The Writer's House

We have heard Charlie Rose interview many writers over the years. He often asks the author to describe his, or her environment. Many readers imagine that the place is somehow part of the inspiration, as if the house gives up the words, and the author just has to keep pace with the ideas. Given to magical thinking, as far back as I can remember, starting with trying to mimic Mary Martin in Peter Pan, and believing I could fly, I am not so sure that the home of any artist does not play a huge part in the creation. In any house in which I have lived, I first walked around trying to imagine where I would put my desk. In my current home, the former owner had set up a sewing counter, complete with drawers underneath, situated by a window facing the lake. In what had been a sun room when our home was built in the twenties, I was immediately drawn in.  I papered my study in blue and white stripes and then ordered a favorite pansy print from Laura Ashley. With my study all set up and ready to go, we put the computer in and soon found that everyone liked it. The kids played games and did their homework there and so it wasn't long before I moved the whole operation to a cozy nook in our bedroom. Over the years, I would come in and find someone sitting there too, but eventually, I reclaimed my initial idea.

My study has a comfortable chair and a sofa, as I sometimes lie down to think. It is a welcoming spot and cheery, as it gets the morning light. Windows on three sides and an alcove in the wall holding books, make it cozy. A corner cabinet has shelves with framed needlework pieces I have done over the years, tea cups and saucers, and  a picture of my beloved sister, Victoria Rose Smythe,  in her hacking jacket, atop her favorite horse called Sir Stafford. Pictures of my grandparents, my children and my mother and father, group shots from weddings, oh, its all here. My great aunt's tea wagon holds my mother's china birds; its as fine a nest as any writer would ever want.

We have reached a time in life when it is time to scale down and move on. It will all have to be recreated. Just as a novel begins with a blank page, a home starts with other peoples paint choices, counter tops and old carpets. The creative process begins anew. I have no doubt that my next writing space will be as charming as this one and that wherever I put it, the ideas will flow. Some writer's like to be closed into a small nook with the drapes drawn and the distractions down to the limit. As for me, I can recall writing with a sleeping baby in a carrier on top of my kitchen table. Virginia Woolf's oft quoted statement of women needing "A Room of One's Own,” hit a cord, because it is almost impossible to achieve! The days when I took to my bed with a cold, often had my husband stretched out reading, a cat and two children up there on the bed with us and the dog curled up on the floor at the side. I would have my computer on a breakfast tray, still trying to get my thoughts down while asking everyone if there was any other place they would rather be. When they would all chime in with, “No,” I considered myself lucky.

Campers like to linger at the their favorite campsite with the last cup of their morning beverage in hand. Striking the tent and dousing the fire, brings it all to a close. The canoes are then loaded, the journey beckons and the point is rounded; we set off into the great unknown.

From Listen to the Salutation to the Dawn, I am reminded of these words: “For yesterday is but a dream and tomorrow is only a vision, but today, well spent, makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well therefore to this day.”

Pictured above is the view from my study.  My home where I raised my children and wrote two books, will enter a new era, just as we set off on another adventure. This place will always remain with me in my mind, and I will always love it and think of it as my house of dreams. As the future beckons and as we begin another chapter in our lives, the one constant is my cherished Idaho and my beloved Lake Coeur d' Alene. I look forward to knowing it more deeply and more fully.

Reading a Manuscript

There are two manuscripts currently awaiting my attention. It is a distinct honor to be asked to read them and it is a task I approach with reverence. Most writers will guard their work quite zealously, until it is fully formed and ready to be released. If you are at this particular point in time, before the query letter is written, it is wise to ask a few good people to take a look and let you know what they think.

As a writer, you want to find common agreement. In my first attempt at a novel, I heard that my protagonist fell in love with a man she did not seem to like all that much when she first set eyes on him. While this is a common device in many love stories, I missed the mark in describing the man, in such a way as to allow the reader to see why she would eventually fall in love with him. In the end, the novel failed to get out into the world and ended up in my cupboard. The other day, a solution occurred to me on an afternoon walk in the woods.  I have no desire to dust off that story and fix it at this point; there are so many stories and too little time.  I did feel happy though, in the knowledge that a tricky piece of the puzzle had somehow fallen into place. Who knows? If I live to be ninety and still have my faculties, it may see the light of day yet. If not, it was part of my learning curve and not a total waste of time.

