Writing

Reading Feeds Writing (still)

/ still a dreamer

One of the things I love talking about with friends is what books we are reading and what we are writing. The two topics are often in the same conversation.

One friend is working very hard on her middle grade novel. I am generally working on picture books; however, a middle grade novel is slowly writing itself in my head. I’m asked if I’m not writing this down. I am not. But little by little I am getting to know my characters and I have a fair idea of where they’ve come from, what is shaping their dilemmas and where they are going. When the time is right, and when I know them better, I will begin the writing process.

Meanwhile, I read.  In talking with my friend, we discussed the 3 books I have just finished. She had not read two, but was interested in doing so for the reasons I’ll describe. She was reading, but lost interest in and abandoned, the third.

The first is The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares. I had seen the movie – it was light, probably a “chick flick” – but I liked it.
Advantage to Writer? Observing and understanding realistic  dialogue and relationships between teenage girls.

The second is The Divide by Nicholas Evans, probably best known as the author of The Horse Whisperer. I also read The Loop by him. What a way Evans has of engaging you in a story, building up suspense, then taking a sharp turn away to another character, leaving you wanting more. I only hope, whenever I write my novel, that I can hold a reader’s interest like he does.
Advantage to Writer? Learning how to pace a novel for maximum effect.

The third, (and unfinished by my friend), is The Lovely Bones by Alice Siebold. This was a daring first novel, told from the first person POV of a 12 year old girl who is raped and murdered, and is now in heaven. This could have been really strange, quirky or sappy. It was none of these, and it had my attention through to the end.
Advantage to Writer? Learning to trust in your own unique story ideas, that writing from the deepest and most real place within is where the best stories will always come from.

I trust that all I’m learning is soaking into my unconscious and always making me a better writer. And so the enjoyment of wonderful books continues. What is your reading bringing to you?

A Wedding in December – Anita Shreve

/ still a dreamer

I have read a number of Anita Shreve’s novels – some I have liked quite a bit, and a couple, really not so much. But I found this one, A Wedding in December, to be one of the most enjoyable. I honestly cannot tell if it’s because it’s so very fresh in my mind, or has just grabbed me with its very 3-dimensional characters and a slowly unwinding mystery, but it’s been a fast, entertaining, and absorbing read.

The characters are truly well drawn, but it is the way Shreve has ever-so-subtly introduced a secret, an event, that will weave throughout the book almost revealing itself in a shadow here, a whisper there, until it becomes a riveting focus towards the end of the book that also engaged me. Our characters, Harrison, Nora, Bill, Bridget, Jerry, Rob and Agnes all come with some regrets, their nature revealed gradually at what is both a reunion of friends from a school attended long ago and the wedding of two high-school sweethearts, Bill and Bridget.  She, who is also now fighting cancer,  and Bill met again, having once loved each other and been apart 27 years.

Agnes comes with a long-held secret of her own; Harrison, with regrets and longings. Nora, married to a brilliant poet, created her new life – the conversion of their home in the Berkshires to an inn – after his death, but she, too, has memories of the past and what never was. As the guests arrive and interact, their tales are slowly and quite skillfully told, at the same time dancing around the edge of the subject of their mutual friend – Stephen’s – death so many years ago. When they all become snowbound over the wedding weekend, and with some having too much to drink, many revelations come about.

Within the story of the characters at this event is a second story that Agnes is writing about the Halifax Harbor blast in 1917, killing 2,000 people during WW I. At times, jumping into the life of Innes Finch was disconcerting, and I found myself wanting to get back to the reunion/wedding. At other times, I was more involved with the secondary storyline, with Innes, his feelings for Hazel, and her sister, Louise. Agnes writing this story is also a vehicle for her to help resolve some of her own emotional issues.

A Wedding in December may not be the book that examines the deepest souls of its characters, but it does look quite clearly into how people deal with – or choose not to deal with – regrets and the longings for what might have been. What I liked about this book is that Shreve created characters that I really cared about as well as how things resolved for them. So important in a novel.

Forgetting What We Read Late at Night ….

/ still a dreamer

When I woke up the other morning and looked at the book on my night stand, I remembered I had read it the night before. But I was having a hard time remembering exactly what I had read. I had that sinking feeling that I was going to be re-reading a bunch of pages again. Sound familiar?

Sometimes in our busy lives, that most precious of times – reading time – gets put off to the very end of the day when we have the least energy. We’re so tired that even a good book can put us to sleep. What’s worse than realizing that we have  no clue as to what we read the night before?

This happens not just to me but to other women I know, as well. It’s rather discouraging. And the book I’m in now – which is fabulous – will not be the first book I start again from the beginning because I know I’ve missed too much from late night reading.

