Tuesdays with Story

“Don’t get it right, just get it written.” — James Thurber (1894-1961)

 

Writing Friends…

 Please join me in thanking our November TWS Newsletter editor Alicia Connoly-Lohn of TWS First-and-Third. She was first to make the flying leap to “newsletter-edited-by-another,” which took guts and brains, following Jerry Peterson’s long, long run of great newsletters. Together, Jerry and Alicia have made possible a smooth monthly transition to new newsletter editors. Thank you both!

 Wanting to write and wanting to meet other writers brought me to Tuesdays with Story. I was hooked during my first TWS First-and-Third meeting earlier this year. I figured Jerry was the easy-going sort of group leader and a grandfatherly sort of mentor. It wasn’t until my third meeting that he asked, “When are we going to see something of yours, Clayton?” I discovered Jerry was more serious than a fly-blown corpse about writing better himself and to helping others to write better, too. The combined effect of serious writers helping each other has done powerful good. Thanks to Jerry, Alicia and all the First & Thirders, I’ve learned a lot more about writing. 

 Now, after a long absence, Cathy Riddle has returned to TWS and jumped into the rotation of newsletter editors. She’s on-deck this month, reporting on group critiques. She’ll take over as editor next month. If I’m not poisoned by pen, I’ll have another go in August and again in December next year. Meanwhile, we’ll be recruiting editors for February, March, and so on.

Over the Top

 Remember The Three Stooges? In one episode, Moe, Larry, and Curly were misfit World War I doughboys. The Stooges were stuck with a battle-hardened platoon in a muddy, bomb-blasted bunker. Their officer ordered them all to line up at attention. Artillery shells exploded overhead. The officer told his men about a crucial mission behind enemy lines. It was going to be difficult and dangerous. Some may not come back alive. He then asked for three volunteers. The whole line of soldiers took a giant step backwards. Except for three.

 Come on now, charge over the top into the TWS Newsletter editor rotation. You’ll survive. You’ll probably enjoy it. You’ll get a commendation. Answer the call of editing.

Your Content Needed

Please send articles, news and information about writing, writers, words, and publishing. Submit to this month’s editor (clytngll@yahoo.com), or post in our Yahoo! Groups file “For the Editor”: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Tuesdays_With_Story/

 Update on NaNoWriMo

In October, Jerry reported on the National Novel Writing Month, noting that several TWS colleagues were taking the challenge to write a novel in 30 days. Not all the results are in, but some 32,000 “winners” started and finished first-draft novels during November. For more: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
 

Last Meeting

On Wednesday, December 2, 7:00-8:30 p.m., 10 TWS First-and-Third members met at the Alicia Ashman Branch Library in Madison: Amber, Cathy, Clayton, Jerry, John, Judith, Kane, Millie, Pat, and Shel. 

Amber Boudreau was up first with Chapter 3 of her novel about a young girl and dragons “or one dragon in particular.” In Chapter 3, Moira’s younger twin brothers enter into the story via a water balloon fight which the two instigate. Would Moira’s friend Helena, victim of the ambush, have first felt the dousing or seen a flash of color from the water balloon as the ambush began? Color first. Mentioned in passing in this chapter was Lara, younger sister of Moira’s friend, to whom the boys are attracted. The group wanted to know whether Lara was important to the story. She had better be, Jerry said. “If we find out later she’s not important, and you dumped all this stuff on us….” Pat liked the voice of Moira who is a sympathetic big sister–responsible but kind. Clayton said tension at the start of the chapter, when Moira’s walking through the woods feeling uneasy, could be heightened by showing, not telling how she’s wary. Kane offered the example of hair standing up on the back of Moira’s neck and other physical effects that might be a way to show her reactions. Amber said she wanted to introduce the concept of time into this part of the novel. Suggestions were to have Moira say something about time, or add a description like “the sun’s getting lower in the sky.” Or put it into dialogue, John suggested. After the water balloon ambush, Moira wanders ahead in a distracted state, where she takes the wrong fork in the path. She discovers she is in unknown territory and finds herself falling as the ground gives way and she (presumably) enters some unknown world. She could make a choice and take responsibility for choosing that path, Kane said, in order to make the consequences more real and to add tension.

