Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

family

Creativity: Using your own experiences to authenticate your writing

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 My last post was about brainstorming with my writer pal Marcy on a novel idea involving dementia and Alzheimer’s.  Much of what is going into the book is based on my experience with my mother and my father-in-law who are both suffering from this kind of memory loss.  Every phone call I have with them or chat with my mother-in-law or my sister, who also keeps contact with our mom, is a source of inspiration and information. But it is also disheartening because it will only get worse.

I tell myself that as painful as it is to watch and keep up with the changes they are going through, it is part of life, part of loving someone and part of the truth that must be in what I write. What we experience is our greatest source of originality and authenticity.

I know this book is going to tax me and pull hard at my heart, for every wall my character must climb will echo a difficulty my mother is going through. I have long since given up having those chats with my mom that always left us laughing. For many years I would unload my disappointments through the receiver of my phone, and my mother would be on the other end listening.  But it was never a sad event for I would find myself giggling over those troubles because she brought that out in me.  They were fodder for humor instead of tears or anger when I shared them with her.

But I cannot do that any more. She cannot hold onto the same conversation for more than a couple of minutes. Sometimes she thinks she is talking to my daughter or worse me back when I was in high school.  It is much harder to make her giggle and much harder for me to find the humor in the troubles that come with the changes she is going through.  Nowadays, she is sharing with me her difficulties, and I am the one hoping to bring humor rather than sorrow to her experience.

What life experiences feed your writing and give you hope that you will find peace in the effort?

#creativity
#Alzheimer’s

Family builds my characters and my stories

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Branch of the family tree, okay vine.

Often when I read science fiction, the main characters and certainly the supporting and stock characters rarely have family.  I don’t mean they don’t ever have family, but family is not the cause of change or action in them.  Family is window decoration in most novels.  Yet family is a basic component of my fiction writing.

Family can drive my characters to do things they have been avoiding or things they would not have done without the influence of a member of the family.  In my first book In Times Passed, Brent Garrett jumps to another time period claiming the excuse that he had to get away from his mother’s interference.  After he makes a life in the new time period, it is family again that affects him, influences his actions.  Loss of family nearly destroys him.

In No-Time like the Present, family motivated Misty Meredith to trust a stranger and jump two hundred years into her future so she could stand before her father and prove to him he failed by leaving her, that she didn’t need him anyway because she had her Uncle Mick and Aunt Emily, family that cared to raise her.  And she is surrounded by family, starts her own family and ultimately learns that family means no one ever really leaves anyone behind.

Mick and Emily never had children of their own, yet they raised a family.  They keep taking in the orphans, granted they are family, but this act of parenting the parentless is a basic feature of their lives.   So in Next Time We Meet, this couple think they have nothing to give the future, but what they are always offering is future to those who need it most.  All their efforts are directed at creating, supporting and reuniting family. 

I am currently working on the fourth book in the Students of Jump series, working title Testing Time, and family is again basic to the story.  Sarra Marsh’s family must break up in order to survive what is happening in the world and time she lives in.  The group she ends up with is guided by two individuals, Ma Potterby (a mother to all the assembled renegades) and Carnegie, (a sort of patriarchal figure whose terse manner ensures discipline in the ranks).  As she endeavors to enact change in her society as dictated by her father from a distance, she is always aware of her disbursed family.  Until change occurs, they must remain separated.  And the change may be far too late to bring them back together.

I have an anthology of short stories.  Not one of them lacks the basic feature of family.  The title story, “Gardens in the Cracks,” is steeped in the fact that major change was made in how families are established, maintained, organized and torn apart.  Marga Graber has already given up one child to the demands of planetary survival and is now facing more tears in her family fabric no less damaging.  The novella sequel that follows it in the anthology deals with the events that should pull family together but often does the opposite.  Still the pull that drives us from within to desire and seek family lives on and is at times the only thing that keeps these characters going.  Thus, in Scrapper, a boy finds his way home greatly changed from the boy who was excited to leave family.

