Dear Diary and the Art of Journal Writing

My first journal, begun in the summer between the fifth and sixth grade,  sits on my desk as a reminder of my love of writing. I loved that little blue plastic book with its tiny lock. To record my private thoughts, with no worries about uninvited readers, seemed like total bliss at the time. However, as I apparently come from a long line of hackers, it took the spies in my midst all of two seconds to pry their way into my deepest secrets, only to repeat them for general entertainment at the dinner table. Nevertheless, I plodded on, writing diaries and journals through most of my life. I can be sporadic, missing a year or two here and there, but I am happy to say that I can at least fill a modest bookshelf with my efforts. Lest you think they would make for interesting reading, a record of my time as a teen, then a young wife and a mother, followed by the trials of middle age, I can only attest to the fact that, they are nothing short of pure drivel. How did this happen? I tended to use my diaries and journals as a place in which to beef. The stings and arrows of life that tended to swirl around in my mind, distracting me from my goals, were a nuisance, and so I found a way to expunge them. I have had to make it very clear to my husband and children that they are for my eyes only and in no way a record of my happy, family life. My complaints, when read in bulk, are totally depressing to me now. Why did I not record the cute things the kids said, my thoughts about life, my dreams or my aspirations? I can only confess that they record an inner relationship I have with myself where I like to process things slowly.

In the past, I have thoroughly enjoyed well-written journals and have spent weeks and even months reading volume after volume. The top three on the hit parade are as follows: Virginia Woolf, Noel Coward, and Lucy Maud Montgomery. Virginia Woolf, like me, set down many frustrations. The unwanted criticisms, the interruptions from writing, and the stings of patronizing male reviewers are all preserved for prosperity. My admiration for her as a writer could never be overstated. Her brilliant work, A Room of One's Own, tells us flat out, what we, as women, will have to carve out for ourselves if we are to have any chance at all. To know that anyone would disturb her clear and acknowledged genius, over a question regarding lunch, made me want to chase her housekeeper around the yard brandishing a rolling pin. Her ups and downs, pain and sorrow, small moments of triumph, gave me a clear picture of the path, the road and the way a writer must take. Her bouts of depression and sad end did not deter me either, as it was clear from the start that she suffered from a malady that had no cure in her day. Describing her struggles, in the light of her illness, afforded an even greater level of inspiration. Her courage astounded me.

By contrast, Noel Coward had a much more exciting life of glamor and parties in London, but he had his endless frustrations as well. In reading his journals, I found much to delight in. The obstacles in his life had a similar ring and can be summarized in one word: interference. Again, I was shocked that anyone would dare think they had a better way to say a line or to put on a play than he did. I wanted to shoo them out the backstage door. I also loved his take on critics which would be summarized by, “Insulting review in The Times.” I gained an understanding that opinions that some people seem to value, are often nothing short of hostility, for whatever reason, and the greatest minds in our midst, those who crafted works of pure genius, seem to have a great ability to not listen to any negativity of any kind.

The third and best grouping I did not read until a few years ago, and when I did, I became so involved in them, it changed the way I go about my daily life. For some strange reason, I read the journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery, in reverse order. I understood her life from her last days to those preceding The Great War and predating the creation of her most famous work, namely, Anne of Green Gables.  It gives me chills to this day to think of her sitting at the kitchen table, in a simple farmhouse on Prince Edward Island, warmed by the fire in the cook stove, with pencil and notebook in front of her, and no idea of the future ahead,  in the process of composing the greatest selling book of all time. Her novel was rejected, and stuffed in a hat box, shelved in a closet, and all but forgotten until a spring cleaning project had her take a second look. Astonished to rediscover it with the understanding that it was quite good, she vowed to try again, and the rest is history.

In many phases of my life, I have turned to reading journals when I am stuck and casting about for ideas. This often leads me back to keeping a journal once again. As I scribble away, getting things off my chest and out of the way, sometimes new ideas begin to take hold. When we see a published group of diaries, we are looking at entries that have been recopied and reworked. Some editing and piecing together form the finished look, and no doubt a lot of what is mundane and downright petty is discarded.

From the Selected Journals of Lucy Maud Montgomery
The first entry:

1890
Monday, Jan. 20

"Mollie and I have made a decidedly startling discovery about some of our little personal affairs. I am not going to write it down because it is a dead secret. We have refused to tell Nate what it is but we have hinted just enough to fire his curiosity to the blazing point."

Creativity Abounds

We are all creative. We're made that way. Observe any kindergarten class anywhere, and you will see what I mean.

Every once in awhile, I will hear someone bemoan their lack of creativity. I never have a good response. My instinct is to tell them that perhaps it is just misplaced. An early critic probably dashed their hopes. Who among us cannot recall, word for word, what a teacher said about our earliest artistic efforts? Stop the paint from running down the easel. Stay in between the lines. Your figures are too small, too big, are not in the middle of the page and on and on. Well intended instruction can shatter the fantasy that fuels our tiny geniuses. Somewhere along the line, I think I decided to ignore everyone. I had a secret audience, and I looked to them for approval. They never let me down. I could tell them stories, give speeches, sing and dance. I showed them my knitting, my drawing, and I told them all of my troubles. They encouraged me to no end. Who were these lovely creatures? They were two hundred strong. They were a herd. They were the cattle on the family farm.

Last night on NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt showed us a video montage of Derek Klingenberg  playing to his cattle. Then he demonstrated a drone inspired painting in his field in which the cows created a picture. My husband and I laughed and laughed and then had a great discussion of how each innovation mankind creates, there is a burst of creativity somewhere. New inventions inspire unique and individualistic, original ideas. It is just one great aspect of what makes life so precious, and so entirely worth living.

