Bananas

Kristin had portraits done of T in her costume, which touched me beyond belief. I'll post the finished pics, but you can at least get an idea from these proofs. Nothing more beautiful in the entire world. Nothing.

She's coming to my house to Trick or Treat. I have baby food bananas for her treat.

Chasing Shiny Things

So, today I'm working on a scene in which my characters shop for new underwear for an 11-year-old boy. I google around a bit and learn a few useful details. I also learn that Jockey briefs, introduced in 1935, sold 30,000 pairs in the first three months they were on the market, despite the Great Depression.

Still not sure what my characters would find in a department store in 1946, I check Amazon where I discover a history of underwear offered. It sounds fascinating. My cursor is hovering over "Add to Cart" when I realize that buying a book on underwear might--just might--be the slightest bit of overkill, given that the info wouldn't show up in more than one sentence in the finished piece.

And so goes my main problem in writing and in life. I'm interested in virtually everything and find myself chasing every shiny thing rather than keeping my eye on the prize.

I'd write more, but I've got to get back to my underwear research. Did you know that in 1938 Jockey advertised their Y-front briefs by having a bride and groom dress in cellophane evening clothes for their wedding? Viral marketing at its finest.

Smokin'

In a scene I'm working on, a character smokes. I don't smoke and never did. I've never lived with anyone who smoked openly. Slowly, slowly, I've worked texture and physical detail into the picture, snatching an idea here and there as it drifts by and tucking it into place. Or saving it for later.

Many of the smoking details I'm using turn out to be long-forgotten images from my childhood. My dad's business partner chain smoked in the way my character does. I remember standing on a chair, washing dishes and watching him light one cigarette from another at our kitchen table when I was 7 or 8.

My grandpa had a particular way of picking bits of tobacco off his tongue and wiping them on his pants. The inside corners of his thumbs and index fingers were stained brown from nicotine. His nails were broad and square and heavily ridged. His are the fingers I see when my smoker character holds a cigarette or spreads his fingers wide and uses them like combs to slick back his hair.

Mom's brother continually patted his shirt pocket as though to reassure himself that a supply of nicotine was available. If something interrupted him during a smoke, he stubbed out the end of the cigarette and tucked it behind his ear for later.

All those images were locked away somewhere in my memory banks. I search for details to flesh out the story and memories rise to the surface, insubstantial as smoke and just as pervasive.

My friend and teacher Crescent Dragonwagon calls her blog "Nothing Is Wasted on the Writer." (She's quoting someone, but I'm sorry to say I don't remember who.) She writes on the theme fairly often and, of course, it came up in the magical Fearless Writing workshop I attended in September.

Now that I'm writing like a mad woman, I understand "nothing is wasted" in a whole new way. All the hours I've spent watching people, observing their movements and listening to their patterns of speech, haven't been wasted time as I've always feared. Images and memories are flaring into phrases or sentences that light my story like matches in the dark--brief, satisfying bursts accompanied by sounds and smells and warmth.

I feel like a child with a brand-new toy.

Photo by: Dave Barstow

Monkeying Around

Spent the weekend making a Halloween costume for my darling granddaughter. She will be the cutest monkey on the planet. I had to combine several patterns and revise my plans several times to work out something that fits her--her height is at something like 95% on those growth charts, but her weight is more like 50%. Anything that fits her around is much too short. Anything that's long enough flops around on her body. But that's why elastic as invented, I guess.

Anyway, monkey pictures to come. For now, here's a black-and-white peek at my darling. Is she not beautiful? She waved good-bye to me for the first time yesterday and I haven't stopped smiling yet.

It's a Teagan Day!

Teagan and I are running errands together this morning. This afternoon, we're taking a friend to the doctor for a check-up after shoulder surgery.

Shopping with my beautiful girl is my favorite thing in the entire world right now. Every third person we pass remarks on how beautiful she is, and I get to agree and smile and be proud of and thankful for my darling granddaughter.

Kristin has started dressing T in things I've made when she's coming to my house. When someone comments on her clothes as well as her general beauty, my smile could light all the houses in the greater K.C. area.

Work-work got in the way yesterday, and I didn't hit my writing commitment until 1:00 a.m. Even so, I'm bright eyed and ready to go get my girl in a few minutes.