Family is integral to us all.  I cannot separate it from my writing.  I am forever influenced by a woman I don’t even remember because she was at one very brief time my mother.  My father now deceased more than eight years is daily a part of my life.  For a time he held a dual role in a time period when few men could imagine being a mother to two children: one a toddler, the other an infant.  He potty trained me, and when I was becoming concerned about my daughter reaching that milestone in development, who did I call?  Yup, my dad, who offered his usual sage advice.  Potty trained in less than a week and my little girl made the decision.  I just offered opportunity and a willingness to listen. But that’s a story for another time.  Family, gotta love them.

Author pages where my eBooks are listed and available for sample or purchase.
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The other half of a writer’s life: family, friends, the other work

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Write when you can.  Be there the rest of the time

All writers juggle their private and public lives with their writing lives.  It doesn’t matter if they write for a living or write part time.  Yesterday, I had a rare day free from any after-work demand from my job.  I had a post for my blog to write, and the possible chance that I could work on Book 4 of my Students of Jump series during that open evening.  All in all getting home and working on my computer was definitely one of the options open to me.  But it was not to be, and I knew that at the start of my day.

My daughter had a project to do for a scholar’s program she was accepted into.  That project called for her gathering quite a few pictures, audio and video together.  Normally, this is not a problem.  We have a computer we used to use, before we got out of the business, for wedding videography loaded with all the necessary software and support features needed.  But technology is not always reliable, and the monitor started intermittently failing.   It is not hard to figure out what sort of delaying factor this had on her project.  We worked for hours nursing this monitor along from the time school let out and her midnight deadline arrived.

I was there for advice, instruction in software usage and emotional support as that monitor raised her stress level.  Fearful of  finding herself with a two-minute film imprisoned on a hard drive we could not access, she was working from a flash drive which slowed her progress as well.  But when we came close to the deadline and she had completed the video, we switched to another computer to upload the rendered product.  You’re probably wondering why we just didn’t shift the software to another computer. Well, it’s been some years since we were videographers and that software is old and cannot work with Windows 7 or 8.  She was managing with the oldest computer in the house because she had no choice.

Usually it takes a few days to hear back how she scored on a project.  Today we arrived home, and she checked her email to find she had been notified that her grade was posted.  My daughter told her father and I about the notification then accessed her grade book.  The nervousness she was feeling was evident in her grip on her iPod and how she turned away from looking at its screen.

If I wasn’t nervous myself, it would have been funny watching her slowly turn her head back toward the image, her eyes squeezed as though anticipating having something thrown at her as she tried to make out her grade.  With a dramatic “Oh, my, God,” she threw back her head and leaned against the back of her chair, a picture of sudden enervation.  We weren’t sure how to interpret her response and asked how she did.  To avoid bragging, I’ll just say she did very, very well.  Neither of us had much sleep last night, and there was some uncertainty about what was actually wanted, so I would have clapped my hands over just about any grade.  She had reason to be pleased.

So you found me out. This is one long excuse for not posting my weekly Wednesday post this morning.  But tired as I am, and though I did not get to work on my book and went through a school day feeling a bit fuzzy and running on my “I’m not a tired teacher” gear, I’m glad I was there for my girl. 

Family, friends, work: we write in and among, around and through these demands every day.  Sometimes they are big events; some inconvenient; some, like this activity, part of being a mom.  All of these are part of being a writer.

What have you had to write through and around?  What moments are you thankful for that got in the way of writing but left you feeling proud you were part of it?  Tell me your tale of distraction/connection.

When dogs make us look good, it’s because they are great

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Cagney looking good at making us look good.

There are days when my students make me look good.  They don’t know they are being observed or that I would love it if they were interested, busy on their assignments, immersed in learning and my principal is watching.  But there are days when all of them seem to be in sync with me and each other.  When that happens, they make me look, they make themselves look good.  But this post is actually not about my students. It is about my dogs.