I Don't Know What To Write

A few times I have been asked to give a workshop on "writing books" or "how to write." The main comment I get is, "I don't know what to write about."  My answer is usually to ask a person in the audience to toss out a subject and I tell them beforehand that I can come up with five different themes to write about from that one suggestion. For instance, one person shouted out "grocery stores." I answered in almost rapid responses: how to shop, using weekly ads, how and where grocers place items on
shelves, and what to do about people who talk loudly on their cell phones the entire time they, and you, are shopping. Another said "men's shoes."  My answers were: a history of men's shoes, how fine shoes are made, current trends in men's shoes, how to take care of your shoes, and can you buy shoes for another person.

 Not all of these ideas would play out to be a vital article, and research is required on all the answers. The point is if I can find five topics in rapid succession off the top of my head in a public venue with random topics, you, too, can find some topic about which to write!

In researching this subject, I came across a large number of books whose titles made me wonder, "How did THAT get published?" These titles prove my point better than any more expounding on how and where to find topics you may want to explore for writing. You never know what publishers will print.                                                                                                

Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification, Julian Montague

How to Start Your Own Country, Edwin S. Strauss

The Toothpick: Technology and Culture, Henry Petroski

Catflexing: A Catlovers Guide to Weight Training, Aerobics and Stretching, Stephanie Jacobsen

Village Bells,  Alain Cobin 

Fashion in Spinach, Elizabeth Hawes

Bicycles in War, Martin Cardin and Jay Barbree

English Laundresses Working Class 1850-1930

How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, Doug Richmond

Bombproof Your Horse, Rick Pelicano

Blessed Are the Cheesemakers,  Sarah-Kate Lynch

Knitting with Dog Hair A Sweater From The Dog You Know and Love Than The Sheep You'll Never Meet, Kendall Collier

The Book of Marmalade, C. Anne Wilson

Build Your Own Hindenburg, Alain Rose

How to Avoid Huge Ships, John H. Trimmer

How to Abandon Ship,  Phil Richards and John J. Banigan

Blue Plate Special, the musing of a woman about her food choices, meals, food prep, Kate Christensen

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World that Can't Stop Talking, Susan Cain

How to Sharpen Pencils A Practical & Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening for Writers, Artists, Contractors, Flange Turners, Anglesmiths, & Civil Servants, David Rees and John Hodgman 

How to Read A Book, Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren

Suture Self, Mary Durheim

Across Europe by Kangaroo, Joseph R. Barry

The Invention of The Curried Sausage, Ulwe Timon

A Lust for Window Sills, Harry Mount

Soap Through The Ages,  R. Lucock Wilson

SALT a world history,  Mark Kurlansky

How to Build A Cork Boat,  John Pollack

How Tea Cosies Changed The World, Loani Prior

Be Bold with Bananas, Crescent Books

The Devil's Cloth A History of Stripes,  Michel Pastoureant

As  you can see, you CAN find a topic, even obscure, that a publisher will publish.

Love Scenes and (the writer)

When she writes loves scenes, Janet Evanovich sits alone in her dedicated writing room, drinks a glass of champagne and nibbles from a bowl of M&Ms. Her Stephanie Plum series of murder mysteries are rapid fire and have a dose of sex but she finds them difficult to write. How do you write love scenes or do not write them because you are hesitant?

There are many rules about writing love scenes and surprisingly most of them apply to Christian romance novels as well as “bodice rippers” and those general romance stories by Richard Paul Evans, Nora Roberts, Sandra Brown, and Nikki Arana. (Forget the hard-core stuff. I do not know any authors and do not want to comment on it.)

1. Know your audience and yourself.

Write what you are comfortable saying.

Write the scenes your readers expect based on the plot.

Use words that appeal to you and fit the plot.

2. Make sure the scene adds to the story line.

Gratuitous sex just to sell a book or to nab a publisher is tawdry and  

demeaning to you and the reader. Write love scenes not sex scenes.

    

3. We all know the rules of building tension in a plot.

Sexual tension needs to be built up from the beginning of the story. You must show how the characters’ relationship gets to the point where they make love.           

Write the characters to have an attraction at their first meeting.

Keep them thinking about each other in a slightly sexual way.

“He noticed her lips right away.” “She loved men with red hair and he had long, curly red hair…. and a red beard!”

            There have to be consequences of having sex further into the

            story.

4. Balance your scenes between emotions and physical acts.

            Write so the actions are not too distracting.

            Rarely do characters have sex just for sex’ sake.

Understand that most of your audience knows how its done.

Make it part of the tension of plot as well as tension in the scene.

            Sometimes sex is not necessary for the story.

            Decide if the scene will be fast and hot or slow and romantic.

5. Use the five senses to enhance the setting.

            Are they in her childhood bedroom that is soft and pink and

            smells of her shampoo? Are they in the woods and

            the gentle breeze through the pine trees sounds like waves and 

            the air smells like fresh rain? Are they in a hotel room or car?

            Use descriptive nouns to set the scene. It can’t all be about

            body parts or actions, or it is boring and readers skip it.

6. Do not make the scenes long.

7. Make sure that the readers know that eventually these characters will make love. An out-of-the-air scene is not helpful.

8. Write love scenes from one person’s point of view. The other character can think about it later in order to give the reader the other half of the couple’s feelings about what happened.

9. Do not let the sex scenes overpower the main plot. It should add to the plot but not be THE element of the story. 

10. Avoid clichés and foolish names for body parts.

11. Write the scenes as they are scheduled into the story. Do not save them for the last and insert them where you thought they would fit.

12. Have some fun. Think happy thoughts while you write even if you write in the closet by candlelight.

The Antagonists

As I have been working on a novel based largely on my early life, I am now at the point of beginning again for the third draft. To give myself a clear direction forward, I asked a few writers to take a look at my unwieldy manuscript and weigh in. When you find two or three people in complete agreement, a rare enough occurrence in real life, you have a pretty strong sense of where the structure of the story may be lacking. Writing from real experience can be quite maddening, as the events of anyone's life do not fall into the lines of story structure. Even in straight memoir form, even if you have had the most fascinating life imaginable, you would still need something of a dramatic arc in order to carry the story forward. While  I have filled five hundred pages  full of snippets of memory, it has been made clear that I need to fix something in the structure.