Yesterday, I thought of a solution. What if women friends, (OK – it could be guy friends, too), opened their homes – when they were out and busy with errands for a while – to other friends who needed a couple hours just to read? Outrageous, right? For example, I’m going to be gone for half a day. I give my friend my key, leave fixings for coffee or tea on the counter, maybe a snack, and she comes in with her book and actually reads! Chances are excellent that this is what will happen, because who feels obliged to clean anyone else’s house, answer their phone, or run their laundry? No one! It’s clear, guilt-free sailing!

Yes, we’re talking stolen hours … maybe once a week, or even at odd intervals … for the sheer joy of reading uninterrupted. Who wouldn’t do that for a friend?

When the Title Doesn’t Fit the Story – Taming the Star Runner

/ still a dreamer

When I’m offered coffee, I don’t want tea. When I’m offered a ride, I don’t expect to walk. When I choose a book entitled Taming the Star Runner, with a number of horses on the cover, and a jacket liner which pumps up the story of a horse named Star Runner, I don’t expect a story about a teenage boy named Travis. But that’s what I got.

Taming the Star Runner  by S. E. Hinton is a coming-of-age story about a 15 year old named Travis, who, while he sees himself as very cool, is always on the edge of getting in more trouble than he can handle. After attempting to kill his abusive stepfather and doing some time, he is sent to live with his uncle on a ranch in Oklahoma. Here he meets, among others, a teen barely older than himself, Casey, rider and riding instructor, and then we finally meet who seemed to allegedly be a main character, her horse named Star Runner. Had I not been excited to read a story about this wild horse, who only first appears halfway through the book, I may have liked the story more. Or maybe not picked it up at all.

S.E. Hinton, deliberately using only her initials as an author, (lest it be realized she was a very young woman author), broke ground in the 60’s, writing about gangs. Her first published book was The Outsiders, written when she was 16. This story is similar in the sense that Travis is another angry, angst-filled teen, feeling unappreciated, isolated and ever on the edge of an emotional explosion. The story is fairly good, actually. Travis’ character is well-drawn, as are other characters, and the plot has some interesting twists and turns, even if, in my mind, they are not all tied up that well in the end. Still, this particular tale became more interesting for me when the powerful spirit of Star Runner was introduced and the girl who wanted to tame him.

Having read a number of Newbery-winning and other middle grade novels, and having learned what editors are looking for and what is being published nowadays, I can’t help but wonder if Hinton would have been published today. Or at least if she remained in her own writing style. Being mindful of what we are told at workshops, conferences, online, etc. I am sometimes amazed at how she worded things, switching tenses, using unmarked self-reflective dialogue in the same paragraph as lengthy descriptions, etc. It made me realize how much more refined the craft of writing – in this case, for teens – has become.

I don’t mean to sit and criticize S.E. Hinton for what she did – she brought a whole new way of life and type of character to light in her novels. They were groundbreaking, have become classics, and continue to resonate well with many readers today. I only wish the book had really been about what the title told me.

 

When Life Gives You ….

/ still a dreamer

Most of you will probably finish that line with “… lemons, make lemonade.” It’s an old adage about making the best of things, to which I have added my own variation. “When life wakes you up at the crack `o dawn, get up!”

At first, I was really fighting this. For whatever reason, this year and last, I have been waking up with the sun, this year even more so with a bumper crop of birds singing about 40′ from my open bedroom windows.  I’m a morning person,  but 4:45 am? Come on! But awake I was. I tried going back to sleep, to no avail. I lay there and harrumphed – needless to say, that didn’t help. But I was becoming more and more tired as I was still going to bed at the same time. What to do?

Adjust! I started going to bed about 10, so when 4:45 rolls around, sometimes heralded by the sun, but always by the birds, (clearly I am now synching with their bio-rhythms), I can actually get up and start doing stuff. By the time I start my jobs, I’ve often accomplished quite a bit. Ergo, the photo of the carrot bread.

I got out all the dry ingredients and mixing bowls, loaf pan, etc. last night and grated the carrots. After feeding the small fry this morning, I opened up the windows to a nice cool 65˚, whipped it together and popped it in the oven. Voila! a cooling carrot bread at 7:50 a.m.! By the time you see the finished photo with a cream cheese icing, it will be a few hours later.

Sometimes reality is a pain in the butt. We don’t always want to hear about it, nor deal with it. But the fact remains – whatever the reality is, if it’s not something we can change, it’s not going away. So for now, one of my realities is waking up at 4:45 a.m. And although this was a carrot bread morning, I discovered that this new reality also affords me extra time to work on my children’s books with no interruptions.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll give the little choristers a standing ovation.