Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
Writer’s Mail
October 7, 2015

“The writer has to be responsible to signs and dreams. If you don’t do anything with it, you lose it.” – Joy Williams, from 2014, The Paris Review

Notes from 1st and 3rd
Kashmira submitted some poems from Turban Boy. Jerry and Lisa thought they will make a good edition to my other poems. Bob liked one part about friends being tangled up in your life. Cindi wanted to see all the poems.

Jerry (short story, “Floater”) – “Is that the end?” Bob Kralapp asked of the end of the story. “Yes,” said Jerry, “you know what’s going to happen after the brothers confess to the murder.” To keep “Floater” a short story, he said he had to make decisions on what to leave out. Jerry agreed that opens the possibility that “Floater” could be rewritten and expanded into a longer story or even a novella.

Lisa – Millie wondered why did Izzy need to go to the hospital. Kashmira liked the ending, found it intriguing. Thinks there needs to be more inner thoughts from Adam about how he’s feeling about Jessica and Izzy. Also, there should be more sexual tension between Adam and Izzy. Cindi, thought chapter flowed well. Some parts in phrasing could be changed. Jerry thinks Adam and Izzy are together because they had sex and that Adam’s going to have a big problem (later) getting rid of Jessica. Johnnie Walker too strong for two people to get have sex afterwards and should be changed to a bottle of wine from Aldi’s. Make Izzy a bit more hungover.

Winter Weather Planning – 1st and 3rd
Reminder for 1st and 3rd members, get your Skype address to Pat Edwards so we can test our Winter Weather contingency! http://www.skype.com

Svetlana Alexievich Wins the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/2015/
The Swedish Academy praised the author for her “polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time… with her books Alexievich has “a new kind of literary genre. That’s part of her achievement. It’s a true achievement. Not just in terms of material, but also in terms of form.”

Poets & Writers Magazine Listing of Best Writing Books
This is a genre of non-fiction, like diet and cooking books, that is a perennial publishing gold vein. Here’s a great title from the list:
Bringing the Devil to His Knees: The Craft of Fiction and the Writing Life
by Charles Baxter and Peter Turchi, editors
Published in 2001 by University of Michigan Press

“The book that you hold in your hands does not contain a set of rules but something quite different—what we might call a set of approaches.” In this collection of essays, seventeen authors, including Margot Livesey, Richard Russo, Jim Shepard, and Joan Silber, dispense insightful guidance and personal anecdotes to inspire writers at all stages of their craft.
Go here for a current listing, http://www.pw.org/best-books-for-writers

Who’s up next . . .
October 13: ??
October 20: Lisa McDougal (chapter 41, Tebow Family Secret), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Bob Kralapp (???), and Jerry Peterson (chapters 19-22, Killing Ham).
October 27: ??
November 3: Pat Edwards (???), Cindi Dyke (chapter, North Road), Kashmira Sheth & Amit Trivedi (chapter, novel), Judith McNeil (???), and Bob Kralapp (???).

Writers Mail editor . . .
Pat Edwards, is our editor for October. You have some good stuff you’d like to share with our colleagues? E-mail it to Pat.

Great phrase . . .
From Word Spy Paul McFedreis:
lawnmower parent
Meaning: (noun) A parent who tries to smooth his or her children’s paths through life by solving their problems for them.
Examples
2011
“Director Prof Alan Hayes said lawnmower parents had taken up where so-called ‘helicopter” parents left off. ‘Instead of hovering over their children closely monitoring them as helicopter parents are said to, lawnmower parents get out in front of their children to try and clear the way for them,’ he told the Herald Sun.”
– Elissa Doherty, Lawnmower parents cut confidence,’ Herald Sun, April 14, 2011
2010
“Some parents have taken the advice to such an extreme that they’re hesitant to impose any consequences at all on their children. These include the helicopter parents who monitor their children’s every move and the lawnmower parents who mow down any obstacle in their children’s path.”
– Mollie Ziegler Hemingway, Spare the Spanking, Spoil the Report Card?, The Wall Street Journal, January 21, 2010
2006 (earliest)
“Many housing staff members and experts say parents are calling residential assistants and college administrators about roommates who stay up late and leave clothes in the middle of the floor. ‘The parents are calling and they are trying to solve their kids problem, they are beyond helicopter parents (parents who are closely involved in their children’s college life, but from afar) they are lawnmower parents,’ Cohen said.”
– Eugene Scott, How to deal, The Arizona Republic, September 5, 2006
Notes:
A similar phrase is curling parent, a parent who, like a sweeper in curling, clears away any obstacles that might cause problems for his or her children. The phrase was coined by the Danish psychologist Bent Hougaard in his 2004 book Curling Parents and Service Children.

The last word . . .
“Writing is a kind of way of speaking, and I hear it. And I think a lot of readers hear it, too, even if they hear it in silence. And so the sounds of the language, and the rhythm and the cadence of the sentences are very powerful.”
– Ursala K. Le Guin (1929), fantasy and sci-fi author