Darrowwood Part Eight

8.

      “Hello,” came the high-pitched voice between the girl’s thin lips.

     “Er, hello,” Monica stammered.  Jenny flipped around to look at the newcomer.

     “My name is Cynthia.  I hope you like your new room. You’ll be here for a while.”

     “I wasn’t planning on staying that long, actually,” Monica said.

     “That’s nice." Cynthia smoothed out her pleated black skirt, which Monica recognized as part of the uniform for girls.  “Alendro will be expecting you both to join our town hall meeting shortly.”

     “I wasn’t aware that teachers here go by their first names.  Is that normal?”  Jenny asked.

Craft Wednesday #10 Glittering Highlights

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you.   

Those Glittering Highlights That Are Not Mine

The Question Poised

In reading books or watching movies the characters lead lives we are envious of, either for their happiness or their adventure, however dark. We flatter ourselves in thinking we would take the same amazing actions the protagonists would take, given their resources and position. Their lives, unlike ours, seem so clear cut, it's dazzling - if our lives are the rough diamonds in the deep, theirs are the mulit-faceted gemstones on lady's fingers.

I have often wondered why my life is not like their fictitious lives, besides not being able to flip to the end to see how many pages remain. If my life is in any way prophetic, like fictitious people's lives are, it reveals the future in a different way. (I plan on examining prophecy in writing soon on this blog.) 

The Short of It

One bibliophilic Monday revealed an answer: sharp distinctions must be made in every story, regardless of the medium. When writing fiction it is necessary to become to follow clues in the plot that has been written out so far at the same moment that the next word is poised in the position of the hand and the pen or key. The act of writing requires a focus on the thoughts and actions of the specific characters in a specific location; otherwise the reflective -- or mimetic -- mirror held up to real-life sources of inspiration would prove too unwield for even a writer like Tolstoy to capture on the page.

Thus art, any art, is inherently selective about what it says or shows. What the audience gets is a highlight reel of all the important information and the clearest, most beautiful images related to the plot.

One Personal Example

I have been writing the part of a novel where every hour is gratingly clear for my heroine, and for about two or three chapters I follow her from conversation to conversation in the aftermath of the traumatic event. I ran across the problem of timing when she can eat or take breaks from the narrative for any normal human function. 

Food was a limited resource in her location, so that was not the issue - she could just suffer through hunger for a couple paragraphs.

But I did not want to follow her into the bathroom. My senses loathed the idea, and it was not relevant to any of the events of the story.

I left it out. It was boring, possibly disgusting, and not important. Instead, there are breaks in the chronological plot alloting time for the characters to use any facilities they wish. 

Think about it: when asking how someone's day went, they usually don't reply with "I ate, went to the restroom, brushed my teeth..."  There are times when such information is relevant, such as describing to some outside party a normal routine.

Conclusion

Stories are often outside of the normal. They are centered around changes set into motion by events. The key for the writer is not only knowing what to select, but in allowing room in the narrative structure for "normal" to happen between the lines.

Note to a Large Truck

Large Truck, I hate you
in the lane next to mine
swiv-swerving and generally making out that
you have no control

a good-sized wind and you are skittering
across all five lanes
tip-tottering over the divider
or an unwise Sentra that has snuck past
into your lane
where you are no longer
flirting with safety
but disregarding the painted lines

Darrowwood Part Seven

7.

     They had no trouble getting there. The travel arrangements were more than satisfactory, and every single person was nice to them. The flight was smooth, the bus was on time, and the hotel room for Mr. and Mrs. Daniels had already been booked and paid for.
     The girls and Mr. Daniels left Mrs. Daniels with Jack and Sarah so that Mr. Daniels could ride with the girls in the guest car that Darrowwood had so generously sent for them. They did not see the chauffeur's face, but he bowed low. His scarlet livery touched the ground scented with pine needles. Mr. Daniels helped the chauffeur heft the luggage into the truck.
      Soon they started up the winding roads towards Darrowwood. Soon they had arrived.
     “Nice place,” Mr. Daniels said.  He dumped both girls’ duffle bags at the foot of one of the twin beds.  The double windows in their spacious dormitory were thrown open to the beginnings of an aromatic pine forest not ten feet away.