Certainly, a story is like a great enigma. Years ago, up at the lake, my family of origin decided to tackle one of those thousand piece puzzles, during a week of inclement weather. We were always an impatient bunch, but some of us found the process soothing. We started to square off the frame and get some sections going, until one day, we returned from a trip to town to see our father sitting at the card table with a pair of scissors! He was cutting a piece to fit. Aghast, we let out a collective protest while he insisted that the piece really was supposed to go there and that the manufacturer did not trim it correctly. Don't do this to either a puzzle, or a manuscript! Don't try to make something work because you stubbornly insist that your reader is wrong and you are right. If two readers say the same thing then you have to admit defeat and go back to the drawing board. A little humility is in order.

A writer needs to know if the story starts to lag at any given point. Picture, if you will, four people holding up a King size sheet. Where in your novel is the greatest dip? Do the four corners have to be lifted higher in order to keep it from sagging to the ground? Many times, a writer will get a response to a query. An agent, after reading the first three chapters, may ask for the full manuscript. The writer will send it off right away and then go through weeks of nail biting uncertainty. With a great thud, the manuscript lands back on the doorstep, having been returned. The excruciating task begins. The reason, obsessed over and discussed with friends, often does not yield an answer. The writing was good enough to get that  far, but was there a lag, a sag, or a droop, that made the agent toss it into the return pile? If so, its better to find out before sending it out and putting yourself through many frustrating attempts to get published.

A writer needs to know if they have gone off on a tangent, if they have written a passage aimed at the greater good of society, but not necessarily having anything to do with the story. Are they in any way proselytizing? They need to know if they have served the story, have kept a narrative arc, or if they have created a great muddle. If you are a writer who crafts your work by feeling your way through it, you must be prepared to hear that you have veered off from the direction the reader thought, or wanted, the story to take. We liked to be surprised, but not entirely surprised. Therefore, when you nail a story down, and you know what it is and what it looks like precisely, you can layer in some foreshadowing, so that the reader is prepared when the tale takes a turn. Was I forewarned when Lady Sybil, in Downton Abbey, died in childbirth? No, I was surprised. Was I too surprised? No. Lady Sybil was already on a perilous path. We knew she was, to some extent, doomed. That is how it works.

Characters become like our children, or our pets. Hearing someone say they did not like the protagonist can be a mighty blow. It need not be a death sentence though. Opinions will vary greatly as to the level of admiration, or dislike. What is more important to the writer, is that the character can be imagined, can be seen with the mind's eye. If so, then the writer has produced something, rather than nothing.

Lastly, good writing will always have a certain zing. If the readers come back and say that the work held their interest, that it was a fast and easy read, then you may heave a great sigh of relief, for that is the hardest part. The very best writing will always grab the reader and hold them tight. Stephen King likens his work to the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries. That is not a derogatory statement and accounts for his commercial success.

Was the writer tripped up anywhere? This is a great question. No reader should be thinking, wait, did I miss something? They shouldn't have to go back a few pages to try to figure out what is happening. Ask your reader if anything needs clarifying.

If you have a manuscript ready to go on its first voyage out of your clutches, then God Bless you. Take vitamins, eat well, rest, take long walks and do not lose faith in your idea, or yourself, whatever you do. If you receive a blow, look for common agreement. If it is just one opinion, try to make sense of it, but do not despair. Years ago, a song writer told me that when he writes the tune and words come to him, he feels good in his soul. He said that he sees God as the Creator and that when he creates, he makes the Creator happy. How I have clung to those words, lo these many years. It takes time, be patient and do not give up no matter what. If you feel in your heart that writing is what you were meant to do, then you must do it, without regard for the outcome. Many of us wrote with one foot rocking the cradle, or on our lunch hour at work, or in the wee hours before dawn. I sat with my laptop in the car at soccer games, while the other mothers paced up and down the sidelines, screaming. I wrote in the storage cupboard at work during lunch because I was in possession of the key and knew I would not be disturbed. I wrote while my kids did their homework, or when they jumped on the trampoline, placed strategically in front of my study window. Persistence pays. Do not let anyone tell you that it doesn't.

 Andy Warhol said, “Make art. Let others decide whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make more art.”

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

Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath

The greatest dialogue in plays, films, or books, manages to impart that which is said and that which has been left unsaid. The elephant in the room, as it were, will keep everyone guessing. A literal definition of subtext describes a message which is not stated directly, but can be inferred. It pertains to the hidden, less obvious meaning perhaps archly delivered by some of our greatest actors.