 John Schneller brought Chapter 8 of the juvenile fantasy Broken in which the main character Broken appears under the building of Ruins, led out by Andon. Broken then encounters a fallen Keefer, his vexing and duplicitous brother. Keefer appears to be wounded and hands Broken a bundle to carry back to town. Broken and Keefer meet up again in town shortly after and it appears that Keefer has set Broken up to take a fall. A chase scene running through town with barrels rolling down hills and chicken flying drew lively discussion from the group. Use even stronger verbs, Pat suggested. “Worked his way” can be “trudged” across the valley. A rolling barrel could careen or tumble. An exchange of dialogue between a merchant and the ship captain had some wondering whether the characters were discussing a dead horse or possibly cargo, because the antecedent noun in the sentence before “it” was not clear. “It” turned out to be nondescript cargo, not the horse. Jerry thought Keefer’s speech too long for a wounded person to make. Kane thought “chicken shrapnel” went too far as it described parts of chickens flying about, not whole, live chickens. “If you’ve ever been in a chicken coop when it gets lively,” Shel pointed out, “it is like shrapnel.” When Broken walks in the dark up some stairs, how could he tell they were “eroded?” He could feel the steps, John explained, which John then realized was a good opportunity to remind readers that Broken is barefoot. There was much talk in the group about how Broken would feel about the trustworthiness of Keefer: Hurt; betrayed, “a little ticked,” or ambivalent. A large part of the story has to do with the moral testing of Broken and this chapter has potential to reveal change in his character.

 Judith McNeil offered her short story “Between a Thumb and a Forefinger” which drew praise for its effective use of colloquial voice through the first-person narrator, Angelina. The story opens with Angelina watching her mother cry over a body in a hospital bed, reminded in many flashbacks about her mother’s powerful “thumb and forefinger” grip. Pat wondered whether Judith could edit to remove all apostrophes where g-endings had been abbreviated. For example, cryin’ and singin’ could become cryin and singin throughout so that the punctuation would not distract from the story. The group also praised Angelina’s description of sex: Like going over a waterfall. Members discussed the behaviors of an abuser, like the one revealed at story’s end to have beaten Angelina following disclosure of her pregnancy. Would he give her flashy jewelry to apologize or show other character traits early on? Judith used italics well to separate the body of the story from the rest of the action and flashbacks. The ending: Angelina comes back to her own beaten body in the hospital room and feels a presence hovering around her. Members discussed how Judith could make it clear that the presence was her baby or the soul of a baby, which she comes in grief to know is hers. Many admired the power and pathos of the ending as the reader discovers a girl reaching with thumb and forefinger for the departing soul of her dead baby.

 Cathy Riddle read from her short story “Shaken” in which the main character, Pat, sneaks off from home (and her diet) to go to a fast food restaurant. While there, Pat becomes involved in a robbery as both a victim (threatened with a knife) and an apologist (overpaying for the robber’s bag of burgers and fries). Her ambivalent behavior echoes her past as a school nurse, all-round caregiver, and now recently-made-redundant employee and mother and spouse at loose ends. John suggested use of flashbacks to show Pat as stronger and more capable in other situations. When Pat throws money on the counter after the robbery and runs after the robber himself, is she buying off the consequences of the young man? Kane said, “The author is not giving us clear guidance.” Clayton pointed out that Pat tries to escape her home life, but bungles her illicit adventure, then falls back to her “default mode.” Has she changed because of the robbery experience? Will she escape or accept her habitual, fix-it-all responses? Some members recommended a more decisive resolution. What happens next for Pat? They discussed making Pat younger, say mid-forties, rather than sixties, which would make her even more upset that she was pushed into early retirement. Some debated car radios: Buttons versus dials, which could date the story. The group liked the story’s imagery throughout, especially butterfly bandages on a student’s face.

 Who’s Up Next

 December 8: Jack Freiburger (???), Holly Bonnickson-Jones (???), Anne Allen, (memoir, Chapter 1 rewrite), and Carol Hornung (tentative). Note: Meeting at Jack’s place, 7:00 p.m.

 December 15: Clayton Gill (Chapter 6, Fishing Derby), Amber Boudreau (Chapter 3, YA novel), Danny Dhokarh (poem, “If my love for you shall cease”), Millie Mader (Chapter 15, Life on Hold), Pat Edwards (poems), and Jerry Peterson (short story, “Lights and Sirens for Santa”). Note: Meeting at Alicia Ashman Branch Library, 7:00 p.m.

 December 22: TWS Second-and-Fourth takes a break for Christmas. No meeting this night.

 January 5: John Schneller (Chapter 9 rewrite, Broken), Amber Boudreau (Chapter 4, YA novel), Judith McNeil (???), and Clayton Gill (Chapter 7, Fishing Derby). Note: Meeting at Barnes & Noble West, 7:00 p.m.

