Thursday’s Children April 25, 2013

Before anything else, I must say CONGRATULATIONS once again to my friend and Thursday’s Children participant Stacey Lee on the sale of her book to Putnam! She’s one of the funniest, kindest, and most generous people around (she gave me my little turtle Remy). I can’t wait to buy her book (tentatively titled Golden Boys).

And now for the most horrifically graceless segue ever,

Inspired by Muck…

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To paraphrase Jeff Foxworthy, “You know you’re a New Englander if your four seasons are almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.”

Of course, he’s not a New Englander and thus he forgot the fifth season. Mud.

In this part of the world, Old Man Winter kicks Mother Nature’s butt from November to April. When Spring finally comes to northern New England, she definitely looks “ridden hard and put away wet.” The glorious carpet of autumn leaves has turned ugly brown. Limbs have been ripped off, revealing raw wood-flesh and some poor, doomed trees lean at drunken angles, knocked over but unable to rest because their comrades caught them on the way down. No pretty green leaves hide the damage. Lawns show unsightly wounds inflicted by snow plows. Nobody in his right mind tries to sell his New England home in early to mid-Spring.

Photo by Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Flowers foolhardy enough to bloom are begging for a foot of late season snow to be dumped on their heads.

But, for all the destruction, and decay, there is life.

Photo by Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

In the muck of vernal pools…

Photo by Rhiann Wynn-Nolet

Do you see him? The little frog in the middle of the photo? There’s another frog facing him,those tiny glowing dots are his eyes.

These brackish puddles lack the aesthetic appeal of babbling brooks and crystalline streams. They’re lined with dead leaves and have a faintly ominous look – like you might lean over to look into one, and get sucked down into an alternate world, probably ruled by smelly trolls. In reality, vernal pools are thriving micro eco-systems.

Earlier in the week, a writer-friend and I had a teasing exchange over Facebook about our WIPs’ swampy middles. At the moment, I’m teetering on the edge of my WIP’s murky midsection. Its surface is dark, opaque, and undoubtedly concealing all kinds of writerly perils (aka smelly trolls). I can’t see the precise story lines, plot twists, and character arcs which will ultimately get me to the other side of my book (yes, I’m pantsing this one). They’re temporarily obscured by the fertile mud of too many ideas.

Do your stories have swampy middles? Do they scare you a little bit?

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Thursday’s Children April 4, 2013

Inspired by Handwriting…

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This weekend I was sorting through “stuff”, trying to decide what deserves to travel to North Carolina with us, and what does not. I came across some papers.

One was genealogical information from my Aunt Sybil, who died quite a few years ago. Just seeing her distinctive handwriting – bold, somewhat dramatic – brought all kinds of memories back. Like the time in Mexico when she put her hand on the restaurant table to heave herself out of her chair (she was a “big” woman). The whole table listed and the plates, water goblets, silverware slid off, causing all the waiters to rush at us exclaiming “Ay, dios mio!” Sybil surveyed the chaos, and with an air of haughty disdain, announced, “God damn flimsy table,” and exited the restaurant like a ship in full sail. Sybil always wrote with Flair felt-tip pens and I frequently gave them to her as Christmas presents. Here’s what her script looked like…

Another was from my mother, who died only a couple of years ago. She always hated her handwriting. She compared it to her sister’s and although she thought Sybil’s was “showy”, she felt her own was not distinctive. They were like that in real life too, my mother always overshadowed by her flamboyant sister. When I look at my mom’s writing, I see an even, legible script, written before arthritis crippled her hands. It reminds me of her as a healthy, vibrant person. Her last few years were miserable and her handwriting was almost illegible.

For a very long time I kept a letter from my grandmother, Pearl. Her handwriting was strong, closely spaced, and often served to communicate judgmental observations and moral admonitions. The letter I saved was written in red ballpoint. I can “see” it, though I threw it away a long time ago. Now I wish I hadn’t, because I don’t remember what it said.

I also found a copy of a very old family letter (1861). I’m not really sure who this person was, other than an ancestor on my mother’s side. They spent considerable time and effort on penmanship back then. Just mastering pen and ink took lots of practice.

Anyway, all this made me think about how seldom I receive or send a handwritten letter. Yes, we fiddle around with fancy fonts to try to personalize things. But our fonts have gone missing. Even without making a study of handwriting, like a criminologist (and by the way, they must miss the handwriting days too), you can learn a lot about personality, as well as physical and emotional health, from studying a person’s writing.

One of my books features a husband and wife. His script is like my Aunt Sybil’s, but on steroids — commanding, showboat-y. He’s a respected lawyer and active member of the community, but underneath he’s a “bad hat”, as Madeline would say. His wife’s script is faint and practically microscopic. She’s so downtrodden and frightened, she barely dares to make an impact on paper. Hardly surprising that she cannot protect herself from her husband. She can’t protect my MC either.

I like using subtle, mundane nuggets like this to help bring characters to life. What kind of details do you use?

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Thursday’s Children March 28, 2013

Inspired by Cheerleaders…sort of

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“Leave It All On The Mat”

That was the first Facebook post I saw Sunday morning. One of my daughters belongs to an All-Star Cheering team and they had a competition later in the day. For those who have no idea what All-Star Cheering means, stick around. Five or so years ago, I had no idea either. I thought cheerleaders cheered for boys’ high school sports teams and that cheerleading was the domain of pretty, popular girls who could do cartwheels.

Times have changed.

Cheering is its own sport and has the dubious distinction of causing the most visits to the ER among school- age athletes, because the one thing that hasn’t changed are the skimpy uniforms. No helmet, no pads. Concussions are par for the course – not just for the flyers (the girls who get thrown up into the air) but also the bases (the team members who do the throwing and catching). Tumbling runs and stunts become more dangerous the higher the level. There are boys on teams. And non-skinny girls. And huge national competitions with really loud music. They’re all aspiring to be as good as this…

That was entertaining, right? But now you’re asking yourself what front tucks and scorpions and basket tosses have to do with writing. Well, maybe not in exactly those terms…

Writers must leave it all on the page.

