "Two if  by Sea" IDAHO magazine, September 2012 and "Paddles Aweigh - Around the Lake in Ten Days" IDAHO  magazine, December 2013].

      North Idaho has long been touted for its beautiful rivers and lakes,  rich forested land and  abundant wild life - elk, deer, moose; Red Tail hawks and the majestic Eagle soaring across a  smog free sky.

      I have travelled in Mexico, throughout Europe, western Canada and many parts of the United States, and still find north Idaho to be among the  most magnificent landscapes I've ever seen. What some might call,  'God's Country'.  But there is another hallmark here, too. Something worth noting. It is a fertile environment for the creative mind, the daydreamer, the artist, the musician, the writer.

     While there isn't space  here to recognize every author from north Idaho and their books, several come to mind:

       Marianne Love. After reading her,  Pocket Girdles and other Confessions of a Northwest Farm Girl, an uproarious collection of autobiographical stories  about rural life in the northwest,  I decided I wanted to write memoir, to tell stories  like she did, in a humorous, heartfelt way. It was after attending one of Marianne's writing workshops, and her encouraging words about blogging I started my own blog, 2 lane highway( http://2lanehighway.blogspot.com).   Marianne remains one of my favorite writers.
                                                     

        
     Nancy Owens Barnes. Moose for Breakfast Outdoor Poems & Essays  published by Rushing River Press gives picturesque view of north Idaho living through Nancy's colorful words and prose. Nancy is winner of the 2008 Zola Award for Poetry and was 2007 Jessie Cameron Alison Writer of the Year. Her book South to Alaska From the Heartland of America to the Heart of a Dream of one man's dream of living in Alaska fulfilled after he builds a 47 ft. boat in his Arkansas backyard begins a journey through a watery world he knows little about, to a world he cannot forget.
                                                   

     Elizabeth S. Brinton. "We landed with no thoughts of religious freedom in mind."  So begins, My American Eden / Mary Dyer, Martyr for Freedom. Chris Peck , editor, the Commercial Appeal writes, She captures with grace the gripping human story of a remarkable woman of faith who dared to challenge the dark side of an emerging America. Brinton uses her grasp of history and politics to help us better understand what happens when the line between government might and what is right is blurred.

     Phyllis Horne.  The Carnival Girl - One Woman's Journey Through the Carnival Life tells how the author ran away from home at 14 and became a carnie - a carnival worker at the Pike in Long Beach, California. Hers is a story of brushes with the law, broken relationships and family trials until she eventually overcame those challenges and eventually owned her own business in Idaho.
                                                   

      Ana Parker Goodwin.  A former psychotherapist and lecturer turned writer, Anna writes a fictional account of Dr. Faythe Bradington , a Clinical Psychologist, shocked to learn that an ex-client is suing her for implanting false memories of childhood sexual abuse in  Justice Forbidden - A Dr. Faythe Bradington And L.P. Sanborn Novel. Ana is also co-author of renowned textbook on Sand Play Therapy.

                                         

       

     D. Faye Higbee.  The Dog Paw Chronicles/The Autobiography Of A Writer chronicles the authors life in short story form, with the addition of canine philosophy by Red the Dog.

    Michael Marsden. Author of several books, including The House in Harrison and The Black Dog Bed and Breakfast, Michael is a long time member of Idaho Writers League. His favorite quote is  one from E.L. Doctorow, "Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that it's raining, but the feeling of being rained upon."

     Not just published book authors, but scriptwriters,  magazine writers, copyrighters, and bloggers as well.   Mary Jane Honegger recently won first place at the Sandpoint Film Festival  for her screenplay, Root Bound ,  a short film of how complications arise when a young professional denies his Idaho roots when he is hired by a national television show.

     Jenny Leo and Jennifer Rova are contributors to Writing North Idaho, and currently working on a novel.

    As writers we have a tendency to only look to the J.K. Rowlings,  Steven Kings  and other renowned authors far away for inspiration,  motivation and instruction,  when  local authors  very near can often provide the same right where we live, and write


* Note: All book titles mentioned in this blog can be purchased on Amazon
    

 

   

   

   

    

     





    

    

    

     

      

The Value of a Letter

    Anyone who has read my blog posts  knows I value the importance of letters, and the  art of letter writing, and about the large box of letters I have saved over the years from my mother, brother, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends.  Like this one from my life long  friend, Manya who wrote this letter to me November 19, 1969   while I was away at college, and very  homesick :

Hi Kathy!

    Before I begin my letter I would like to have you read the following lines from my book of Happiness - “Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life ; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. Circumstances and situations do color life, but you have been given the mind to choose what the color shall be.”   That is one of my favorite quotes, but I like this one, too." Happier is he who believes that tomorrow will ease all pain and take all sorrow. Happiest he who on earthy sod has faith in himself, his friends , his God" .  There! I hope my words of wisdom have given you a happier outlook . Manya went on to tell me she had visited my mother Monday night, and my boyfriend (at the time) missed me and would pick me up at the airport when I came home for Thanksgiving. 

    Or this letter from my cousin Shauna , several months after her wedding

Dear Kathy,

    Just a note to see how you are, and let you know we’re thinking about you all. Getting married is a wonderful experience but it sure keeps me busy! We are very happy and everyone is well. And how about you… how are you feeling? I was amazed at how agile you were last August. I realize there is still some pain & discomfort but I admire you so much for your patience &strength. Forgive me for not writing. With school and being married and things like cooking (I am horrible), the laundry (everything comes out the wrong color), and general clean-up, (have you ever put liquid soap in a dishwasher?  Don’t. Bubbles everywhere), it seems time flies. 

    While neither of these   personal examples may be as intriguing as letters written by the famously renowned -   Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 when Einstein warned of the possibility of Germany building an atomic bomb or   the letters of Hemingway, Virginia Woolf or C.S. Lewis, they do present a time and place in the history of both letter writer, and recipient.  They also tell a lot about the individuals who wrote the letters,  and  relate attitude, activity, compassion, environment, humor. Isn't that why biographers search for  letters of famed authors, poets, politicians , and find them so interesting?  Those letters  give us an up close and personal look at their lives at a given moment, a certain age.  Through their letters we come to know them better, and the age they lived in. 

    It's  the same with most of us, the not so famed.   The letters we write can provide an insight about our life - family, friends, first time experiences and youthful exploits; Adult endeavors, politics, faith, the decisions we make.  Letters are autobiographical.

    Letter writing encompasses a broad range.   There are letters of recommendation, resignation, friendship letters, love letters; Letters of condolence, of good cheer, cover letters, rejection letters; Query letters, letters to the editor and a letter to the  Board of Directors. 

    How well I remember being in grade school and the good nuns teaching the proper way to write a letter. At the time I was in school all English books devoted a complete chapter to letter writing – friendly and formal , and an outline as to the proper way to write a letter.

Your address

Addressee

Date

Salutation or greeting

Body of letter

Closing

Signature

    I wish I could say I still write letters like I once did, but I don’t. I have given way to the quick email and short worded text, but I do believe in the tradition and importance of letter writing, and how letters tell a story all their own, and present  a style and permanence high tech doesn't quite provide. 

*** Letters of Note  Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience   http://www.lettersofnote.com/
is a wonderful site dedicated to gathering all sorts of fascinating letters, including one from  author Sherwood Anderson while he was still a copy writer for an ad agency in 1918. One of my favorites is a letter humorist James Thurber wrote to a school boy in 1959 titled You children write illiterate letters in response to the boys letter to him. It's worth the read !