Tuesdays with Story

March 3, 2011
Writer’s Mail
by Cathy Riddle

Quote of the Day. . .
“Expectation is what colons and semicolons are all about; expectation and elastic energy. Like eternal springs, the colon and semicolon propel you forward in a sentence towards more information.”— Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.

About the EITR (the Elephant In the Room) . . .
Writers and storytellers observe and comment on the world around them. That’s our job and calling—to notice the big things and little things. Can’t miss that Madison, the city where our group meets at Barnes & Noble, is in turmoil now over unions, collective bargaining, a budget bill and political power grabs.

Just today in west Madison, at a routine physical appointment at the UW Health, this editor noticed a tiny lapel pin that read “AFSCME,” worn by a pretty young nurse preparing to draw her patient’s blood. A pass-the-time polite conversation ensued:

Patient (seated, holding bare arm out): So you’re in Afs-mee. I see your pin there.

Nurse (whispering): Yeah, we all are here. And my husband belongs to the ess-eee-eye-you. (She swabs the vein site and tightens a rubber band around patient’s upper arm.)

Patient: The S-E-I-U. And that stands for…

Nurse Hold still. (She procures a needle and touches the extended arm): Good veins here. (Furrows her brow.) “SEIU. S. S. The S is…You know, I can’t remember what it means! God, I should know that. (Inserts needle.) Don’t move.

Patient: Is it the society of emergency…?

Nurse: No, no. It the service and the…the, the, um, the something-something. (Releases the band. Takes the needle out.) There. Anyway, he’s a nurse. Gosh, I should know that.

Patient (relaxing): Doesn’t matter. I guess that’s what acronyms are for. So we don’t have to remember something long and convoluted.

Nurse: Guess so. (Affixes gauze to the needle site, smiles): Okay, you’re good to go.

Patient (to herself while exiting the clinic): Okay. O-K. Wonder what that stands for?

Fifth Tuesday. . .
March 29 at Booked for Murder . . . and it’s time to make your reservations. Yes, bring guests, a spouse, a friend. And email Jerry Peterson that you’re coming. Do it today.

Also write your writing challenge story. Interview one of your characters – major or minor, you pick – and distill that interview down to a dynamite piece of no more than 500 words. Be imaginative . . . take your character to lunch or explore a cave with him/her or have your character take you for a ride on the Black Mamba rollercoaster.

The writer of the best wins a critique of the first 50 pages of her or his novel by Madison College creative writing instructor John Galligan. And dinner with John at one of our finest restaurants, too. Of course, to get a shot at this you must write your mini-masterpiece then put up a $10 participation fee . . . the fees pay for the dinners.

Pay your $10 to Clayton Gill, finance man for this enterprise. Second-and-fourthers, email Clayton and he will send you his land mail address.

Deadline for getting your writing challenge story in is March 20. Email it to Jerry Peterson.

Tuesday at Barnes & Noble…
Pat Edwards shared some poetry with us. Chris Maxwell thought her first poem, I Just Realized, was very lyrical but she found a few lines too long, physically and suggested shortening. (Note: It’s Millie Mader’s 80th birthday this month on the 24th!!! Happy Birthday Millie!) Hindsight was nice and short – so short Chris wanted to see a series of them together. Judith McNeil and Greg Spry didn’t really get The Changeling. There was some confusion about what happened to the baby, but a cold, quiet baby referred to a dead baby though Leah Wilbur thought it might have referred to autism. John Schneller wondered what happened to the husband after the first line. John also points out that the narrator couldn’t smell the blanket if the fairy took it with the baby. Greg asked for some clarification for the term changeling.

Millie shared chapter 24 of Life on Hold. Kim Simmons has never seen Robert Redford (?!?!) but she got the idea behind the imagery Millie wrote. She also missed out on the tactile senses that might come along with witnessing a plane crash – how does it smell and what does it sound like? Greg also thought there needed to be a more description and transition at the beginning of the chapter. Judith thought the girlfriend was funny. John had to ask if flared pants were bell-bottoms, which they are. John also wanted to know what an ice pick is and how that would help them. Perhaps a length of rope would be better to have to pull people out of the water. Pat thought one character showed up a little too fast at the hospital. Time has to pass. Kim suggests someone break down and cry in the hospital once everyone comes down from the adrenaline rush.
Judith shares her short-story Needing Space with us. Pat thought it was weird, in a twilight-zoney kind of way. Kim needed more atmosphere from the narrator and how she’s connected to the world. Greg questioned if there needed to be two characters. Jerry Peterson was confused about why one character was crying at the end of the story, but Pat points out that you can interpret it different ways. John missed reading the short chit-chats between characters instead of just being told about them. Aaron Boehm thought how the character describes the world around her in the beginning tells a lot about her.