After much tossing, turning, casting about and questioning the fates, the answer came to me late at night when I asked Google for help. I found a blog, very much like this one, where a writer tried to process a constant piece of criticism she faced with alarming regularity from friends and agents alike. Her stories were too nice, she was told, about nice people and that her writing lacked conflict. The woman went on to describe how she avoids conflict in real life, and like me, turns herself inside out and backwards to give other people their way rather than face down any transgressors. Bingo, I thought. This is me.

Upon further reflection, I realized that I had no desire to create an antagonist in any of my fiction. I would rather not spend my time thinking about people compelled to make themselves into a veritable roadblock. To tell you the truth, in my own life, I consider those types, and there doesn't seem to be any shortage of them, to be avoided at all costs. While most are well meaning and tend to question whether any course of action has been thought through well enough, for their liking at least, it still drives me crazy to be second guessed.  After all, I think I do enough of that for myself.

 In taking an existing true story, as was the case with my novel entitled, My American Eden, I did not have this problem as the antagonist came with the territory. It was the Puritan minister, the man who preached to the first citizens of Boston on board the Arabella, headed to the new world, where they were about to have a second chance at paradise who distrusted women and feared a second Eve would be their undoing. Believing God would not be merciful a second time, under his theocratic jurisdiction, women were tied to the whipping post, stripped to the waist and thrashed. When that did not exert enough control, he fined, jailed and then executed those who disagreed with him. Tying his own handkerchief over the face of my heroine as she willing faced her execution, he was her antagonist to the bitter end.  In a story based on the true events of my childhood, a person in complete opposition to me is harder to come by.  The answer will have to  spring from my imagination and it is this conundrum that has me up in the middle of the night.

If you feel that your story is starting to sag in the middle, not gaining in momentum, or lacking a certain zing, take a look at your protagonist and put more obstacles in his or her path. The protagonist has to want something, and the antagonist has to stand in the way. That is the long and the short of it. Get every rejected work out of the drawer, cupboard or filing cabinet and look at it through this lens. You'd be surprised at what a good, old fashioned Snidely Whiplash kind of character can do for your story. 

Up Half the Night Reading

In an earlier post, I announced to the world that Hilary Mantel's, Bringing up the Bodies, had been selected for my summer reading. As the season slid into fall, it was mid October, glorious and ripe with color and the bounty of my garden, that I reached the end of this fabulous book. The night table lamp, put to such good use over the previous weeks, I finally  turned off. With a scant few hours sleep before the cruel alarm would shake me unwillingly from my rest, I still had trouble nodding off as my mind continued to reel.

Even though I have stopped reading it, the book is still with me and in my thoughts. I find I return to it several times a day. Discussing the novel over dinner with our book club, I found fellow readers in complete agreement as to the utter majesty of the work. Over the years, we have read so many fine authors,  and this week were were able to toast the first British woman to win the Man Booker Prize not once, but twice. Wolf Hall, being the first to claim the coveted honor covers the rise of Thomas Cromwell, the mastermind in Henry VIII's turbulent reign. In Bringing up the Bodies, the book covers a shorter time span, the scant weeks leading up to Anne Boleyn's ultimate demise. We know the story, it has been told before, but not at all like this. Exquisite descriptive power pushes the story forward; the action moves swiftly and the details of Anne Boleyns execution seem so real that one forgets to breathe. So many times I put out the light, and then lay there in the dark, sat up and turned the light on again. 

Here is a glimpse of Mantel's style from page 36. of Bringing up the Bodies:

“His relations with the queen, as summer draws to it official end, are chary, uncertain and frought with distrust. Anne Boleyn in now thirty four years old, an elegant woman, with a refinement that makes mere prettiness seem redundant. Once sinuous, she has become angular. She retains her dark glitter, now rubbed a little, flaking in places. Her prominent dark eyes she uses to good effect, and in this fashion she glances at a man's face, then her regard flits away, as if unconcerned, indifferent. There is a pause: as it might be a breath. Then slowly, as if compelled, she turns her gaze back to him. Her eyes rest on his face. She examines this man. She examines him as if he is the only man in the world. She looks as if she is seeing him for the first time, and considering all sorts of uses for him, all sorts of possibilities which he has not even thought of himself. To her victim the moment seems to last an age, during which shivers run up his spine. Though in fact the trick is quick, cheap, effective and repeatable, it seems to the poor fellow that he is now distinguished among all men. He smirks. He preens himself. He grows a little taller. He grows a little more foolish.” 

Years ago, I was informed by a group of editors in New York, top men in their fields that "history does not sell." Repeating this statement to all in sundry, I heard many many times  readers tell me that they liked it best.  Now that Mantel has won this most revered prize twice it will serve to lift the form back to its proper place. For all those who have always loved history and fiction, I can promise you will not be disappointed. This book represents historical fiction at its absolute finest. 

I

http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Up-Bodies-Hilary-Mantel/dp/0805090037

Guest Post: Burying Frank

 Courtesy of Bill Pigott, a Toronto Writer

What saved it from being unbearable was the hawthorn. In full bloom, it enveloped us in the breath of Spring.

If you counted the robin, there were five of us at the interment.

Frank had died at 84, alone. What family Frank had lived, perhaps understandably, far away.

Few people epitomized a name as well as Frank. For, Frank had been issued the deck of life with the people suit missing.

Frank’s unmarried crust had thickened with age. A great battlement shutting in profound neediness. Our last visit together looked like a disaster - unless you understood the codes.

“Turn down that goddam T.V.!” I walked across Frank’s living room and obeyed.

Frank’s right hand held a cigarette, precariously. The inch long ash threatening harm to a fine Persian rug. Frank’s body inscribed a “C” in the chair. The pose of slouching indifference reading “go away”. But, meaning “stay - please”.

In Frank’s right hand was a glass of Canadian whiskey - neat, dark brown. Soon, Frank would demand another drink. Please and thank you would not figure in that transaction either.