The sun is shining. The air is crisp. I have the day with my granddaughter. Who could ask for more?

LOVES Me Some Interwebs

Tonight I realized one of my characters needs to visit the offices of the Billboard Magazine in St. Louis, MO. After less than five minutes of Googling around, I have the address of the building and photos of the interior and exterior at the time of my story. These images provide architectural details, directional orientation and info on surrounding buildings.

And I am thrilled, even though my writing includes very little direct description. Details like this mostly give me ways to let the characters interact with their surroundings. My character might leave finger smudges on the brass doors of the north side of the building or feel wary of the gargoyles guarding the entrance. His wife might browse the shops in the building's arcade while he does his business. He might join her at a 2nd floor coffee shop after his meeting. He's very likely to head straight from the meeting to the Post Office, which was then directly across Olive Street.

Right now, I don't know for sure what any of it means. I only know that tomorrow, when I peer into my 1-inch frame, the picture will be filled with life and color, richness and texture. All I have to do is watch what happens and write it down.

I have no words for the joy this gives me.

Fearing Less

Since Labor Day, I have been gathering family stories and researching and writing. And writing. And writing.

The words in the books on writing have become more than theories. I get how they work. And why. Where I once "knew" about Anne Lamott's "1-inch frames," now I can peer into my own frames and see things worth describing. I'm no longer afraid I won't find the story. I just keep showing up, confident the story will find me.

This confidence was born over four magical days in the Green Mountains of Vermont at Crescent Dragonwagon's Fearless Writing workshop. Crescent will weave similar magic November 12 through 14 at the Mount Sequoyah Retreat Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The $895 fee includes three days of instruction from Crescent, lodging, and three meals a day.

To quote Crescent, "Fearless teaches students how to harness the anxiety generated by chaotic or unknown conditions or apparently immutable limitations as a powerful creative force."

I still have anxiety. I'm still surrounded by chaos. But now I wave to my limitations as I pass them on my way to work.

If you're interested, I highly recommend checking out Crescent and Fearless. You can find more information here.

The Voices in My Head

Home. Safe.

I usually listen to audio books on long drives, but the voices in my head entertained me all the way home. The 14 hours flew so fast I drove past my last turn home--just didn't notice it until too late and had to circle around.

The letters fascinate and thrill me, but the big thing is that they inform my story with telling details. I'd been struggling with one specific transition for about two weeks. When I woke yesterday, the answer hung in the room, so tangible I could have folded it up and packed it along with my toothbrush.

In a letter to one of his girlfriends, Mr. P. gave intricate details of building a trailer and mentioned that he was going to take the trailer to have the seams welded. From that, I know the seams could erode and develop leaks. The condition of the seams of his trailer is something my character can inspect, which gives me the opening of the transition and helps me show that this once prosperous carnival is wearing out and wearing down.

The detail will show up in a mere handful of words: it may not even register with some readers. But it gives me a place to start, details to build a world upon.

More happy. More joy.

Trickety Trot

I'm headed home again. I got exactly what I came for and much, much more I could not have imagined.

Two weeks ago, I tripped across the existence of a collection of correspondence from a man who traveled with carnivals and circuses for forty years. So, naturally, I got in my car and drove across four states to see it.

The man corresponded with hundreds of different people, some as often as twice a week, for years. He kept every letter, card and telegram he received as well as carbon copies of the letters he wrote. It is, hands down, the most interesting thing I've ever read.

It's also something like a giant puzzle because the letters are filed by name of correspondent, and show people changed names frequently. One central character has five different names I'm aware of so far and may have more. The letters progress through the years in each file, so cross referencing stories is a challenge. For example, he writes to a girlfriend, her husband, her mother and father, her sisters, her brother, and the brother's wife. The same stories wind through each set of letters, but the versions vary. Wildly.

Through the passage of years, you see the man transform from a young cad to a solid family man. You see him help people over and over, even when they burn him time after time. You see a kind of desperation most of us can't imagine: people whose lives turn on less than $10. Babies are born. And die. And are lost to divorce and disinterest. Men go to prison. Women wait. Or don't. Everyone scrambles to pay their bills and stay alive.