How is it done? Isn't dialogue hard enough without adding this to the mix? The answer is yes.

Studying the book entitled, Writing Subtext: What Lies Beneath, by Linda Seger I have gained some insight as to how a writer can manage to achieve this. If the audience is let in on a secret, there will be much that can be read into the simplest of statements. A daughter may pretend to like the suitor her father picked out for her, but if we know that she secretly loves someone else, there will be a subtext to all she says. If a mother only wants what is best for her son, but does not want a daughter-in-law who is above her in social standing, she may seem to be welcoming this newcomer, but we will read into her attempts to be friendly. In some cases, such as the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet, the whole of Denmark can be slightly rotten. If the ascendency to power is suspect, the dialogue will be full of subtext. Obviously, Shakespeare was a master at this skill. He would even have a character walk down stage and let the audience in on a few secrets. A sudden windfall, an unlikely suitor, a change of leadership, or even a new invention, can put all known truths under a new microscope. Perhaps everyone is trying to make the adjustment, but no one wants to. There you will see subtext.

A character at odds with the culture about which the audience is familiar, will provide many a laugh as the poor fellow bumbles along, unaware of his missteps. Subtext is an essential tool in the comedians toolkit. In a tragedy, the very elements left unsaid, can be the ones propelling everyone to their doom.

While thinking about this topic, my thoughts lead me straight to a much loved play, namely, "The Importance of Being Ernest." Oscar Wilde states it flat out in Act 1, Scene 1. Two characters, Algernon and Jack, have a discussion while waiting for guests to arrive for tea. Discussing names Jack says,

"Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country."

Algernon:

"I have always suspected you of being a confirmed Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it now."

Jack:

"Bunburyist? What do you mean Bunburyist?"

Algernon:

"I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town and Jack in the country."

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious and modern literature a complete impossibility."

By the time the guests arrive, we have learned that both Bunbury and the Jack/ Ernest situation, are used as an excuse. When in town Ernest must leave at once as his brother Jack is in a pickle. When in the country, it is Ernest who calls him away, thereby providing the perfect excuse to escape social functions to which he is less than enthusiastic. Bunbury provides a similar ruse. Through the remaining scenes of this immortal play, all references to these characters are loaded with subtext.

Characters sometimes do not know themselves. Their most basic drives and instincts may be covered up by social convention, or self delusion. The stage may be full of actors whose roles are at cross purposes. Therein lies the subtext.

Plot your Plot

Of all the books I have read about writing, this one tops my charts. As I am a right brained writer, something I have known about myself for quite some time, I found much help, encouragement and yes, sympathy in this marvelous book for those who share my affliction. A right brained writer is one who loves characters, thoughts, whimsy, and thinks their fool heads off, just for fun. Cause, effect, analytical action, and logical sequences are not the stuff of dreams. Not to worry, says Martha Alderson, the author of this wonderful book. The subtitle: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master, was enough to activate my inner one click, add to cart, self.

She writes of the Universal Story: "All of us face antagonists and hurdles, hopes and joys, and by meeting these challenges we can transform our lives. I have come to believe that every scene in every book is part of a Universal Story that flows throughout our lives, both in our imaginations and in the reality that surrounds us. "

As you read Martha Alderson's book, a strange phenomenon begins to take place. Perhaps my right brain is in a constant war with the left. For whatever reason, the more she described how to nail down the structure of a novel, the more flooded I became with ideas, snippets of dialogue, important scenes and all kinds of other inspirational brainstorms that I furtively jotted down and scribbled in the margins of this book. Why it served to fire so many synapses, I can only attribute to her skill. For instance, did you know, that the beginning of a book should be one fourth of the story, the middle, one half and the end, one fourth. Does that not sound easy?

Next comes the diagram. It makes me quiver. Geometry? I DON'T GET IT! I have to really counsel myself through this part. However, she has a list of words to go with it. Blessed, blessed words. It is a really complete set of instructions and I vow to tackle this plot beast once and for all. If I can manage it in the most difficult of contexts, that is, my own life, as I am working on a memoir, then it will be a snap into place in the next book which I will plot from the beginning. I guess I have always imagined that there is some inner plot master, or perhaps a heavenly soul who takes my hand and guides me through the swamp of my left brain wherein all my wanderings will somehow fit as pieces do in a complex jigsaw puzzle. Thankfully, my new friend and plot whisperer is about as good as anyone who can talk to horses, or dogs, and somehow manage to coax them out of their bad habits. She has reassured me that my affliction is perfectly common. Left brained writers set out with a plan, but the characters do not come as easily. Their books are everywhere, from the grocery store to the airport. If I can manage this challenge, I can wed my strength to my weakness, and then all my troubles will be over.