We had spent the afternoon watching golf - in silence. The Master’s was Frank’s favorite. All dressed, we would be going to Tachet, a neighborhood restaurant. A treat reserved for my visits to town. Frank looked natty in grey flannels, white shirt and black cardigan.

At Tachet, the food was French and they fussed. Perhaps they mistook Frank’s snarly nature as merely Parisian. By the end of dinner, it would be touch and go whether there was more food on Frank than in.

As we readied to go out, I knew we would have to face the “gauntlet”. The gauntlet was a steep wooden stairway that dropped about fifteen feet to the garage under Frank’s house. Frank insisted on taking those stairs unaided in spite of virtual blindness, and no sense of balance - the after effects of several mild strokes. And, three stiff whiskeys.

Frank teetered at the top of the stairs risking a five metre plunge. I stood two steps down, just in case. “Get out of my goddam way!” I didn’t. Frank fell forward grasping for the banister bars and found them. Four more heart-stopping lunges and Frank reached the bottom.

Fifteen minutes later, exhausted, I wheeled Frank into Tachet, set the brake and let the French take over.

Over dinner, Frank reprised one of the hidden things in Frank’s life - creativity.

Frank had worked for a large ad agency in Philadelphia - writing tag lines transforming product to image. I imagined the agency carefully sliding Frank’s meals under a door marked “Beware of Frank.”

“It was 1948," Frank said. An old client was seeking new directions. “Goddamned if they didn’t want a timeless catch phrase. Something simple. Simple is best. But, simple is the goddamned hardest. And, the bastards wanted it over night.”

With a morning deadline, Frank sat at home, rejected thoughts balled on the floor. Listening, I imagined Frank in the half light, shrouded in muse-choking smoke and railing.

“At 3:00 in the morning, I was done in. I had a line in front of me that looked promising. I decided to sleep on it. When I woke up, I knew I had it. “A Diamond Is Forever”. I wrote that. Put DeBeer’s on the map. Got a handshake from the boss. Bugger all else. Number one advertising slogan of the century - did you know that?” The tone was proud. “The goddam agency fired me in 1972 when it moved to New York. I guess I wasn’t forever.”

I cleaned as much of Frank’s dinner off Frank as I could without being obvious. We drove home. Frank went to bed and I left for the last time.

The robin brought me back to grave side. I heard the priest. But, I was thinking about Frank’s antisocial ways. And, imaging the obstacles she faced in the business world of the 1940's.

“Rest in peace Mary Frances Gerety. May God have mercy on you.” The priest concluded his ministrations with a splash of holy water and murmured condolences.

Then, we left Frank, alone. Under the hawthorn.

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

Winging It, & Writing

Writers so often hear how important it is to outline and plot before ever starting  to write their story. To know their beginning, middle and end. To already have a vision,   and  are able to define their   protagonist and antagonist.

I agree this  seems the popular formula for writing a best selling novel, essay or memoir. 

Who am I to disagree?  I have yet to write a   book , let alone be published. Yet, I am a writer with hopes one day to   write my  novel, and yes,  have it published.  So I'm  always looking for inspiration and ideas about the best way to go about it.  I certainly  adhere to the axiom, write, write, write and re-write , but   today, I  was fascinated , and found it interesting when I read the mediation for August 3 titled Winging It,  on how   to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life in  Fred White's The Daily Writer.

Writers tend to be intuitive sorts. Yes, it's sensible to work with an outline or synopsis, especially for the book -length projects., but sometimes too much planning ahead can impede output. If you find yourself plodding along  or feeling that writing is more of a chore than an adventure, consider winging it, flying by the seat of your pants, putting yourself out on a limb, having faith in yourself.

We learn from our day jobs the importance of planning ahead, of keeping the risk factor at a minimum. with writing, as with most any kind of creative work, intuition and cautious planning ahead are often at odds. So much of creative writing involves spontaneous discovery and following one's hunches. Sure, we can fall flat ,but part of the fun of writing is seeing where it all leads. The payoff quite often compensates for the setbacks.

So , following White's For Further Reflection, I'll try 'winging it' and take flight from the tried and true, even  if I'm not sure where I'm headed  with the new idea. White encourages writers  to explore new ways of telling a story, of turning a phrase, and says, " Keep in mind that readers are explorers too, and they will be delighted to embark on new narrative and verbal pathways."

Food and Fiction

When faced with the enormous task of writing fiction, of describing an experience through the senses, food can be a terrific resource. The relationship between food and fiction has a rich and satisfying past.

Valentin Louis Georges Eugene Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 and lived until November 18, 1922. Coming of age in the era of the Third Republic in France, he lived in southern Paris, in an age when the aristocracy was beginning its decline, in favor a rising middle class. While he had a prolific career, he was beset by grief following the death of his beloved mother. In Remembrance of Things Past, he described a momentous event involving a simple little delicacy. This is an excerpt from the famous passage:

The Cookie

“Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theater and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother seeing that I was cold offered me some tea, a thing which I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, I changed my mind. She sent me one of those squat, plump little cakes called 'petites madelines,' which though they had been molded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised my lips to a spoonful of tea in which I had soaked a morsel of cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no sensation of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disastrous innocuous, its brevity illusory- this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had now ceased to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savors, could, not, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? How could I seize and apprehend it?”

Proust's thoughts on the experience continue on for another two pages. At the end, he speaks of the taste of a madeline dipped in tea, bringing him back in his mind's eye to the house in Combray, to the garden, to the village and to the county and with that memory, to the emotion of being exquisitely happy. The skill with which Proust describes that cookie has been talked and written about for almost one hundred years. It is unarguably the greatest passage about food in all of our vast library of literature.

Lest I give Proust all the credit I can name others whose talent lingered in my mind, and may have more than once sent me in the direction of the kitchen, or a restaurant with the hope of recreating the experience for myself. Ernest Hemingway used a very simple and direct method, in keeping with his personal style that would have me scurrying to recreate the same dish. In A Moveable Feast, he writes:

“Wine is the most civilized thing in the world. In Europe we thought of wine as something as healthy and normal as food and also a great giver of happiness and well being and delight. Drinking wine was not snobbism nor a sign of sophistication nor a cult; it was as natural as eating and to me as necessary.”