Monica plopped down on a swivel chair and wheeling to face the green wall. “That’s a fire hazard,” she said flatly. It was the first time she had spoken since getting off the airplane.

Attempts At Wit, After Pope

What mimics tides and flows in this grey world

And, constraining stars in a single word,

Pays fairer compliments to bright maidens

Than to the bless’d judgments of great heavens?

Sharp, loud wise men divide by sharper Night,

But minds cannot shine in Nature’s least light;

Nor can relics derive the sky’s azure

In ways of Life, of Force, of Beauty pure.

To jump further and deeper into wit

Means forgoing truth to the blind critic.

An attempt at creating poetry in the style of Alexander Pope's carefully measured iambic pentameter.

Darrowwood Part Six

           6.

     Monica watched her friend’s purple, holey sneakers tear around the doorframe.  Jenny had not worn them since the eighth grade, when a tuba tumbled out of the bandroom closet and broke her foot.  Monica stared at the carpet where Jenny’s adored flip-flops lay, flipped and flopped.  She heard excited shrieks coming from the kitchen and a little girl yelling, “Mommy!  Mommy!”

Craft Wednesday #9 A Thought on Titles

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you.   

A Thought on Titles

     I thought I would give a lecture on how, within the last two centuries, the title of books has shifted from relatively commonplace names and locations ( A Tale of Two Cities, Moby Dick, The Three Musketeers) to exotic and even abstracted titles ( The Da Vinci Code, Brave New World, The Grapes of Wrath), as if the objective backbone had fallen away from literature and left warm, nebulous, subjective attitudes reflected in figurative and somewhat transferable titles, such as Lord of the Flies.

After Douglass and Jacobs

"An Incident in the Life of a Slave Mother"

After Frederick Douglass’ Narrative and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents

Events from two biographies of courageous African-American ex-slaves inspired a fictitious scene exploring what it would be like to be in the time and place where the color of your skin was the primary factor determining your legal status.

“Go and hide, Master’s coming,” I told Elijah.

He did what his mother told him, the poor obedient child. I saw that he locked himself in the cupboard with the good dishes.  “Ma, is he mad at me for picking his cabbages? I only saw that one stuck up out of the ground where the rabbits would get it –”

“Quiet, child,” I said, hearing the clomp of my master’s new riding boots against the hard, packed summer dirt out on the lane. My feet pulsed against the swollen floorboards as the door open and I saw his face.

If I were able to find the words to describe it to you, I would, but it was all I could do was force myself to look away from the cabinet where Elijah was and face the man cut out of stone not fit to make Adam out of. I figure that’s why God made the first man out of dirt, so he wouldn’t be so hard or greedy when he came against fellow creatures, as surely the Lord knew the darkness in man’s heart.

He’d just come from riding his new stallion, I could tell by the riding crop in his raised hand. “Turn around,” my master said, and before I could he grabbed my shoulder and tore the coarse dress at the collar across my scarred collarbone. It was all I could do to look away from the cabinet and keep my mouth closed, swallowing my shouts as he struck me again and again with the stick, raising welts on my ebony skin.

Darrowwood Part Five

          5.

  “A full ride,” Jenny said, peering over the papers in her friend’s hands.  “It’s more than I dreamed, especially after what happened this year.  Mom’s been putting on a brave face, but she can’t hide it from me.”

          Jenny’s father had lost his job six months ago.  There was not much of a market for bound books anymore, which is why the chain bookstore had closed down several of its stores and fired thousands of employees, including regional managers.  Mrs. Daniels had come back to her work from maternity leave and found a forty percent reduction in her paycheck.  Around that time, Jenny’s grades at school plummeted, despite the hours she and Monica had been studying.

         “That’s just…wow,” Monica said.

         “I know, right?” Jenny beamed, her light blue eyes dancing as she looked at Monica.

          “So why haven’t you told your parents?”

So Serious Saturday #11 Water Wisdom III

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Informational/Persuasive/List

Water Wisdom Part III

(Tips Section)

No matter if you live in California or in New Hampshire, conservation of natural resources is a critical part of making sure our children have the necessities for survival.

In the two previous Water Wisdom sections outlined some of the basic functions and usage tips about water, one of our planet's finite resources. This third section is a list of ways that anyone can conserve water.

