Earning $1.75

With our annual garage sale thankfully behind us (I worked on it for a week, sold probably 150 plants plus accumulated rummage, and made over $400!), it is time to get back to writing.

I told word-guru Gretchen that I missed my book the other day. She surmised, "I can imagine. These people (my characters) are like friends now."

That Gretchen. She's so smart. I hadn't even thought about being connected to my characters, but she was right. I'm just getting to know these people, and of course I have some vague idea of the journey they are on. But the bits and pieces of these creations are still coming together; as the book is built page by page, so the characters develop in my head, changing, growing. And as the small ideas I have for each of them begin to roll around in my mind, waking me up too early each morning, I can't wait to start putting them down on paper so I can build on who Tom and Finely and Mary and Bernice are, showing their strengths, uncovering their weaknesses, turning them into interesting people, people you would like to get to know.

I just read a a short blurb from Garrison Keillor in this week's Time magazine. He said there are 18 million authors in America, "each with an average of 14 readers, eight of who are blood relatives. Average annual earnings: $1.75."

I think it was a good sign that this information made me laugh.

Of course, since I am in the midst of writing a book, I did ask myself if all this work would be worth $1.75, and the answer was "no." In and of itself, the agony of finding the right words or coming up with the next plot turn or giving up time with my family or putting off my happy-time in the garden is not worth just $1.75. That's why it is key that my earnings will also include the pleasure I have experienced getting to know and like these quite interesting, quirky, fallable people and seeing them come to life. It may not buy me a cup of coffee, but in other ways, the payback is incalculable.

Besides, I've got one humongous family who will all be loyal enough to each buy a book. I see my earnings easily topping $2.00! This should be a piece of cake.

Life Interfers . . . again

Spent last weekend building a garden with my family. My seven sibs showed up, including Kathy from NYC along with granddaughter Crissy! Katz was a trouper, my boys were there and some hard working in-laws pitched in, too. It took a good part of the day and turned out pretty good. I've attached some photos to show off the end result!

I'm doing something called Square Foot Gardening in my new garden, so that means we even made our own dirt recipe and planting space is maximized. It is all very hip and happening. (Oh dear. Hip and happening is so not hip and happening, am I right?)

My dilemma is this SFG needs to be planted, and now is the time. So, for the next two weeks, I've changed my priorities and my writing is being put on the back burner. I say this with a healthy dose of guilt, but the pull of the garden is pretty strong and the window of time is limited.

So forgive me and don't give up on me. I'll try to keep in touch, blog-wise, and I'll be back working on Chapter 5 after Memorial Day. Wish me a green thumb, good days for planting and garden tending, and a few decent rain showers.

Reality Check

When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time--the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes--when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever--there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

Yes, I am still working my way through this book, still savoring Irving's words. It can be days between reads, and sometimes I only finish a page or two before life interferes, but he never fails to impress. Irving inspires me. He daunts me. He makes me ask: If I truly want to write a piece of literature, if this is the bar to clear, how do I do it?

And if I can't do it--if I can only write a book good enough to be published and read but not remembered, quoted, kept instead of turned in to Half Price Books-- should that be enough?

Letting Go

Thought you'd like to read a sample of my writing. Not the kind of words you've read in It Was a Cold and Stormy Night . . ., which is assignment-like writing, but a hint of what I've written as I've waded through four plus chapters of my book. I want to be a good writer, clever and literary, so the bar is high and I have no idea if I'm clearing it.

So, let's give this a try. Tell me what you think.

Setup: Police Chief Tom Wexler is on his way to interview a resident of his small town who thinks she has witnessed a crime. She's not the most reliable witness but Tom has a soft spot for her. Here are his thoughts:

She’d had a daddy who’d loved her dearly, a man who had been a storyteller of the first degree, and he’d touched her with the gift of words. Alice Hodgeson’s stories flowed from her mouth and spun color in your mind, and whether the stories were true or imagined, they were a gift.

Truth be told, these are lost words. In the switch from third person to first person, events were rearranged, characters and perspective changed, and this passage was cut. I liked them enough to paste them at the end of the document, just in case they could be resurrected. It's not likely, but I'm having a hard time letting go.

Opinions anyone?

Setting as a Character

BB commented that she didn't quite understand what it means to build a setting in such a way that it actually becomes a character. Some examples of books where the setting is a character might be To Kill a Mockingbird, where small town Southern living in the 1930s is more than just a place, it creeps into characters such as Scout, Jem , and Atticus, impacts how they behave and who they become. Edgar Allen Poe's House of Usher is a place and a family--both dark and decaying--and the two are intertwined.

Carl Hiaasen, one of my favorite contemporary writers, is a born and bred Floridian, and Florida is central to his books. Steve Kroft of 60 minutes had this to say about Hiaasen's setting: "Whether he's writing fiction or journalism, Carl Hiaasen's main character is always Florida, that axis of weirdness that gave us the sagas of Elian Gonzales, and dimpled "chads." It's also where developers build homes around gravel pits advertised as "lakefront property," and where marijuana falls out of the sky."

Pretty heady company, I know, and I don't presume to be up to Poe's or Lee's or Hiaasen's caliber. Still, I get this concept; I understand it. I love when I stumble on a setting that touches a character in such a way it moves the action along and defines the people. That's what I'm shooting for.

Setting: Rural USA

Time to figure out a new skill: How to add photos to a posting.

These are pictures I took on my research trip, so you are seeing some of the scenery and places I will be trying to describe in my book.

Since brother Tim and my sweet, understanding sister-in-law Emily settled in this area, my extended family has spent their share of time in this part of rural America. Of my 19followers, many have been here and seen this place in person. Still, whether you've been there or not, I'd love your feedback. Tell me what you think. Can I bring this place to life on the page? Can I make it a character in my book? (Actually, I'm desperate for feedback. You followers are not a very chatty bunch, are you?)

Pictures remind me how beautiful this place is, but they also remind me how limited a photograph can be in capturing beauty in all its nuance. Writers have an opportunity to fill the gaps a photo might not reveal--to enhance the color or improve the light. It's up to the writer to tell the story that brings a place to life.

I hope I'm up to the task.