Don’t end your ms feeling like you played it safe. If you hold nothing back, then you won’t be wondering what you could have or might have done. Put it all out there. Give it all you’ve got.

This is something I’m struggling with at the moment. The boy MC in my new WIP has a disturbing backstory. I wasn’t aware of this until I started writing about him. And the girl MC, well, she’s not the person I thought she would be either. She’s quite a bit more dysfunctional. I’m not sure this boy and girl are right for each other, or that their relationship can heal them. Their story might not be marketable. But, now that I know who they are, I’m fascinated. I can’t rethink their story into safer territory. At least not in the first draft.

Do your characters ever take you by surprise? What do you do about it? Do you give them free rein and let them tell you their stories, or do you make them tell the story you intended?

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Thursday’s Children March 14, 2013

Inspired by Surfers…

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No, not the bronzed demi-gods who frolic under the summer sun.

Maine winter surfers. The wave-junkies clad in thick rubber suits. I see them before, during, and after every winter gale. Out there in the seething gray ocean, with the wind shearing the tops off the whitecaps. In fact, I was watching surfers last Friday at the beach near my house and that’s what got me thinking. Some are young dudes, but many are guys in their 40s and 50s. They live for the thrill. Not even freezing cold water can stop them. And believe me, that water would be frozen – except that moving salt water simply can’t freeze.

Some might call them brave. Others might call them crazy. I think the same adjectives might be applied to writers. We can’t give up the rush either, not even when conditions are, um, gnarly.

I’ve just plunged into writing a new book. It’s exciting and scary. I’m not in the water literally, but I am floundering around in a sea of words. It’s not so much that I’ll be searching for perfect waves – I’ll be trying to create them. Individual words, that when combined, offer speed, amplitude, and a glassy face that is both superficially beautiful and translucent enough to let the light shine through. The waves that will carry my story to its final destination with power and grace.

I’m no longer a “kook” (newbie just starting out) so I know what to expect…

Wipe outs–massive deletions of entire chapters and character eliminations.

Riptides–wayward characters and unanticipated subplots that threaten to carry my story far out to sea, or onto jagged hidden reefs.

Acid drops, when the lovely wave drops out from under me and I’m suddenly free-falling — aka plot holes.

And let’s not forget about undertow — that writerly crisis of confidence–those this whole freaking thing SUCKS moments.

But, I’ll take my chances, for the moments when magic flows through my brain and onto the page, when thought and language form a perfect union, when writing is a transcendent experience.

So, who’s ready to hang ten (fingers on the keyboard) with me?

Here’s a video about winter surfing in Maine. This beach is about half an hour from me.

And here’s one shot at the beach in the town next to mine

taken at Kennebunk Beach

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Thursday’s Children February 14, 2013

A weekly blog hop where writers share their inspirations. Please join us!

Inspired by blizzards, and local history…

Last week I lost track of time and had to scramble to get my TC post up. This week Snowmaggedon/Snowpocalypse/Nemo made it virtually impossible to leave my house for the two days of the storm, except to shovel and drag my reluctant doggies outside to do their business.

I’ll be going stir-crazy by Monday, just itching to fly the coop. So, I ‘m actually writing this on Saturday the 9th.

Storms make for great writing opportunities within stories too. They’re dramatic. Primal. The wind screeches and trees snap-and if you live by the ocean, the waves roar like a raging sea monster. Bad weather forces people out of their comfortable routines and behavior patterns. The isolation of a storm may lead some to feel more vulnerable, and some to feel less accountable. Being trapped in a house by a Nor’easter is akin to being marooned on an island. It’s just you and the people trapped with you, or with whom you are trapped.

Tension builds. Anything could happen. 

In 1978, a very dramatic incident happened at Goat Island Light, which is about three miles down the road from where I now live. Here’s a photo from the late 19th or early 20th century. I’m not sure when the one below it was taken, though clearly it was taken after the invention of airplanes!

US Coast Guard Photo

Below are photos of Goat Island Light taken this past weekend by their webcam.  That tall white structure is the new fog bell tower. You’ll be relieved to know the lighthouse is no longer “manned”, because in the middle photo all that black stuff is sea water that’s breached the rocky base of the island. As is the foamy white stuff in the last photo.

The passageway on the right connects the lightkeeper’s house to the lighthouse, which is out of view in the picture above.  The passageway is quite new. It wasn’t the first one to be built.

Back to 1978, or more specifically the Blizzard of ’78.

Martin Cain was the lightkeeper at that time. He had just stepped from the passageway into the kitchen when the entire passageway was swept out to sea. I used that incident in my book TENDRIL (but with different characters, a hurricane not a blizzard, and a different, fictional lighthouse). In real life, a rescue helicopter came to evacuate the Cain family, but there was room for only one adult and one child. Martin’s wife took the baby, leaving her husband and two year old son behind. Can you even imagine?

By the way, many claim the lighthouse is haunted by its last resident lightkeeper, who died in 1992. Presumably a rogue wave capsized his boat when he was a short distance from home. But that’s another story…

A few days ago, on neighboring Vaughn Island, human bones were found by a person walking his dog. They may belong to the college students who went missing just before Christmas. Some of their clothing was found on Goat Island, shortly after their disappearance. The bones were found above the usual high tide mark, probably deposited there by the the thirty foot seas we had during the storm.

Yet another tragic and mysterious story…

Shawn Patrick Ouellette / Staff Photographer
Portland Press Herald

Are there any events from local history that have inspired your writing?

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