The letters fill 35 file boxes. I couldn't stay long enough to read all or even a large part of it, so I resorted to photographing one page at a time. (Photography is easier on the old paper than photocopying. And cheaper.) I'm going home with images of 500 or 600 pages waiting to be read like a vein of gold waiting to be mined. I hope to come back next spring. I may pay for copies of some of the letters to tide me over through the winter. I didn't get to the letters to and from his mother or his father or his wife. (The girlfriends were so compelling!)

I am exhausted. I worked very early and very late so I could read/photograph from 8 to 5 while the library is open. I haven't slept more than four hours a night for five or six days. Tonight I plan to sleep like a mid-winter grizzly. Tomorrow I plan to read and write. Same thing the next day. And the day after that.

Following my nose leads to the most amazing blessings. I am so grateful.

Shhhhhh!

Apparently, it's my day for struggling not to make public scenes.

First, I had to take several gulps of tea to keep from laughing out loud at the middle-aged blonde with three sizes of wedding dresses in her closet.

Then, I started reading the correspondence I came here to find. OMG! OMG! OMG! I wanted to find people in the hallways and read to them. Or make them read. Just share with someone. Anyone. A couple of times, I gasped so loudly everyone in the room looked up and stared.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with the archivist, and I can hardly wait. She's read every word and I can't wait to ask questions and compare notes and laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

It's a little crazy to drive 800 miles (1600 round trip) to read a bunch of old letters when you don't have any idea whether they include anything you need or want for a story you're not sure you're capable of writing. It's a little crazy to spend all day reading in a library and then all night working to keep up with regular work. It's a little crazy to spend time and money chasing dreams.

Except it's not. I'm going to get old if I'm lucky and die someday, no matter what. I might as well chase my dreams, even when they lead me through the Michigan woods in the dark, unsure of where I am, where I'm going, or what I'll find when I get there.

This is exactly the life I want to live.

Happy. Happy.

Dear Me

Overheard @ breakfast in a hotel in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, where I have come to read an archive of letters vaguely related to the story I'm working on.

"I've gained so much weight over the years, each of my wedding dresses is a bigger size than the one before. I have three sizes of wedding dresses. (sigh)"

It was all I could do not to laugh out loud.

Stories

Over the last few weeks, I've had several conversations with several family members I've never talked to beyond the basic "good to see you, how's the family" conversations at weddings and funerals.

Generally, I ask an opening question and step out of the way as a flood of fantastic stories pours forth. Every single time, I am reminded of how we all long for someone to listen.

Listening is enriching my story and my life. Between Teagan and work and writing The Story, I don't post much these days, but I am alive and well and listening to stories.

So. Much. Fun.

Living as a Writer

My mother was a cheerleader. Somehow, she's managed to leave out this fascinating tidbit in the telling of her life story.

My dad looked quite dapper in his basketball uniform. He was the cutest boy in his high school class, too.

My dad was one of seven members of the last class to graduate from the high school, which was then consolidated with a bigger school nearby. Dad's class picture hangs on the wall of honor in the town's community center.

I know these things because I visited Mom and Dad's hometown yesterday, gathering research for a story. I also visited a coal mining museum and the general store where my grandfather used to take us kids. A carefully invested dime returned a fortune in penny candy at the general store back then. It's a wonder the man who ran it didn't strangle one of us or my grandfather, considering how many times we changed our minds between paying two cents for a Sugar Daddy or giving up a whole nickel for a box of CrackerJacks. (In later years, he murdered his wife then killed himself. I'm pretty sure we weren't the ones who pushed him over the edge. He hadn't been forced to spend 10 minutes listening to us waver between candy cigarettes and Sugar Babies for years by the time of the unfortunate event.)

Yesterday was a wonderful day -- the kind of day when possibility shimmers in the air, swirled with memory and loss and love and hope. I saw family folks and being with them felt as right as if 30 days had passed rather than 30 years.

After all these years of making a living with and through words, I am not just writing but living as a writer. That shift brings me joys like yesterday. In the next week or two, it's going to bring me a trip to central Michigan, where an archivist has catalogued the extensive correspondence of a carnival showman. Talking to her on the phone yesterday, I made up my mind to pack Paula and hit the road. The stories are there waiting, and I'm a writer.

