Remember a childhood friend or enemy. What stood out as a trait unique to that child? Consider what has become of him or her based on that trait remaining true. I had a friend named Marsha for a short time in second grade. I say short because she did not let any of her friends have other friends. So I might imagine that she is busy now running the adult lives of her children since she probably lost her husband when he could not stand being smothered any longer. Or perhaps she translated her controlling ways into a successful Wall Street business but is now charged with insider trading. Pick someone you did not maintain contact with and haven’t heard about — that way you have plenty of room for imagining. You might want to change names for your character if you plan on publishing when you are done.
What I’m (th)Inkingabout
Writing is like driving a truck a little too big for me
My husband and I used to own an old red, full-size Dodge truck. I drove it quite a bit, and being a small woman, it always made me feel as though I was doing something unusual.
I would see my petite hands wrapped around the over-sized steering wheel, surprisingly slender, the flat bench seat seeming to push back at my hundred pounds of weight. The steering had a constant jiggle from side to side in my hands.
At first I tried to hold it steady but overtime I got comfortable enough to trust the truck to steer straight even if the wheel I held seemed to be shifting back and forth; it had play in it. My arms would just relax into the movement.
Writing is like that. It has wiggle room in a story when I am drafting, and I will feel at first that the story is drifting in and out of the center it should be in. I slow down, hold tighter, end up over correcting, and the driving of the story is not enjoyable.
As I become more involved with its inhabitants, my grip loosens. I begin to trust the story to keep the road on its own, and the tremendous view out the window gets much more of my attention, not those quick glances that are punctuated by far more intense visuals of the speedometer, gas gauge and temperature indicator.
When I have gained trust in the story, it doesn’t get easier to write, any more than that truck got easier for me to push the pedal down or steer around corners, but the writing does feel more like it has a good reason to be coming into existence; there is purpose to it, place, time, people and growth. So every story seems a little too big for me, a little unwieldy, but in time, I gain the finesse and ease of moving along the track of the story’s way.
Tuesday prompt 2
Think about a book or story you have read that made a strong impression on you. Select one of the secondary characters and imagine their point-of-view of what happened. Now write their story.
This is nothing new. John Gardner did it in Grendel (based on Beowulf) and Rhys’s also voiced other characters in Wide Sargasso Sea (a before Jane Eyre interpretation). So give it a go. What would another character say about how things went and why? Give it a week’s effort. See you next Tuesday.
Drawing pictures with a blinking cursor
I have always viewed writing as a way to create moving pictures in a person’s mind. Sometimes the movement is just the steady closing in on the moment of discovery when everything is crystal clear, intense, sharp to the senses. Other times the view is like the image made by a really fine film camera where everything in the background is slightly blurred and only a single impression is cast in sharp relief to the mind’s understanding. I love building those images.
Yesterday I was working on my story having set aside a few minutes. I had been writing intently working on a particular scene. The time seemed to have been endless, and I had stopped to back up and view what I had written. Silly, but I highlighted the new text to check word count, a bit over 500 words. Disgusted, I set to again to refine the images and dialogue to make it feel bright, deep and authentic. Even now my mind still keeps running back to the little scene, noting that I had kept the view small, never moving out to create a sense of place, a feel for the desert, the loneliness and the irony of feeling chilled in the intense burning heat of a too hot planet.
Friday or maybe Saturday, I’ll bend over that scene again, work on the distanced view, come in close again and finally find that something of what I had hoped to have wrought was on the screen tapped by the steady rhythm of the cursor blinking.
The first weekly prompt
So I thought I would combine a little of my teacher stuff with my writer stuff. Every Tuesday I am going to post a prompt for creative writers to respond to. The idea is to write on the prompt idea for a full week. Then start on the next one.
Prompt: If you have read the book To Kill a Mockingbird, you will recall the situation I am about to describe. If not, I think I have enough here to make the event clear.
Remember when Atticus was just trying to make Mayella Ewell comfortable in court, and the girl became quite angry because she felt he was insulting her by calling her Miss Mayella? She was certain he was making fun of her because no one ever called her Miss Mayella, and she told the judge she was not going to answer any more questions because he was treating her badly. The judge tried to tell Mayella that this was just Atticus Finch’s way, that he was not making fun of her but was being respectful. She wasn’t buying it.
Your prompt is to write about a kindness misread.
The Acts of One Person Could Help the Economy
I have always firmly believed that the acts of one person can represent many and can also lead to similar acts. I recently heard of an individual who worked to build his house entirely of U.S. made products, from nails to wood to windows. As a result, he proved that one can build a quality and cost effective (the cost was only 1% over what it would have been had he used “cheaper” foreign made materials) home. In fact, according to the actions of those who worked to emulate him, the all U.S. product home was of superior quality to the standard currently followed by those trying to save money and make a profit. Find it here: http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/10/how-to-build-a-made-in-america-home/
Just one percent of cost, but a hundred percent of effect to our economy (and increased quality of result): I was flabbergasted and feel certain that there lies our road to recovery. If every contractor (private or commercial) chose this same process and looked at it as an investment, a small drop in profit to raise our country’s economy, what a change they could bring. And if other companies and individuals followed similar acts of investment, accepting the small cost it would otherwise have been, what effect would we have on our American economy?
If we are a world economy, would not our becoming stabilized lead to other countries stabilizing their own economies. The acts of one person can lead to many in similar acts. Let’s not leave our country in the hands of talking heads. Let’s lead it ourselves out of this economic valley. Thank you, Anders Lewendal of Bozeman, Montana.
So this had little to nothing to do with writing, but somewhere the idea is percolating. One person, one percent, over time, can bring about positive change. Not a bad story idea, not a bad way to run one’s life in general.