As a young woman I craved the cakes and feasts of the Maritime Provinces described in turn of the century Canada, where as Lucy Maude Montgomery stated, “if you have not set your table with three kinds of cake, you have not done your family proud.”

When I wrote My American Eden, I took on the challenge of discovering what the diet consisted of in seventeenth century New England. I learned that the sky turned black with the plethora of ptarmigan overhead, that streams seamed to boil with the plenitude of fish, and that shooting game was as easy as walking out the door with musket in hand. Flour, on the other hand being scarce and precious, could not be spared for two pie crusts. Only the bottom of the plate would be lined, excepted in the finest houses, where the 'upper crust' found a home.

In my memoir in progress, now called Four Stanley Cups and a Funeral, I sometimes find my mouth watering describing the roast beef and Yorkshire pudding of my youth. If I recall picking apples from the trees in our orchard, I suddenly feel the brisk wind; I can bring to mind my jeans and cowboy boots, and I can hear the sound of the crisp bite into the first, newly ripe, Northern Spy, grown in the hardscrabble soil of Caledon, Ontario. From there, the smell of the barn comes squarely back to me, and I hear the steadying breaths of the horses lined up in their stalls, with inquisitive and friendly heads poking out the top.

Cultures are defined by their various dishes. You only need to let the reader know what your protagonist had for lunch and they will know something of who they are. How they start their day, what they have for breakfast and how they feel about it, will set the stage. Is the main dish fried, boiled, or grilled? Do they cherish fresh fish, or never eat it? Do they have Oysters for lunch on Boxing Day? Is there a large table set outside, or under an arbor, or do they eat in a dining room with starched and spotless linen. Who serves the food? Who prepares it? Do they eat in restaurants, and if so what kind?

More from Proust:

"Undoubtedly what it is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred up colors is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life."

Run, don't walk, to your nearest bakery. I should have included a word of warning at the beginning. Writing will make you very hungry, diets impossible, and cooking the ultimate distraction.

Links: http://www.amazon.com/Remembrance-Things-Past-Volumes-1-3/dp/0394712439/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333487019&sr=1-2

http://www.amazon.com/Moveable-Feast-The-Restored-Edition/dp/143918271X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333487110&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/My-American-Eden-Martyr-Freedom/dp/1572493488/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333487179&sr=1-1

Charles Dickens, Two Hundred Years On

2012 is the two hundred year mark since one of our most cherished writers was born. On February 7th, 1812, in Landport England, Charles Dickens arrived as the second child, and eldest son. While he lived, he enjoyed fame and fortune. As time marches on, we look back at his work with renewed reverence.

Growing up, we had a personal tradition of watching "A Christmas Carol," on December 24th as we wrapped presents. Like many viewers of this timeless classic, I felt grateful in the knowledge that conditions had vastly improved since the days of Dickens. Knowing that there are no workhouses, no child labor, no parents beside themselves with worry about being unable to get medical care for a sick child, I thought that as human beings, we had evolved to create more caring societies. The world depicted by Dickens, based on his terribly real experience of being sent to work in a factory while his father languished in debtor's prison, I believed had come and gone.

The Hindustan Times has this to say regarding the Dickens bicentenary: “Adam Pushkin, Head of Arts, British Council, India says, 'Dickens wrote about urban development, capitalism, corruption, private wealth, misery of the destitute and failings of the government. Now look around and what do you see? Celebrating him is not looking backwards but looking at the contemporary society through the world of Dickens.' ”

Two years ago we had a brief but lovely stay in the dear old city of Boston. In the Parker House hotel, we stepped into the bar for a nightcap after dinner. Long in the habit of reading any information found on menus, I was stunned to learn of the hotel's history. In the 1800's a group of writers met there every week one of whom was Charles Dickens. Unaware of his American experiences, I was surprised to learn that he kept company with the illustrious Transcendentalists.

In a search for the ladies room, I was directed to a staircase. As I climbed to the second floor, a powerful sense of heightened awareness caught hold of me and led me down a long hall. Doors holding plaques described different events in the hotel's history including naming the room where Dickens first read aloud from the freshly penned chapters of A Christmas Carol. I carried on down this passage as if floating, until I stopped in front of a large mirror.

The brass plate at the bottom held these words. “Mirror from the room of Charles Dickens.” I gazed at my reflection feeling as if I was not looking at myself so much as looking for the answer. I spoke out loud as I was alone in that vast corridor.

“Help me please,” I asked. “Help me as a writer, please Mr. Dickens.”

It did not take but a minute for a curious thought to literally pop into my mind. “Start the story where the story begins.”

I ran downstairs to the bar to tell my husband the good news.

In looking up facts about the life of Charles Dickens, I read that he stood in front of a mirror, spoke his character's dialogue out loud, found their quirks and odd habits, and indeed, discovered their very souls mirrored in his own reflection.

Here are the opening lines from "Great Expectations":

"My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name being Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing larger or more explicit than Pip. So I called myself Pip and came to be called Pip."

As a creative writing major, I heard these words many times: “Put the reader in the story.” We have many masters and many works of genius who managed this skill brilliantly. Some stand above all others. Consider this, if you will, from the first page of "Great Expectations":

“Ours was the marsh country down by the river, within, as the river wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression of the identity of things, seems to me to have been gained on a memorable raw afternoon towards evening. At such time I found out for certain, that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and that Philip Pirrup, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the above, were dead and buried, and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, Tobias and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid were also dead and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, intersected with dykes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle feeding on it, was the marshes and that low leaden line beyond was the river; and that the distant savage lair for which the wind was rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid of it all and beginning to cry was Pip.”

One hundred years from now, at the three century mark, at the tricentennial, we will marvel once again, with awe and reverence, this vivid and masterful writing.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens.