Turning Off water When Not Using It

The most basic tip ever is something mothers have told their children for decades. When brushing teeth or washing hands, turn on water for a brief spurt to coat hands or toothbrush. Then turn it off.

At the Core of Most Things

Some don’t eat pomegranates

because they don’t know how.

But you have a gift for tasting without seeing –

fingers crack the red rind open egg-wise,

pick cartilage fluff from caverns

and pressured rubies out of caverns –

without missing the bowl.

Even seeing, you accept your knowledge

incomplete in all the pieces tumbling out:

the pale, pink, blush, red

blood.

Between you and them it’s hard saying

which is the more deceptive,

smooth skin and dark humors

spilling at the slightest provocation.

A finger’s nail takes a swipe,

staining purple before

tossing in wounded arils.

Their teeth, however, meet yours and

you drag the shells through purple streams

along your tongue, hearing flesh burst.

The real test lies where you pull the bones

from your mouth and flick them into the bowl

to see if you can. You never miss.

While you bask in tartness, the pile grows

without your ever seeing the whiter meat.

What Happens After

     When the Cordwell family finished Thanksgiving meal, they balled the linen napkins onto their plates beside the turkey gristle.
     Eliza and Janet chanced to look across the table at about the same time. Both women’s eyebrows flared, recognizing the set of the other’s mouth. Eliza turned her frown away first, towards a cousin snug in a wicker chair cornering the grand table. It wasn’t until Janet pushed away from the table and made for the kitchen doorway that her sister looked up.
     Janet’s back was for everyone. She set her plate on the sink counter and took a sponge to soap.
     The grease on Eliza’s finger startled her. She stopped tracing patterns and looked at her uncle, standing above the family. He held his hands together over this head and bent backward, so that his polo rose and granted a full view of his belly.
     She recognized the touch at her elbow and the shade of her mother’s voice. “Would you help your sister by gathering plates,” her mother said. Said, not asked.

Craft Wednesday #8 Shades of Adjectives

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you.   

Shades of Adjectives

Adjectives are weird. This week I started thinking about adjectives when a vague phrase popped into my head. The words mostly disappeared before I could write them down. When I finally got out a paper and pen I could recall all of the words - except one. Guess which part of speech it was?

Here is the phrase, reproduced:

Blankets: the most flexible item of clothing.

A Freshman Then

Congratulations.

You are the girl

the old you wanted,

looked up to, awed.

An authority of whom

she would be terrified.

Dear Author

I am editor

Keeper of Cliques

marginal guard

Don’t take it personally

we have to go with

what is best

for the collection

And you don’t seem to fit

at this present time. We advise

trying again later

Thank you for your submission

your heart prostrate

the open pages

we read and shut

So Serious Saturday #10 Water Wisdom Part II

Fiction needs a basis in reality. Exercising non-fiction muscles once in a while benefits an active imagination, channeling creative energies as it focuses on a subject. So Serious Saturdays will be an active place for critical essays or writing about reality in the context of real events - even when it is not written on Saturdays.

Type: Informational/Persuasive

Water Wisdom Part II

As I said two Saturday issues ago, there are many important and everyday ways to stay water-conscious. The previous part gave an overview of what water is and its importance in making food and materials. This section focuses on water usage.

Water Use in Food

I touched on this subject briefly in Part I.  National Geographic  has a neat infographic showing how much water each meat or item requires. Notice the large difference between, say, lettuce and beef.

Why is meat so water intensive? The simple answer is stacked values: the grain the animal eats takes water, and so does giving water to the animal while it is alive in order to keep it alive, and then the water used to make the gasoline that trucks use to transport the animal to stores. Added up, this is a lot of water spent over the course of the animal's lifetime.

Stacked values does not just plague the meat industry. Water is used to grow produce and transport it. Gracelinks.org states that "approximately 1 to 2.5 gallons of water is used in the process of refining a gallon of gasoline", which means that every time a gallon of gas is used at least a gallon of good water is being used, too. If any food has to travel a distance by truck or other gasoline-fed vehicle, it uses more gas and therefore more water for every additional mile.

 Buying local food, when available, can lessen the problem by reducing water usage. In addition to saving water, buying local also means enriching the local economy and supporting small farmers. 