My husband, daughter and I went to visit my in-laws for Thanksgiving, and we took the girls (our Labradors) with us.  And they made us look really good.  Put two big dogs with one little dog (the resident canine) in a small house with five people, two who are not too steady on their feet.  Just imagine it a minute, and you’ll understand why we always put the girls in the enclosed porch area.  My husband’s parents feel bad that the girls are out of the family society for the few days we are there. But we always fear that unexpected movement and an elderly person falling. However, this time, we let them talk us into allowing the girls to stay in the house just for the first few hours of our visit.

Cagney and Lacey never ended up in the enclosed porch.  They were tranquil (probably hoping we would not notice we forgot to put them out of the house.)  They moved slowly when slow people came near.  They sat along side a slender leg, looked up and backwards at the sitting senior and then lay their heads gently, still and calm to received kind pats.  They wagged considerately (only took out two leaves from the ivy by the door).

They made us look good.  They made themselves look good.  I don’t think they’ll be spending any time in the enclosed porch ever again.

#dogs #family

What has reading done for me?

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I read a post by Neil Gaiman recently about the power of reading. And he covered a lot of ground, largely about how reading could  improve society and reduce society’s ills.  What he had to say about the benefits of reading resonated with me not just because I am a teacher and a writer but because I have been a reader since I was about eight years old.  I was behind in reading skill as a first and second grader due to all the moving around my family did.  I seemed to keep missing important aspects of reading and math.  I was enrolled in a school in Massachusetts and had the good fortune of having an alert teacher who requested I be given a reading evaluation.

Soon I was receiving reading assistance.  Over the course of a year, I moved from a non-reader to a third grade reader.  When I advanced to third grade, I was already reading above my grade level.  I have two wonderful ladies to thank for my love of reading and for the benefits that came with their efforts.

  • Reading became my safety zone.  Parents argue, and kids don’t like to witness what can appear to be the end of family.  For me, it was especially worrisome as I had already seen my father go through one divorce, and it wasn’t his first.  I could open a book, and whatever was going on around me faded out of my awareness while what was in the book became all I could see, hear, feel.  
  • Reading increased my vocabulary.  Words I didn’t know I learned by context.  It was a challenge to me to stop in the middle of my reading and reread a passage until I felt certain I had a good guess about a word’s meaning.  I was a vocabulary Sherlock, digging through all the clues in preceding and following sentences, reviewing the personality of the character speaking, the events around the usage, the tone of the narrator.  Reading made me alert to body language, to the tones of my parents when they spoke to me, the tricks my sister tried to play on me thinking because she was older, I could be fooled.  I learned to look closely at and listen to the people around me.
  • Reading introduced me to figurative language.  I began a personal career of explaining everything with metaphor and simile.  Reading made me a better communicator because I was always looking for a more interesting and clearer way of saying things.
  • Reading made me more tolerant of difference.  I started out reading animals stories.  I loved to read about leopards, otters and beavers.  When I was eleven I entered a wonderful library in the town we had moved to.  I decided to start at the letter A in the juvenile section and read to the end.  It turned out I was in the science fiction shelves of that section.  By the time I had hit Poul Anderson, I was hooked.  A person can’t read about aliens without gaining a strong sense of appreciation for the unique, unusual, adventurous.  Burroughs, Bradbury, Carter and Heinlein could drown out anything:  a scary movie, my brother’s annoying yelling, parents arguing, anything.
  • Reading gave me a love for science.  For several years I wanted to be an astronaut.  I took high level math, physics, biology, chemistry, and tons of English classes, whether the classes were required or not (when I was in school, few were required.  I could have graduated my junior year).
  • Reading gave me a strong bladder.  “What?” you say.  Well, I never wanted to stop reading.  I would stay until I was going to have an accident then run to the bathroom.  Fortunately, I was one of several children and my father had a good  job.  There were always three bathrooms in the house.  One was bound to be empty when I could stand to wait no more.  Hunger was no different.  I sat reading until I was weak or my mother came looking for me.
  • Reading made me imaginative.  I could plan out a blueberry picking adventure complete with back story requiring we (we being my friends who were not in the least imaginary) locate the requisite amount to save the town from certain death due to a disease cured by a handful of blueberries.  And if they were not to be found, well acorns, strawberries, gooseberries, maple tree seeds that spin like helicopters would make an acceptable substitute cure requiring different procedures but not to worry, there was a reason for everything.
  • Reading helped me decompress (still does): stress, difficult decisions, upcoming events, a bad day, and expected bad day to come, cramps, etc.  Reading helped me relax.  A good book will redirect my brain so I can stop thinking a million things and go to sleep.  And reading can wake me up, too.
  • Reading helps me be a better teacher because of all the things above.  I get excited about the written word.  There are days when my students get excited about it, too.  I can come up with a variety of ways to explain things, I get along with anybody, I can discuss most topics at least generally, some to great detail which helps when I have students not in the least bit interested in grammar and writing, and having a strong bladder can be especially helpful when teaching five periods in a row and the restroom is way down at the other end of the hall.
  • It hasn’t hurt my writing none either.