Amber shared chapter 18 of her still unnamed young adult novel. Pat would like to see Moira react to all of the weird things around her with either distaste or acceptance. John wondered if she should try to avoid her friends. Kim doesn’t like the character of Bucktown, but she likes the librarian. Several people don’t like that the first spell Moira learns is fire. Jerry thought if she’s just that good with a simple spell, Bucktown should want to teach her more advanced stuff. Greg didn’t like the fact that the dragon’s feet were so soft. John thought they should have cast the spell at night or at some other time than the middle of the day.

Kim shared chapters 57 and 58 from her story City of Summer. Greg wondered where a small battery operated fan came from. Pat says let him sweat. It disrupted the story for a lot of people. Jerry has a question about the size of the world. A couple of people want to know why it takes months for these characters to fly across a desert. John wonders if it’s hard for one character to stay in the form of a dragon for so long. Greg had a question about the sandstorm and why would it look like mountains. Jerry suggests a sandstorm wouldn’t have jagged peaks. John wonders if the storm is a typical sandstorm or if something else is behind it. Greg wonders why one character doesn’t turn into a bird and try to get away. There were lots of questions about the goddess and setting the precedent for future appearances.

Leah shared Chapter 1 of her new novel with the group. Pat thought it was gross and funny. She didn’t get what kind of animals they were, but she didn’t care. Judith thought the descriptions were great too. Greg liked it but had a problem with one character taking the quest off the hands of another. Kim wanted more atmosphere and she didn’t like the beginning of the story. She wanted to know more. Chris enjoyed the action and pacing also. Pat reminds us that we can’t please everyone.

Who’s up next . . .
March 8: Jack Freiburger (chapter, Path to Bray’s Head), Terry Hoffman (chapter, The Tome), Kim Simmons, (chapter, City of Winter), and Leah Wilbur (chapter, Fog-Gotten).

March 15: Amber Boudreau (chapter 19, young adult novel), John Schneller (chapter, Final Stronghold), Jen Wilcher (chapter, The Hogoshiro Chronicles), Jerry Peterson (chapter 8, Thou Shalt Not Murder), and Kim Simmons (chapter 59, City of Summer).

March 22: Randy Haselow (chapter, Hona and the Dragon), Andrea Kirchman (???), Terry Hoffman (chapter, The Tome), Kim Simmons, (chapter, City of Winter), and Holly Bonnicksen Jones (chapter, Coming Up for Air).

March 29: Fifth Tuesday at Booked for Murder.

April 5: Pat Edwards (poems), Aaron Boehm (screenplay/part 6, Hell Cage), Leah Wilbur (chapter 2, Narnia Noir), Clayton Gill (chapter 17, Fishing Derby), Randy Haselow (chapter, Hona and the Dragon), Millie Mader (chapter 25, Life on Hold), and Greg Spry (chapter 5, Beyond Cloud Nine) as the alternate.

Big crowd for book talk/signing next Tuesday . . .
B&N Westside staffers are projected that 400 fans of Wisconsin novelist Patrick Rothfuss will crowd the store next Tuesday evening for the launch of Pat’s second novel, The Wise Man’s Fear. Start time for the event is 7:00.

His first book, The Name of the Wind – a big brick at 627 pages – came out from Penguin Group in March 2007. And it turned out to be a phenomenal seller. Several reviewers called it the best fantasy novel of the decade.

At the time, Pat, who grew up in Madison, was an English prof at UW/Stevens Point. And he still teaches there.

It took him seven years to write The Name of the Wind and another three years to find a publisher.

He missed deadline after deadline for finishing book 2, angering his fans who were waiting for the book. Their anger angered Pat, and he engaged in an online screaming match with his fans for a period of time. Not good P.R. for a writer.

All that will be forgiven if The Wise Man’s Fear is as good as The Name of the Wind.

If you like fantasy and have not read The Name of the Wind, you should. However, if you don’t want to wade through all those pages to get the story, go to Pat’s blog. He’s posted a Classic Comics version of the book there. It’s a hoot. Here’s the link: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/

After you’ve read the comics version, go ahead and buy both books. Hey, Pat’s one of us. – Jerry

Join the 21st century online. . .
Agents, readers and writers may want to look you up after meeting you. Yahoo Webhosting provides templates and step-by-step instructions for building a website. That’s one place to start. The high school student who lives down the street from you also might be able to help out. (He or she would be known as a “screenager.”)

Another option, available to Apple computer users: create your site with the help of iWeb. Go to iwebusersites.com to see some examples of how other writers have done it. Then click on your dashboard icon “iWeb” and get started. Cost for launching your site is about $100 once you get it ready.

Alicia Ashman Branch Library to hold a delicious event. . .
Join author Ronnie Hess for a culinary travel experience on Saturday March 5 at 2 p.m. Hess, an award-winning journalist, is the author of Eat Smart in France, part of a series of books that covers the history, geography, language and diet of different cultures and regions. No registration required. Hess is a former reporter for CBS News and an English teacher. See more at http://www.eatsmartguides.com/

Last Words. . .
“Learning your own writing story and attending to your writing process and embracing it are the main ingredients in transforming writing from enemy to friend.” — Jane Anne Staw, Unstuck