"As soon as the plot and the structure work, your focus can turn to making every word, phrase and metaphor perfect."

I'll get right on it!

The Artistic Temperament

At a recent lunch with the fabulous blogettes, conversation turned to the nature of artistic temperament. We have all read articles about the connection between genius and mental illness. We have also read and heard accounts of profoundly nasty moves made by some who are regarded as innovative, brilliant, immortal and gifted. What is the connection?

The nature of mania can be what is often called a brainstorm. With all circuits firing at breakneck speed, some have harnessed this heightened awareness and let their paint brush, their type writers, or quill pens, take record some of these rapid fire thoughts.

Any state or mood of increased consciousness would never yield great work in and of itself. The initial flow may be prolific and intense, but it could also be a great mess, yielding nothing of use to anyone. The ride on the back of a bucking bronco may be thrilling, but it is altogether too short. So a second talent is needed; one that allows for the discipline of picking oneself up once the inevitable crash follows in its wake. During those days of low energy, slow, painstaking effort and focus is needed to add layers and at the same time, discard all that is superfluous. With great luck, a beautifully crafted work of art may ensue.

What is the artistic temperament? Lord Byron wrote: “We of the craft are all crazy.... all are more or less touched.” Is it a medical condition, a fine madness, or is it something brought on by the nature of the creative process? While most would feel the former is the most likely, I am tending more towards the latter. The forces of the world around us, seem to conspire in every shape and form to pull us away from the solitary work and into what what Virginia Woolf described as the “tramp and trudge of life.”

Who lives on a street where the neighbors would discourage attendance at a pot luck party in favor solitary confinement in a studio? Is the excessive sensitivity and irritability, as one definition stated, a result of what is required to keep the galloping herd at bay? This is what I wonder.

The romantic myth of the suffering artist and its link to creativity as a kind of requirement for genius is, to some extent, a bit overblown. Plenty of successful working artists and writers live a steady and rather quiet life, where family duties are wedded to productivity and acclaim. It is not necessary to have a train wreck of personal relationships followed by an early death in a sad hotel room in order to be declared a genius. Yet, it is often the perception.

Part of the conflict and tension one reads about and is attributed to the artistic temperament, could also be tied to the anxiety inherent in wanting recognition, acclaim and financial security. If it constantly eludes a person who is truly original, sticks their neck out in a dramatic fashion, takes huge risks and displays a lack of restraint in order to do so, and goes completely unrecognized in their lifetime, would not that fear and uncertainty contribute to a less compliant nature?

Lord Byron used the word "touched" do describe his fellow poets. Touched by angels would be my description.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,—
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.

Conflict and Tension

We read stories and we watch films and plays because we need to find out how the conflict will be resolved. Alfred Hitchcock said that drama depicts real life with the boring bits taken out. Lately, I have discovered that in my writing, I need to take conflict to a new level. It is very uncomfortable for me to do so. As I am in the process of turning my early life into fiction, I have discovered that I must put words into my character's dialogue that they would not have said in real life. Pushing harder and going deeper into the conflict goes against the grain with me and I have had to ask myself why.

Writing coaches will say, conflict, conflict, conflict. What family does not have a person in their midst who likes to stir things up? Why do they do it? It makes me anxious just thinking about it. Drama dictates that the conflict be designated as quickly as you can present it. If you set out to create it where would you start?

The path of least resistance for me is to look at the word itself. Conflict is both a noun and a verb. Not having thought of it as such before today, I found this interesting. To fight or contend, says the dictionary, to do battle. To be contradictory, at variance, or in opposition to. It comes from the Latin confictus, meaning, a striking together. Not being totally drawn to a slug fest, the trick it seems is to show the contrast and then dance in and out of it. What is the antonym? Accord. What setting smacks of such an atmosphere? A wedding. Where is the conflict inherent in the setting? War. When you think of it, if you go looking for conflict, it certainly is not hard to find. As humans, one could argue that we may be slightly, or maybe even totally, addicted to it. Books about peace, or pacifists do not seem to climb to the top of the best seller list.

What device can create conflict? Interference. It always makes me smile to think that interference is a penalty in hockey. I often wish it were in real life. Take a character set on a path in pursuit of a goal and have another character interfere with that pursuit and you have conflict.

“Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It shocks us out of sleeplike passivity and sets us at noting and contriving.”

John Dewey

Could conflict be part of our evolution? Perish the thought. Yet if we lived without it, if we were truly a Utopian society without the merest shred of conflict anywhere, what would our lives be like? Wouldn't we be defenseless? Perhaps conflict is a process of sharpening our wits, girding our loins, testing our battle readiness in order to be prepared for whatever may come our way. Whatever the reason, no good story can exist without it. Therefore, as Dylan Thomas said,

"Do not go gentle into that good night,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

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

Tangents

A few years ago, I attended a corporate meeting where we were handed out two cards. One had the word tangent written in black ink, the other had the word brainstorm, written in red. In order to help the technical wizards develop a new operating system for the company, we had been called in to become a think tank of sorts.

Being a thinker by nature, I was very excited to be a part of the process. The man running the meeting went on to say that most brainstorming sessions were continually derailed by tangents. He then turned to me, pointed a finger and said, “I can tell you will be going off on tangents all over the place.”

I felt my cheeks burn and my stomach tighten. This man did not even know me! Why had he singled me out like that and how was I to disguise the boiling sense of outrage threatening to send me running from the room? One of my friends quickly said, “She will not.” Her kind words meant a lot to me, but had no effect on him. Every time someone said something beside the point, trailing off to a dead end, or raising a red herring, his ruse was to have us hold up the tangent card in order to make the person embarrassed enough to shut their trap. We have all been in interminable meetings with tedious types who when sensing they are failing to get their point across, neglect to abandon their stance. Rather regrettably, they step up their efforts to persuade everyone that their half baked ideas are actually sound.

Even though I understood the method this facilitator was employing, my upbringing was such that I had been thoroughly schooled in the unwritten law that one simply had to endure insufferable types until a polite, but scathing quip might be lobbed in their direction. Holding up a tangent card seemed unspeakably rude to me, but in my position, I was not able to voice my objections. Did any great ideas come out of that meeting? No. Instead, it turned into a free for all, where anyone who longed to be able to take a shot at a co-worker could, and nothing by the way of good ideas came out of it at all.

As my book club is reading Victor Hugo's masterpiece, “Les Miserables” this summer, and as I am ensconced in it for the second time, it has put the subject of tangents back in my thoughts. When asked at a recent gathering, how the reading is going so far, I said that absolutely no one is allowed to write like that any more. When asked for specifics, I expressed that we have been trained, schooled and edited out of tangents with great discipline. Victor Hugo, free to do what he does best, went happily off on any bunny trail he saw fit to explore. Les Mis is 1,232 pages long. Even a recent translation, wisely, did not shorten the book by much. Thank goodness too, because all the details are absolutely fascinating.

In modern times, we still go off in different directions, but any sidetracking inevitably ends up on the cutting room floor. Why do we waste our time? For anyone born and raised in the protestant work ethic, it is a painful process to destroy work that took many hours to create. If it ends up edited out, angst over the wasted time and effort, starts nipping at the heels of any doggedly determined writer. Yet we have to do it. This is the question we must pose over all those tricky passages: What does this have to do with the story? Did we not hear that in school and do we not continue to hear it from editors, critique groups or well meaning spouses? One cannot say, “It was the way I got there.” Yet, I believe that may be the case.

When thinking of a picture to illustrate tangents, I suddenly became overwhelmed by the idea of how the natural world is comprised. Roots, branches, tributaries of rivers: they are all tangential!

In geometry, the tangent to a curve at a given point is the straight line that "just touches." The word comes from the Latin tangens, which means touching.

What is so wrong with being beside the point? While geometry is for the most part, to me, utterly incomprehensible, looking at the graph charts illustrating tangents, it seemed to me that they come so close to the mark that they are at least heading in the right direction. I have concluded that I will no longer consider them as a literary version of casting about in the dark; I will not view discarded thoughts or pages as waste, but instead, I will just see them as flights of fancy. Besides, any time spent writing is not squandered.

"Time is the only critic without ambition." John Steinbeck

"Soar with your Strengths"

Marcus Buckingham, in the auspices of working for Gallop, devised an ingenious method of discerning how we process information. According to his research, information comes through a filtering system in our brains, and gets instantly stored and sorted for further use. Developed as a management tool, it became quite popular with the corporate world, as communication can often be difficult.

