Tuesdays with Story

Writer’s Mail 5/4/2010
by Kimberly Simmons

“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright, American Hunger, 1977

Last Week & Who’s Up Next
Brief meeting for the 2nd and 4th tonight – just three people showed up, so we read over Jack’s piece and made some comments and called it a night.

Readers for May 11th will be:
Holly Bonnickson-Jones (Coming Up For Air)
Terry Hoffman (The Journal)
Carol Hornung (Asperger Sunset)
Jack Frieburger (Path to Bray’s Head)

And anyone else who’d like to be on the schedule is welcome.

Next Newsletter Editor
I will not be doing the newsletter for a while but Carol Hornung has stepped up to the plate. You can email her with any comments or articles. Thanks so much!

Book Review: Where Are You Now?
By Mary Higgins Clark

Submitted by: Millie Mader

Since I read Jerry’s pieces on “cozies”, I decided that the book I just finished might be appropriate for that genre. Mary Higgins Clark does usually appoint an amateur sleuth as her protagonist. She provides escapist reading for a rainy (or snowy) day.
This time we meet Carolyn MacKenzie, an up and coming lawyer who searches for her brother, Mack, who has been missing for ten years.
Mack, who was a popular, handsome college student, left no clues as to his disappearance. He calls his widowed mother every Mother’s Day, and tells them to quit trying to find him. This last time, he left a block-lettered message in the church collection box with the same orders. The mother has become paranoid, and is slowly pulling Carolyn down with her. The mother’s suitor, Elliott, is advising them to give up their search and live the life of wealth and ease that they deserve. He resides and dresses in elegance, and claims to be named after his cousin, Elliott Roosevelt. He finally is able to persuade the mother, Olivia, to accompany him on a Greek Island cruise.
Although Carolyn gives the impression of agreeing, as soon as Olivia and Elliott leave, she embarks on her own mission to find her beloved brother. Her quest leads through many dark and dangerous passages, and to stealthy, devious characters. The police are wont to reopen the case; and the more Carolyn digs, the more deeply she involves herself. Not only is she under intense observation by evil characters, but it is beginning to look as if her brother may have been tied to several serial-type murders over the past decade.
How Carolyn refuses to give up, and all the twists and turns her search takes, is the crux of this “keeping you up at night” tale. We can’t help but try to guess, with the introduction of each new character, and the interplay between all of them, who the real murderer is.
Personally, I like Mary Higgins Clark– but yes, some of the outcomes can be foreseen. I have to confess to reading the end of the book while I was about halfway through, and I guessed right. Now, how did Carolyn accomplish her success?
These “cozies” introduce mysteries without blood and guts. I stayed up till 4:A.M. to finish it.

Kim’s Kuote Korner (misspelling that title since 2004)
For me there are too many amazing quotes to just have two every week so here I have included several quotes of the writerly persuasion. Please enjoy.

“Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.” – Terri Guillemets

“A critic can only review the book he has read, not the one which the writer wrote. ” – Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

“Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don’t start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a
great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.”
-William Safire, Great Rules of Writing

“The ablest writer is only a gardener first, and then a cook: his tasks are, carefully to select and cultivate his strongest and most nutritive thoughts; and when they are ripe, to dress them, wholesomely, and yet so that they may have a relish.” – Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers, 1827

“An old racetrack joke reminds you that your program contains all the winners’ names. I stare at my typewriter keys with the same thought.” – Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic’s Notebook, 1960

“The coroner will find ink in my veins and blood on my typewriter keys.” – C. Astrid Weber

“Ink surrounds me all the time
On my bed sheets, recorded in rhyme
Quills ever scribbling in my head
Sometimes damnit I forget what they said.
Ink has settled into my fingerprints
But to keep the words I fear to rinse…”
– Terri Guillemets

Writing Prompts and Other Encouragement
(Courtesy of The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood)

~Write about the inexplicable menace in a seemingly neutral object.
~Write about the last piece of something—pie, real estate, posterity—and the two people who want it.
~Retell the parable of the prodigal son from the point of view of the unappreciated older sister.
~Write about confinement: physical or mental, welcome or unwelcome, imaginary or real.
~Do not wish yourself anywhere but here: your life will unfold, your command of craft will evolve, your subjects will come and go. Whatever you are writing now, don’t wish it away.
~Write about a human system whose key person has just checked out.
~If your main character is eluding you, have her write a letter to the editor. What’s on her mind?
~Three words: bowl of chips. One sentence, one chip.
~Avoid the ones who expect you to fail.
~Wish your early work well. Do not scorn it. be generous to the younger you who wrote it. this was the best you could do; be glad that you can now do better. Then say goodbye to that work, and begin something that the younger you would not have attempted.
~If your main character had a different job, would his story change? If not, then the job is probably window-dressing on your part. Think carefully about what a job does to a character. If he’s a dog groomer, then he probably refers to dogs by breed and thinks of animals as furry people. If he’s a machinist, he knows the difference between a rack and a pinion and likes precision. If he’s a second-grade teacher, he either likes or dislikes children, and undoubtedly has opinions about child-rearing, school politics, and classroom hamsters. Creating the illusion of inside knowledge enriches your characterizations and therefore your story.
~Write about something useless and beautiful.
~Revisit a story you’ve told many times. Now, tell a different story, beginning with the thing that happened after the story’s end.
~How did your parents meet?
~Are all your characters reasonably attractive? Ugly someone up and start anew.
~Write about an outsider at a convention of fanatics: Trekkies, Barbie collectors, people named O’Malley, ferret fanciers, film critics…
~Action is the essence of story. Would you rather read about a man thinking about death, or a man building his own coffin?
~Write about the day before the disaster.
~Change “I love you” to “Tell the truth” and see what happens.
~Write about the first one to quit.
~Start with the day that was different.
~Write about a painful loyalty.
~Write about the first guy in line.
~Are you haunted by a missing scene, something you’re afraid to write because It’s too hard, or too complicated, or beside the point, or too focused on another character? Write it anyway and find out what you’re missing.
~Five Fab Questions to Ask Your Main Character: How did you get your name? What object from childhood do you still own? What was in yesterday’s mail? When did you stop being happy? What is your strongest superstition?
~Begin with a smell that brings it all back.
~This is no small thing we do.

The Last Word
I picked this quote for a very specific reason. For reasons unknown to me (possibly due to my recent reading material) I had the feeling I should be writing a travel article about Wisconsin and the journey that lead me here. I was thinking about food writing, travel writing, coffee shop reviews and other such clutter. Not only that but I’ve often caught myself saying “I don’t know what I’m going to do aside from writing…” as though writing was second, was less important than an office job in a cubicle somewhere.

I realized that I didn’t have to do any of those things. Writing is who I am, my blood and sweat and soul. I shouldn’t write travel stories if what I really want to write is fantasy. Long story short, follow your real dreams.

“Are you writing a novel because somebody told you stories don’t sell? Do you write essays because poetry doesn’t pay? Are you wasting your one and only life following somebody else’s calling? Love of writing is nothing to trifle with. If you’re supposed to be writing poetry, write it.”- Monica Wood, The Pocket Muse