Not All Dogs Bark

In the Fearless Writing workshop, we created a list of words and used them in several exercises. It's challenging to work in 35 or so words into something that makes sense and tells a story in 15 minutes or so. In the first few exercises, all my dogs barked and all my shovels dug.

After listening to other folks read, I recognized the limitations of my thinking. If I'm brutally honest with myself, it is one of my great failings as a human being that all too often, I consider my first interpretation of something the only interpretation.

On a chalkboard in my writing space, I wrote "Not all dogs bark." Before I sit down to write each day, I pick a random word and make a list of ways to use it. Not all dogs are canines, and a "bark" isn't always a sound made by a dog. Truly, I am dogged about making my dog-eared lists of doggeral regarding hot-diggity-dogs and their doggone variations.

"Bark" can't make up its mind, either. Sometimes it's candy made with almonds; sometimes it's the action of speaking forcefully; sometimes it's the outer surface of a tree.

Writing Exercises

We did several writing exercises at the workshop. One of them involved a word list and a title that provided a scenario. I put the words from the list in bold here.

Ella Moon, 30, contemplates an ashtray in the laudromat at 5th & Palmer in Deep Gap, NC, 2010


"Oh my hell of God," Ella cursed. "Here I am, looking like 10 long miles of bad road, and Friday is adrift under the freakin' dryer. I don't have time for this kind of crap. I need to get some color on these roots before Buster gets home."

Maybe Friday wasn't all that important. After all, the pink was a bit faded and the lace was beginning to fray right where Ella's Rottweiler, Raucous, got hold of it. But Buster preferred that she wear a day on a day, and Ella preferred not to jump into an argument the very minute Buster got back from Arizona. She knew this was now a game of beat the clock. Buster should be rolling into town in less than an hour.

Ella stomped outside and grabbed a stick from under the birch trees on the boulevard. Good thing she'd decided to hit the Suds and Duds on Palmer, the only street in town with any trees left. Back in 2008, Deep Gap had surrendered nearly every living tree and bush to an early season hurricane. The storm transformed most of the Gap, once a verdant village, into an unsettled tract, waiting for Japanese developers to figure out what to keep and what to raze.

Optimistic as always, Ella came up with a scheme to retrieve the panties without getting down on the incredibly filthy floor. She pulled over two orange plastic chairs and draped herself over them, her luscious butt facing God and her poor, tired dogs pointing at the devil. If she squirmed at just the right angle and remembered to keep her wrists cocked, she could wedge the stick under the dryer and shovel out the panties.

Right about the time her first attempt came up empty, the lights flickered. Ella jumped, sure Quentin had come to shut up the place for the night. One glance at the clock reassured her, but with closing time less than 20 minutes off, she needed to get it on.

Truth to tell, Ella didn't mind a deadline. She did her best work under pressure. Extemporaneous was her color. She called upon the Bodhisattva, all the angels, and anyone else up there willing to help her keep her happy ass out of trouble. It was a short list.

Ella's next smooth swoosh with the stick turned up one Bubble Up bottle cap, two quarters and three dried up ground cherry husks. On the third swoosh, the stick got well and truly stuck. "Damn it all," she sighed.

Back and forth. Up and down. Ella pushed and pulled, see'd and sawed with the stick, trying to dislodge whatever had settled back there, in front of or on top of Friday. When the stick broke free, Ella pulled back, slow and careful.

Friday's lace emerged first, rosy and decadent in the fluorescent lights. Tangled in the lace and elastic was a flat aluminum ashtray marked, "Relax tonight. We'll do the cooking. Call Hutch."

God alone could discern how long the ashtray had been under there. Hutch himself had been dead and gone more than a decade. Buster owned the place now, and he hadn't ordered ashtrays since the lung cancer carried his dad home to Jesus.

Ella shook out the dust bunnies, stepped into the leg openings, and shimmied into Friday. She tucked the ashtray into her purse for Buster. He could use it for target practice. He always had wanted to shoot that old son of a bitch.

Fascinating Rhythm

Energy pulses like an erratic heartbeat in a room filled with 15 creative folks. People who've spent a lifetime as performers struggle to be audience. People more comfortable in the aisle seat wilt at center stage.