Words and Language

“Palintologist”: Can you dig it? Jerry unearthed this fossil-to-be, noting the huge media buzz about Going Rogue, the autobiography by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin. Other sources report that Palin’s book sales are outpacing sales of Living History by U.S. Secretary of State and former First Lady Hillary Clinton. See: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brad-wilmouth/2009/11/27/fnc-sarah-palin-tops-hillary-clinton-first-week-book-sales

Paul McFedries’ “Word Spy” blog defines the noun “Palintologist” as “a person who studies or is fascinated by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.” He offers the following citations:

 Remember back in the 1990s when Hillary Clinton described herself as the Rorschach test for how people felt about the women’s movement? Palin has become the latest test for shifting common ground and fault lines between sisterhood and sibling rivalry. It’s been like this since the Palintologists discovered her in Alaska and put her on the national ticket of the Grand Old (Boy) Party. — Ellen Goodman, “Lipstick on a rogue,” The Boston Globe, November 20, 2009

 Gov. Jennifer Granholm said Friday her impression of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, as Granholm helped Sen. Joe Biden prepare for Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, was nowhere near as dead-on as the performance by Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live” the last couple of weeks….

            “But I studied her debates, her language, her passions and areas of expertise … and pretty well captured the arguments she made. I took it very seriously and tried to be as close to the real thing as possible.

            “I became a Palintologist,” she quipped. — Mark Hornbeck, “Granholm became a ‘Palintologist’,” The Detroit News, October 4, 2008.  For more, visit: http://www.wordspy.com/words/Palintologist.asp

 What We’re Reading

 Brandy Larson of Second-and-Fourth admires a passage from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi. “The Mighty River!” she says, “Interstate highway of its day… and much more poetic!”  From The Writers Almanac (http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/) for November 30: After all these years I can picture that old time to myself now, just as it was then: the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer’s morning; the streets empty, or pretty nearly so; one or two clerks in front of the Water Street stores, with their splint-bottomed chairs tilted back against the wall, chins on breasts, hats slouched over their faces, asleep — with shingle-shavings enough around to show what broke them down; a sow and litter of pigs loafing along the sidewalk, doing a good business in water-melon rinds and seeds; two or three lonely little freight piles scattered about the “levee;” a pile of “skids” on the slope of the stone-paved wharf, and the fragrant town drunkard asleep in the shadow of them; two or three wood flats at the head of the wharf, but nobody to listen to the peaceful lapping of the wavelets against them; the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun; the dense forest away on the other side; the “point” above town, and the “point” below, bounding the river-glimpse and turning it into a sort of sea, and withal a very still and brilliant and lonely one. Presently a film of dark smoke appears above one of those remote “points;” instantly a negro drayman, famous for his quick eye and prodigious voice, lifts up the cry, “S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin’!” and the scene changes! The town drunkard stirs, the clerks wake up, a furious clatter of drays follows, every house and store pours out a human contribution, and all in a twinkling the dead town is alive and moving. — Excerpt from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain, © 1883 by Samuel Clemens

Nathan Bransford, Literary Agent

The Curtis Brown Ltd. Literary agent in San Francisco was having computer trouble on Thursday, when this editor accessed his expertise at http://blog.nathanbransford.com/. To kill time while his files reloaded, he was reading an e-book on his iPhone. As for his annual poll on the popularity of e-books, he reported: vThe percentage of people who said you’d have to pry paper books out of their cold dead hands:

2007: 49%

2008: 45%

2009: 37%

The percentage of people who welcome their coming e-book overlords:

2007: 7%

2008: 11%

2009: 19%

“That, my friends,” Bransford writes, “is what they call a trend.”

 Talk About Technique

Alicia pointed out that “narrative voice” and “point of view” come up during discussion of work at almost every First-and-Third meeting. She found an article in Crawford Kilian’s blog which helps the author figure out who’s supposed to tell the story and why: http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/fiction/2003/07/narrative_voice.html

Kilian’s comment on the “third person omniscient” point of view may be especially helpful: “If you are going to skip from one point of view to another, start doing so early in the story, before the reader has fully identified with the original point of view.”

The Last Word

In November, this editor participated in a management training program run by Australian consultants. The program seemed a bit patchy because a number of Americans in the training group were not quite on song. But we were willing to have a go and, in any case, we didn’t want to kick the trolley.

We figured we were making fair dinkum of the training until one of the Aussies told us about a bloke who got caught defrauding the company. An American might have said the thief “had his hand in the till.” The Aussie told us, “He was tickling the peter.”

That one came at us straight through the gloves and nearly sent the training session down the gurgler.