The Barn

I am going to write about barbed wire.

This unlikely topic sprung from a New Year's Day conversation I enjoyed with an old friend. As she is a gifted photographer, we spoke of a recent picture she had just taken. In a car with her parents, she asked her father to stop so she could capture the beauty of an aging barn, set against the bucolic and rolling hills of the Palouse. This set off an argument over where the shot should be taken. Her parents thought they should position the car so as to avoid getting the barbed wire fence in the foreground.

“No, no, no!” I said. “You were right. The barbed wire would add, not detract from the picture. It would set a distinct tone, provide prospective and add contrast. ”

Because my friend is an adult and a strong person who has learned to stand her ground, she made sure all objections were over ruled, got her way, and took the picture.

As I listened, I thought about classic foregrounds. If a picture tells a story, then a story paints a picture and all techniques, commonly used, and oft taught, must be employed.

In college, I took as many art history courses as I possibly could. How I loved the dark rooms, the slides, and the layering of the centuries and the years of innovation. Being a hands on mom, while at home with children, and having been blessed with two artistic types in my care, I spent many years putting their art supplies on the counter before I turned in for the night. If they were to get up before us, they could begin their day in artistic endeavors, and leave me free to get a few more minutes of precious sleep.

We went to art galleries constantly, and when traveling, saw everything. We remember fondly the time our son was depicted in the Sacramento Bee, at a summer art class for Impressionism. He was eight at the time, and we still have the painting he made. We signed him up for a class after that, taking place one day a week. This had to fit in with Kung Fu, soccer, school activities and lots of time for play, but on the day of that class, Wednesday, he would hop around in the morning singing that it was his favorite day of the week. It went from there. On a trip to Philadelphia, we planned to spend the better part of the day at one of the greatest museums in the country. I remember well what happened up on the third floor. As we came out of the elevator, and he saw a painting that knocked him sideways, he sank down to his knees. I came up and asked, “ are you okay?”

“Its a Van Gogh!”

Years later on a trip to Paris, at the D'Orsay, after seeing masterpiece after masterpiece, I suddenly and without any warning, burst into tears in front of Van Gogh's Starry Night. I went to look for my son to tell him that I had been overcome.

I found him madly sketching Van Gogh's self portrait. “Look at his eyes!”he said.

My son went on to major in studio art at Gonzaga and when I saw his senior thesis up on the gallery wall, it was one of those moments one remembers as being at the pinnacle.

The relationship between art and writing goes hand and hand. When I created the plot line of my novel in progress, and put a visual picture up on the wall, it changed what I often refer to as the oil slick of ideas and began to form a cohesive whole. I pass by it every day when I enter my study. As I complete a chapter, I add a sticky note and cover the main points. It is a visual representation of my upward climb. It reminds me that I am getting there.

Apart from the mechanics of telling a story, I do always, try to paint pictures with words. I also remember that Vincent Van Gogh received no recognition in his life time, but now, tops the charts in terms of monetary worth for his art. Yet, like my friend, he stuck to his belief in his own authenticity.

"Feelings of authenticity are heightened by a lack of a philosophy that allows failure to be a part of life. If you're leading a full life, you're going to fail some every day."

Thomas Moore

Guest Post from Kelly Sullivan

What's Inside - Simple Pleasures, #23 of 30

by Kelly Sullivan on 11/2/2011 5:35:26 PMComment on this

“There must be something in there”, I thought to myself. I turned it all around and admired it. It was simple. It was beautiful. I was intrigued by the thing I could not see; that beautiful thing inside. The one that I was sure existed, but could never see without breaking it apart.

Mystery is a powerful thing. It can motivate us toward an outcome, or it can consume us, thirsty for an answer. How far we go to quench it is what separates us.

Some will bust it open demanding satisfaction. They may reach their goal of knowing, but will likely leave a lot of broken pieces.

Others may pick at it slowly, after careful deliberation and study, until a softening occurs and they can see what has been hiding. Hopefully they find sweetness; something worthy of their effort.

There are also those that would prefer to leave a beautiful thing undisturbed and just appreciate it from a comfortable distance, maintaining its beauty, keeping the mystery folded. This is the safe spot. They will never really know what’s in there, and they will never be disappointed by its content.

In the Buddhist religion, the seeds of the Chinese Lantern are used is an offering to celebrate the greatest mystery of all. This offering is made to honor our ancestors and thank them for their sacrifices. It is intended to guide them through death.

Perhaps we can use a seed or two in life. Just knowing that “there is something in there”, makes me want to see it. Will I bust it open, or pick at it slowly, or just keep it folded?

For now, I will paint.

For more information about Kelly, please visit:

http://kellysullivanfineart.com/blog 

Present Yourself With Pride

When glancing through the sports page recently, I came across an amazing statistic. Patrick Chan is now in the Guinness Book of World Records.  It happened at the World Championships, 2011, where he received the highest marks ever recorded.  This news is marvelous on many counts, but it personally meaningful to me. This marks a triumph for someone else, someone no longer on this earth, a man who is gone now, but never to be forgotten.  I am recalling my old skating teacher, Osborne Coulson.

To part the mists of time, I return in my mind's eye to Silver Blades skating club, nestled as it was in the borough of Etobicoke, in the west end of Toronto. The rink was absolutely as ordinary as any in existence at the time. The smell of hot dogs, and popcorn would hit full force when we entered the door. The drinks were limited to boiler plate coffee for the Moms and strange tasting soft drinks, with very little ice. The last thing we needed was more cold.