What has reading done for you?  I am sure there are many benefits I have left out.

Inspiration comes in many forms, mine required a cabinet

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cream in pink and royal blue

So I am sitting at my kitchen table wondering what I am going to write this post about and feeling very uninspired.  I looked around, and well, inspiration was sitting right before my eyes. Maybe I had to look a little to the left, but it was right there.

A couple of years after my father passed away, my step-mother (essentially the only mother I have had) decided it was time to distribute the family china.  I sat there and realized I had been married nearly thirty years and not only did I not have a china cabinet, but I also owned just one piece of china, a nested tea set given to me by my Swedish grandmother for a wedding gift. 

My parents had two china cabinets and four sets of china from having both been married previously.  Additionally, they had each received sets from their own parents.  Suddenly I had a tea set and a 10-piece place setting plus various accouterments; the place settings were my mother’s (she died when I was a baby), and the other was my grandmother’s which had been given to my father when she was scaling down her quite sizable china collection. I had gone a long time without china and wasn’t sure what I would do with them, perhaps leave them wrapped in tissue inside sturdy boxes.

My husband’s solution was to take me looking for an appropriate display cabinet.  Nothing seemed to fit our taste nor our pocketbook which was not willing to stretch far for something we on our own would not have purchased.  We went to used furniture shops and then finally an antique shop where we found the right cabinet.  Once it and the china were brought together and placed in my kitchen, I learned what my unexpected possession was for.

pink ribbons and roses

Each day I have sat at the table drafting my second, third and now fourth book.  When I get stumped, I glance over at that piece of furniture, then through the curved glass doors of the hutch.  Those delicate cups, soup bowls and teapots always have something to share with me.  They provide glimpses of my mother and father as they selected the roses and ribbon pattern in cream and pink.  I imagine my father nodding at the one that made my mother’s eyes fill with light.

Japanese tea

Or the tea set of Japanese porcelain glints beneath the shadow of the wood lattice. My grandmother was a solid Swedish lady who loved to make braided rugs, crochet, and knit.  Maybe it was the hand-painted cherry blossoms and ladies in kimonos which held her appreciation.  My grandfather died the year my husband and I married, and when she came to visit, she had her first opportunity to meet him.  She had suffered a stroke many years earlier and still struggled to speak.  I remember her puzzling out the means to say, “Good man,” and she squeezed my hand.   Then from a box she pulled out that nested tea set and showed me how to properly display it.

My books don’t have any tea sets in them, but they are filled with family love that is as delicate as china teacups bearing beautiful ladies in green kimonos and sweet bud roses on pink ribbons.

And that’s my post.  Inspiration comes in many forms, and it is amazingly personal and can take up considerable room in one’s life or kitchen.  What inspires you?  What gives you glimpses of the muse that feeds your writing.