The last five days have been exhilarating and exhausting. Much of what I learned was re-learning but necessary relearning. I don't yet know where to put some of the new stuff.

We did yoga every day: I did a handstand with the help and support of the fabulous young woman teaching the classes.

We walked to a sugaring operation and saw how maple syrup starts its journey to breakfast tables everywhere.

We wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

In four hours, a plane will carry me back to my own life, where tomato sandwiches are topped with bacon rather than smoked tempeh, where speaking one at a time is the norm, where women rarely fart in public. I'll be glad to be home and sorry not to be here.

More...soon.

Fear Less

I am trying to fear less. Today's session may or may not help in the long run. One of the other students is an attorney who worked with the Department of Justice as a Nazi hunter. He read aloud during an exercise and his language sang an aria. Mine hummed "Three Blind Mice."

I know. I know. Comparisons are odious.

(sigh)

More soon.

Wherever I May Be

Things did not start well. I woke three minutes before the alarm clock. My clothes were laid out and my things were packed. Mostly. But every little detail took just a minute or two longer than I planned. It was raining. Hard. My no-traffic-at-5:00am prediction turned out to be slightly too optimistic.

When I got close to the airport, I decided to park at the regular terminal rather than the super-cheap, off-airport parking. Just didn't have the time/energy/umbrella for the "economy lot." But then I got to the airport and discovered parking is $20 a day. $100 to leave my car for five days. Great.

The security check point held another surprise: a long line. The KC airport rarely has any line at all, let alone a long line. It got within two people of the security guard with his drug-detecting penlight when an ugly thought hit me: I couldn't remember turning off Paula's lights. After 18 years of cars that turned off their own lights, I haven't quite gotten comfortable with Paula's bronze-age lighting system. Nothing to do but leave the line and go back to the parking lot to check.

I had, of course, turned off the lights.

Another 20 minutes in line. (Sigh)

My little black dress is comfortable and easy to wear, but a barely-above-the-knees hemline is not the best choice for taking off your shoes and putting them back on in the security line. Bend over with your back toward the room and you're flashing the crowd. Bend over with your back to the conveyor belt and you're flashing the security guards. No good option.

Bonus! The little restaurant where I had lunch in Atlanta had crabcakes, my favorite. Unfortunately, they must have treated the crab with sulfites, to which I am allergic. You have not lived until you've experienced...um...intestinal distress in an airplane bathroom at 12,000 feet. Twice.

My rolling bag saves my back, but others may not love my inability to roll it in straight lines. On the bus to the rental car place, I thought I'd lost my wallet. I hadn't.

The little town where I booked a room is in New Hampshire, not Vermont as I thought. I spent an hour wandering the 91, lost. A kind young man in a McDonalds explained how to get back where I needed to be.

None of this dimmed my enthusiasm. Not even a little. Not even in the airplane bathroom, with the head flight attendant sitting 6 inches from the door.

I've had a fabulous day. The place I'm staying tonight is one of the most beautiful small inns I've ever seen. My under-$100-room has two vintage brick walls, plantation shutters, an incredibly comfy bed, and a stack of books with a note saying you're welcome to take one with you. The public spaces are beyond charming. Their restaurant has an outdoor patio overlooking a small waterfall. As darkness gathered, the staff lit 27 torches surrounding the edges of the patio. I savored every sip of two glasses of pinot grigio; every bite of a salad of artichokes, roasted red peppers, white beans, kalamata olives and spring greens; grilled salmon.

Tomorrow morning I'm having breakfast at one of the 10 best breakfast places in America, according to Travel & Leisure Magazine. (I happened to read the T&L article last week and realized I'd be within an hour of Quechee, VT. Too close to miss it, right? I think so, anyway.)

And my niece volunteered to go drive my car home from the airport. No parking fees at all!

Driving through the Green Mountains this afternoon, joy swirled in me like fall leaves in a strong wind. I love being slightly lost. I love finding new, unexpected places. I love waterfalls and torches and old brick walls. I love stepping into the unknown.

Got Kleenex?

Seriously. Get a hankie. Or three.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Hamster on a Wheel

Between working and taking care of Teagan, I feel like a hamster on a wheel these days. Some interesting stuff has happened. More is about to. I'll write soonest.