We took to the ice wearing skirts knit by our mothers and grandmothers. In my case, we were lucky enough to have a great aunt who contributed to this effort. Out I went with sweater, skirt, hat and mittens, all fashioned by loving hands. My first coach, in keeping with all efforts to put me on the road to championship, was the best to be had in the entire world. Ellen Burka by name, she had coached her own daughter into landing a perfect triple jump in competition. Petra Burka was the first to accomplish this amazing feat, beating the men and everyone else to the punch, and not only did she do it, she nailed it. Mrs Burka went on to coach many champions, but not yours truly here. At the age of eight, I was quite overcome by a fit of creativity. At center ice, waiting for my music to start, I suddenly got the daft notion to invent my own program. The judges, my parents, and my coach were all horrified with the latter refusing to teach me ever again. In the process of being disciplined for making such a crazy decision, I was told that without Mrs. Burka, I could forget, just abandon, any hope of becoming a Figure Skating Champion in Canada. I had to go down a notch in the coaching field. Due to my odd move, with a championship now out of the running, I had to figure out another way in which to distinguish myself. Without music, or dance lessons, it became a tall order, and the insurmountable problem of my young life. 

Into this sea of trouble skated Ozzie Coulson. I was in the process of working on my school figures, in silence, when he glided over and told me he would be my new coach. He was smoking a cigarette at the time, housed in an elegant gold tipped extender. His hat, a fedora, was enhanced by an extravagant feather sweeping skyward on the side of his head. A cashmere scarf around his neck over a white shirt and tie, an elegant overcoat, and crisp wool pants, he was just unlike most men I knew in my youth. I thought he was great! 

After telling him right off that he was to consider me soft in the head, and stupid on all accounts, he nudged me with his elbow. “You know what” he whispered. “I liked your program!”

I could not believe my ears. Someone was on my side for once? This was too good to be true. That is how my relationship with him began.  At this point in time, I cherish every lesson I had with him, not only for what he taught me about the sport, but what he gave me about life.

“I want you to present yourself to the world with pride,” he said. He would lift his head, smile with a twinkle in his eye, and put his chin up. Sometimes people would make fun of him, or say in their polite way, that he, "certainly was different." Flamboyant was the term most often given to him, but he persisted in walking tall, beautifully and colorfully dressed. He brought a smile to the face of everyone in his midst. He was artistic, creative, and loved that quality in his pupils. He used to laugh his head off at my scathing imitations of others, or of the silly things I said and did.

When I saw him in later years, his eyes filled up with tears as I hugged him. He told me straight away that he was currently coaching a really, really good skater. He referred to Patrick Chan.

When Ozzie lay on his deathbed, Patrick held his hand. A clip shown in the last Olympics featured Ozzie telling Patrick, “I want you to show your pride.”

Any writer attempting to find an agent, or publisher and facing rejection. will be knocked sideways, more than once. It is not uncommon for a young scribe to have a drawer full of verbal assaults and they may start to doubt whether they should pursue this crazy life at all. Bless the people in our midst, the teachers who gave us encouragement, because we can never fully gauge the degree of influence. The meanest letters I ever had to read regarding my work, did not destroy my pride. Just as all those falls, where gravity overcame any efforts to defy it, over and over, and sent me smashing down to the ice, hurting and discouraged, did not stop me from skating. To this day, I still love it, and watching a skater like Patrick Chan who can land not one, but two quadruple jumps, in a short program, one who can make the toughest judges agree that they just saw the best ever, well, that is just as good as it gets. Watching Patrick's record breaking, perfect short program brought me unmistakeably back to the dramatic and jazzy moves, Ozzie taught me as a child. 

Patrick, I congratulate you. Ozzy, I love you and thank you. You had the heart of a champion.

No Small Potatoes

There has been a movement afoot in literature to focus on one commodity, and make a book of it. People have written about salt, wine and chocolate. This led me to wonder if anyone has written about what the great state of Idaho is known for, namely, the potato.

How did this come to pass? How is it that when a person from Idaho travels, he or she is inevitably asked about potatoes. It turns out that Idaho was a trail blazer in this regard when in 1937 the Idaho Potato Commission was founded. This body, funded by a tax paid by potato farmers, set out to advertise on radio and later television, to create a brand identity from a single crop. A seal was fashioned and customers were encouraged to look for that mark when purchasing what was to become our famous potatoes. Lots of other states grow the crop, but the affection and identity formed by the commission created a market for thirteen billion pounds of spuds, one third of all those sold in the United States.

On St. Patrick's Day, a dear friend by the name of Mary, told me about a book she had just read by Mary Pat Kelly. Entitled, “Galway Bay,” the novel is an actual oral history passed down from one generation to the next. Told primarily through the women, it is the tale of one immigrant family and their travails from Ireland to Chicago. While it is not about the potato famine, called An Gorda Mor in Gaelic, it is the great catalyst of the tale.

“They tried to kill us, but we didn't die.” This is the thread of the story handed down through the ages; it is one of incredible hardship and then survival.

When I was in school in Toronto, I recall the day the teacher told us that the famine was caused by a lazy population who stupidly lived on one crop because they could not be bothered to grow anything else.

"When that crop suffered a blight they starved," she told us, with the implication that they should have known better hanging in the air.

I remember looking out the window, trying to wed that story with what I knew about my own family, all of whom are avid gardeners and farmers. At home, I asked if the story were true and heard that food was exported to England all through those dark days. Imagine having to take the harvest to market, load a ship and return home to a house of desperate want. As the "croppies" were only given a scant bit of land to cultivate for private use, the "pratties" gave the highest yield and provided the greatest nourishment.

These are the facts: 750,000 were confirmed dead of starvation. Bearing in mind that many more died in the coffin ships landing in Montreal and Boston, this would be a severe underestimation. Without the hospitals, or the man power necessary to deal with the influx, the sick passengers arriving in Quebec were put on an island in the St. Lawrence and left exposed to the elements. Promised, land, cash and food upon arrival, they arrived to find nothing and no way home. The bit of land they left behind on the dear, old sod had been exchanged for the price of their passage. Cecil Woodham Smith reported that during the famine years, 257,000 sheep were exported to England from lands held by absentee landlords. 480,827 swine went over as well as 186,483 head of cattle. Not even mentioning other crops, the picture is clear.