I well remember the day when I worked in a call center where we were taken off the 'phones, a holiday in and of itself, and sent into the training labs to hear about this program. Next, we were given a series of test questions and told that we would have our answers in two weeks time.

We were all fairly curious to see the results of the Gallop program, but nothing could have prepared us for the impact. It was not that we discussed it for the next week; it went in to the following months and then years. We were given a small plaque to put beside our computer terminals in our lowly cubicles. Anyone coming to talk to us, about any given matter, could glance at the list of strengths and then ideally, would formulate a plan to address the situation, based on how we like to receive information.

The categories were separated into four themes: Impacting, relating, thinking and striving. When the test results were handed out I was told that in the group of over four hundred people, only two had all five top strengths in the thinking department. Everyone in the room looked at me and I quipped that I must be a brain in a jar.

My list came out as follows: Intellection, Arranger, Connectedness, Learner, Context. Briefly, the first title is described as someone who likes to think things through, endlessly. The arranger is depicted as a juggler who can toss it all in the air and then find a quick way through the morass to a solution and a way forward. Connectedness has to do with always having the bigger picture, that being the universal oneness of being, in mind. Learner is rather self explanatory in that those with this particular strength have an endless fascination with that which they do not know. Context pertains to the history of any given situation. First of all, how did we get here.

Back at my desk with this new information about myself, I suddenly realized that I could not have had a better grouping for writing. At this point in my life, my novel had been rejected, I was feeling rather hopeless in regards to my great dream, and was literally punching a time clock and doggedly putting one foot in front of the other. Suddenly, I wondered if I had underestimated myself, taken rejection too personally and asked everyone around me if I should not have another crack at the old manuscript.

This kind of reaction rippled through the whole company. Relationships ended and many people moved on to other jobs. As Marcus Buckingham once said, “when a child brings home a report card with three A's, two B's and a D which grade becomes the center of our dialog?”

This program, can be useful as we look at characters we have created. It may be a method of sticking to a consistent theme which is evident in a person's life. Are they a driven individual, always, trying to affect change? Are they passive, always trying to understand what is about to hit them next? Do they need to win over others, or are they confident in themselves, no matter how odd they may appear to to others?

As companies learned to stop focusing continually on what an employee was doing wrong, and were trained to shift their thinking towards a more positive outlook, we can apply the same tool to writing. We are all flawed, and we make mistakes, but we do learn from them, and have great strengths at the same time. Nothing is more flat then a one dimensional character. We are complex creatures after all, full of quirks and foibles. Many great stories involve a character, under duress, finding strengths they did not know they possessed.

Idioms

From the dawn of time our speech has been peppered with idioms. Sage advice, on any given topic, seemed to spring unbidden to those who had the raising of us. Words of wisdom were such a fixture in our daily lives. A stitch in time saves nine.

Where did they come from? What was their history and purpose?

To narrow the field on this vast topic, I decided to give myself a head start by taking a gander at idioms having their origins in the sport of Kings, namely, horse racing.

Not wanting to jump the gun on all other sports, I chose the races because they seemed a safe bet. I got the inside track on how these phrases found their way into the language.

In my family of origin, the baton was passed on to us from our paternal grandfather whose entire life could be described as a race against time; it was his stated mission to become a breeder of some renown. Not hoisted on his own petard, he paid his dues, put in his time and had to make many a difficult decision. Scratching the odds on favorite from the race, if the trainer declared the horse to be unsound, often put him between a rock and a hard place. He put us all through our paces, teaching us, not only the sport, but the sayings associated with it. My sisters both really hit their stride; they had the whip hand over me when it came to placing bets. I was always the dark horse in the field, given to day dreaming and hands down, never slated to either win, place or show. While I may have gotten off to less than a running start, we are not down to the wire yet. I would never consider myself to be a neck and neck competitor with either of my sisters, in any endeavor. However, now that I am a bit long in the tooth, I may be heading into the home stretch in terms of gaining confidence in my own abilities. Either I am riding for a fall, or may surprise everyone and win by a nose. Time will have to tell the tale.

As you may have ascertained from this exercise, one does not set out deliberately to use idioms in common speech. They will spring, unbidden to our minds, and we would be the poorer, as a culture if they were to fall by the wayside altogether. I tend to see them as a rich part of our heritage: in for a penny, in for a pound, but do not, by any means, set out to gild the lily. That would be a crying shame which I would rather avoid like the plague.