Tuesdays with Story

Tuesdays with Story
July 24, 2020

The first word . . .

“You wrote down that you were a writer by profession. It sounded to me like the loveliest euphemism I had ever heard. When was writing ever your profession? It’s never been anything but your religion. Never. I’m a little over-excited now. Since it is your religion, do you know what you will be asked when you die? But let me tell you first what you won’t be asked. You won’t be asked if you were working on a wonderful moving piece of writing when you died. You won’t be asked if it was long or short, sad or funny, published or unpublished. You won’t be asked if you were in good or bad form while you were working on it. You won’t even be asked if it was the one piece of writing you would have been working on if you had known your time would be up when it was finished–I think only poor Soren K. will get asked that. I’m so sure you’ll get asked only two questions.’ Were most of your stars out? Were you busy writing your heart out? If only you knew how easy it would be for you to say yes to both questions. If only you’d remember before ever you sit down to write that you’ve been a reader long before you were ever a writer. You simply fix that fact in your mind, then sit very still and ask yourself, as a reader, what piece of writing in all the world Buddy Glass would most want to read if he had his heart’s choice. The next step is terrible, but so simple I can hardly believe it as I write it. You just sit down shamelessly and write the thing yourself. I won’t even underline that. It’s too important to be underlined. Oh, dare to do it, Buddy ! Trust your heart. You’re a deserving craftsman. It would never betray you.”

― J.D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters & Seymour: An Introduction

Tuesday evening on WebEx . . .

Our experiment with WebEx was, shall we say, challenging. The audio problems were such that several members dropped out. More on that later. But for the moment, here’s whose work was up for critiques and some of what was said:

— Larry Sommers (chapters 8-10, Dizzy) . . . Most of the comments revolved around the bulllying scene between Izzy and Lyle Haycock. John felt the mention of the divorce in Lyle’s family tended to make his character more sympathetic and establish a common ground between him and Izzy, even though Izzy resisted forming a closer relationship. Huckle thought Lyle’s bullying nature was undermined by Lyle’s relenting in his attack and standing Izzy back on his feet. Someone also questioned the untility of Izzy’s internal recitation of previous bullying in his life, although Jaime hoped the line “All my bullies flashed through my head” could be retained. Thanks, all. Guess I need to keep working on it.

— Huckle Rahr (chapter 19, Wolf Healer) . . . This week I had fewer comments on my writing, though that may have been from the extra feedback during the gathering. At the beginning of the chapter there was a question as to if Sarah’s mom knew it was Jade as a panther, and why she would be covering for Jade. Then there was a request for more of a presence for Chris if I am to give him a full back story. Lastly, there was a mention that I may be giving a bit too much talk to the world of wolves and I may want to get to the action.

— Bob Kralapp (chapter 17, Capacity) . . . The story has lost its forward motion (if it ever had any) and this seems as good a place as any to end. Jerry had several helpful suggestions as to word usage. There was some question about the nature, or the point, of the story-within-a-story that ends the chapter. Thanks for the thought provoking comments. See you all in a few months.

— John Schneller (chapter 22, Broken) . . . Several clarifications were suggested. The recurring music that comes on mountain breezes does change to fit the circumstances (in my mind) but I need to make that more clear. Several in the group desire I add speech attributions to the Broken-Jjosh banter. Can do. Thanks to all for your input.

— Jerry Peterson (chapters 7, For Want of a Hand) . . . Larry and Huckle found two passages in the chapter that were really clunky, that needed major rewriting and one, major cutting. John didn’t care for the ending, feeling that Quinn insulting an opposing lawyer was freezing her out of negotiating a settlement in a law suit she was prosecuting for a client. Most liked the Sandy Brown-Brown bit—how she came to have a double last name. Said several, “This is so small town,” appropriate for where the story is set that the bit should be kept in.

Who’s up next . . .

August 4

Mike Austin (???)