Yet there is a happy ending to this tale. The Irish flourished in both the United States and Canada. Reading “Galway Bay” prompted me to look up the history of my maternal grandmother, Rose Cahill Gaudette. One of ten children in her family, I learned that her mother was the oldest in a family of ten. Going back through the generations, my blood ran cold when I saw the date. In 1848 Thomas Cahill arrived in Montreal. Famine. Coffin ship. Most of the passengers died and their bodies were tossed over. Of the living, it was decided to send the Irish on a barge to Toronto. The sun blazed and the fair skins burned. Once again they were placed on an island off shore. Yet the good people of the city, rowed out in small boats and volunteered to tend the sick, risking their own lives in the process. The Cahills made their way to the gorgeous Ottawa valley, carved a life in the wilderness, and flourished.

Because of “Galway Bay” and in memory of all the times my grandmother served her famous Boxty, the potato pancake, I planted a crop in my garden. Yesterday, I harvested the first of my bounty and served it with dinner. It is true. There is something about Idaho. I am proud to report that the potatoes were entirely delicious. Because of "Galway Bay," I will plant them every year from now on.

From one noun a great story may unfold.

Book Review: The Accidental Creative

I stumbled upon an intriguing book recently called The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice by Todd Henry. How could I pass up something with a title like that?

The book is actually written for creatives who work in a corporate setting, like an advertising agency or the marketing department of a company--people who are expected to produce creative, high quality work on demand, day in and day out, and for those who manage them. However, I found much of the information applicable to those of us who are self-employed or who may not work for a larger organization, but who still want to produce the best-quality writing we can, as often as we can.

Henry's basic premise is that creativity is rhythmic, not a constant stream. We are not machines, and we should respect that rhythm. Just as our creative juices ebb and flow, so should the way we approach our work. After discussing some of the things that interrupt or block our creativity, he presents a fresh approach: literally, F.R.E.S.H., which stands for Focus, Relationships, Energy, Stimuli, and Hours.

Focus is just what it sounds like: concentrated time to establish priorities and focus on what's most important.

Relationships refers to those alliances that support our creativity, purposely forming "circles" and "core teams" for brainstorming and accountability (in our case, a critique partner? a writing group? a reading group?)

Energy means maintaining physical and mental energy. Henry advises us to maximize our natural energy through, among other things, carefully planning and pruning our activities and commitments.

Stimuli includes scheduling regular, purposeful time to absorb books, podcasts, videos, and other media with the stated goal of supporting our creative work, not just being entertained, and

Hours means being wise about scheduling our time, especially making time for things that others might consider wasteful or slacking, like "idea time" and "unnecessary creating."

Henry, of course, does a much better and more thorough job than I do of fleshing all this out in detail. If you struggle at all with maintaining your creative edge, I encourage you to visit the web site and read the book.

Writing your World

The Old Mill Inn and Spa, Toronto

According to James Scott Bell, in his book entitled, “Plot and Structure,” the power inherent in describing the world in which your characters inhabit is paramount. He uses this example from Dennis Lehane's “Mystic River.”

“After work that night Jimmy Marcus had a beer with his brother-in-law, Kevin Savage, at the Warren Tap, the two of them sitting at the window and watching some kids play hockey. There were six kids and they were fighting in the dark, their faces gone featureless with it. The Warren Tap was tucked away on a side street in the old stockyard district.”

In a few short sentences, we know exactly where we are; we can picture it. No back story is necessary here.

A character does not exist outside of a culture. If you describe a traveler you must identify, not only where they came from, but also the strange new world in which they find themselves. If you are writing about a period in history, the clothes, the method of transportation, or the way the enter a building, will give necessary clues.

Taken to memoir, it means the place and culture of which you are the most familiar, your first home, must now be examined with a new eye. In order to understand the essence of a place, the best way to grasp its meaning can be found in peeling back the layers of civilization. Who was there first? Who was driven out and by whom? Who fought for this land? Who won and who lost? Is a suburb built on what was once farmland and if so, what remnants of that rural community still exist? Is there an Inn that was once a Blacksmith's Forge, or a Mill? It may still be the focal point of the region.

I used to describe the neighborhood of my youth as a typical, Leave it to Beaver suburb in the west end of Toronto. That may have sufficed for conversation, but in order to create the setting for a novel, it had to be fleshed out more fully and put through the writer's lens.

We lived on the banks of a river called the Humber. In 1615, the explorer Etienne Brule, traveling with Champlain, became the first European to enter the happy hunting grounds that once were home to the Seneca tribe. A plaque outside an old mill, now converted to a restaurant, and Inn, commemorates this event. As a child, it would give me chills to think about it. 1615! What was our world like then?

More research led me to new discoveries about my former home. The Seneca tribe inhabited those shores for over five thousand years. Then in the 1920's, a development company bought a vast track of land and created a neighborhood with a theme. Anglia pars, anglia procal. A little bit of England, far from England. They set out to duplicate a setting reminiscent of a fine borough in London. Winding streets, stone houses, leaded paned windows, oh we looked English all right. Did we in any way take on this sensibility? We did indeed, until more groups came and great diversity toppled this little enclave. The buildings remain, remarkably and beautifully preserved; now the inhabitants are different. Nothing stays exactly the same, yet the character of the place is unchanged, immovable and stalwart. As a writer, a place can be the fabric from which we cut the cloth of our characters. The style of the setting, sets the tone, and puts the characters on their initial footing.

Where do they go from there? Do they want to stay, or are they desperate to get out? If they do want to remain, will they be able to ride all the changes in store? Very few of us in modern times live in the places we inhabited in our youth. Given this, the coating of nostalgia can be draped over the past and we can look at it from a distance and through rose colored glasses. If home is where the heart is, does the allegiance we feel for our first home remain with us forever, or do we shed it as a reptile leaves it skin? If so, do we not still see the outline of the former inhabitant if we happen upon that skin?

While I am not sure who said it first, the old adage of write what you know is apt. If your character is set in a place entirely foreign, then read as much as you can of its history. If writing fantasy, a place still will needs its nouns. It needs something indigenous. It must have its rocks and trees.

" Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration." Charles Dickens