Jaime Nelson Noven (chapter, Outsleep)

Amber Boudreau (chapter, Second Nature)

Larry Sommers (chapter, Dizzy)

Huckle Rahr (chapter, Wolf Healer)

John Schneller (chapter, Broken)

Going back to Zoom . . .

We gave WebEx a try this week because Huckle could get us on for free. The sign-in and audio problems members encountered, though, were such that the day following our meeting Jerry made the executive decision to return us to Zoom. We will do so on August 4. Larry again will be our host and will post the Meeting ID and Password we need to sign in.

Our editor . . .

This is Larry Sommers’ last issue. Next month, Jaime Nelson Noven <anglonerd@gmail.com> takes on the duties of editor for Writer’s Mail. If you have something you would like Jaime to include in her first August issue, please do email it to her.

Speaking of that issue, Jaime will introduce a new feature that will run for as long as she is with us, a column on the publishing business. You want to know what you need to do to get your manuscript on top of the slush pile? What’s hot and what’s not? Trends in publishing? Ask Jaime. Send her your questions in an email and she’ll go digging.

Where is your writing place? . . .

For Minnesota mystery writer William Kent Krueger, it used to be a coffee shop. Madison writer Doug Moe recently interviewed Krueger:

What happens to an award-winning, bestselling crime novelist who has written his stories in cafes and coffee shops for the past 25 years when suddenly they are not open?
“I’ve adapted,” William Kent Krueger says. “I have exchanged my kitchen counter for the coffee shop.”

Krueger gets to his kitchen counter by dawn and spends two or three hours writing – seven days a week.
“I am married to the world’s most accommodating woman,” he says. “She’s agreed to stay in bed every day until I’ve finished writing. So I have completely uninterrupted kitchen time to myself.”
Krueger borrowed the early morning ritual from Ernest Hemingway. “He was my inspiration for that. He loved nothing better than to write at first light and spend the first few hours of every day writing. It’s the most creative time of the day.”
Most recently, Krueger finished the first draft of his 18^th Cork O’Connor novel, titled Lightning Strike. Originally scheduled for publication this fall, it will now appear, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, in fall 2021.
The new novel is a prequel to Iron Lake, the first Cork O’Connor book. That one took shape in the early 1990s, while Krueger was working at the University of Minnesota. Before getting the bus to work Krueger would spend 90 minutes writing at a nearby coffee shop called the St. Clair Broiler.
“The Broiler bit the dust a few years ago,” Krueger says – 2017, to be precise, after more than 60 years in business.
Four years of writing in notebooks at the Broiler produced a manuscript that numerous New York agents turned down. Finally, after Krueger made revisions, a Chicago agent agreed to represent the novel.
The manuscript was sent to book editors and publishers. They heard nothing. Krueger sat across from his wife at the kitchen table – clearly the room where it happens – and admitted defeat. Nobody wanted the book.
Within days, however, two rival New York publishers were making offers and counter offers (they went with Pocket Books). Krueger still regards that acceptance as the most exciting time in his professional life, along with winning the Edgar Award for best novel with 2013’s Ordinary Grace.
“For a guy,” he says, “who was just hoping to write something that might be good enough to get published, to have a bidding war break out for the rights to it was like nothing I’d imagined.”

Circumbendibus . . .

Here’s a word for you from back in Colonial times that you might want to work into a story or a conversation. The word means roundabout.

And here’s the explanation from Joe Gilland, author of The Little Book of Lost Words. “Of all the ways to describe something unnecessarily roundabout—like someone telling a rambling story or taking a weird road when driving somewhere—this word that dates to 1681 might be the most delightful. It also shows how much fun we had and still have with language, combining prefixes and suffixes to make new words.”

A Great Opening . . .

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat; it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats – the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill – The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it – and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the left-hand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden, and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

This hobbit was a very well-to-do hobbit, and his name was Baggins. The Bagginses had lived in the neighbourhood of The Hill for time out of mind, and people considered them very respectable, not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours’ respect, but he gained – well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.

The last word . . .

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.”

– Joseph Heller