Water Use Indoors

Water use inside of homes includes faucets, toilets, showers, and unknown leaks. According to HomeWaterWorks.org, the average shower uses two gallons per minute for a total of over 17 gallons per shower. Too much of that goes down the drain. If that water was collected in a bucket and used to water outdoor plants the waste would not be as great. 

Another option is the Navy shower, developed by a military branch and basically a fancy way of saying to turn off the water/sink/showerhead/hose when not immediately using it, even turning off water to soap up or brush teeth clean. 

After California Governor Brown's announcement about mandatory water restrictions, I started taking Navy showers and I've got to say, it isn't as difficult as I thought. It is simply a matter of making sure that all the shower tasks that need water go together and all the tasks that don't need water happen between rinses, when the water is turned off.  Sponge baths are also a great way to keep clean and conserve water in days between showers, 

Water Use At Home

Indoor water use is important to control, but so is outdoor water use. To review how water is used inside and outside of your home, consider using an interactive water calculator. It gave me an idea of where I could easily cut back my water usage. Being aware of water use is the first step in conservation efforts.

Look for Part III, Coming Soon!

How to Help a Species of Least Concern

Harvest remnants of yesterday’s tea

in a close-lipped Ziplock storage bag, gallon sized.

Take it to your local park.

Gather crusts in your right hand

unless you are left-handed.

In that case do your best.

It is best to use the right whenever possible.

Crimp, crumble, crackle

until you have a hand

full of beautiful browned crumbs.

Some will be bigger than others. That is okay.

We are not being perfect.

Darrowwood Part Four

4.

              Monica sat up.  “Darrowwood. Well, yeah, I got a couple of emails from them, and a letter in the mail.  They won’t leave me alone.  The strangest part of it is that I didn’t apply.”

            “Me neither.”  Jenny paused.  She hurried over to her desk and retrieved an envelope from under her laptop.

            “What’s that?” Sarah asked, looking up from her coloring books on the floor.

            “It’s a letter for me,” Jenny replied.

            “Why were you hiding it?  Can I see it?”

            “No, because it’s not yours.”

            “Mom!”  Sarah shouted, darting out of the room.  “Jenny’s being mean!  She won’t share.”  They heard Jack wail as Sarah ran into the kitchen.

            “I haven’t told my parents yet,” Jenny said, handing the papers from the envelope to Monica.  “I will have to, soon, though, if Sarah gets too interested in my stuff.”

The letter was stamped with an ornate seal that looked like real wax.  The contents read:

Craft Wednesday #7 Writers Write

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and to share experiences with you.

Writers Write

Tuesday morning I opened my notebook to write. I had forgotten where I had left off in that particular story, so I read all the previous sections to figure out how I could continue. I ended up with: " 'Freddy,'  she said."

I ended my writing for the day there in favor of trimming the split ends out of my hair for over two hours.

It's hard to write. It's hard to do anything right, but when one sits down to write the right words a sudden instinct to bolt takes hold. Sometimes the feeling can give way to a desire to write something, anything, down on the page. 

Chaparral Slopes

A honey-coloured property

with a steeped beam ceiling

has grayed.

We hang the rug outside to dry.

Debris caught between

the fiber and the backing

has attracted small bugs.   

Camelias and conifers

contemplate rhododendrons

like oil that might drip from a car.



Another one  of the "found" poems: I had never heard of a "rhododenron", but I liked the way it sounded in the outdoor magazine I borrowed.  To make a found poem, take up three books that are different from each other. Then, flip through them for ten interesting phrases total. Make something out of these words.

Sonnet on Email from Psychotic Ex-Girlfriends

He opened the message then,

sensing worms worked in code

below the surface, sent again

into his box, his own abode.

At least he was predictable –

no steady sense at all. Never,

until now, had she been able

to lay her points so bare – clever.

Attachments at the bottom put

dread in his heart. They portended

nightmares, like her rustling foot

on the stairs, where covers ended

and night exposed him to the air

before she stole his primal dare.

Sonnet on Email From Psychotic Ex-Boyfriends

She opened the message then,

wary of worms worked in code

below the seeming, sent again

into her box, her own abode.

At least he was predictable –

against sense and reason. Never,

yet now, had he seemed able

to lay his points so bare – clever.

Attachments at the bottom put

Dread in her heart. They portended

nightshades, like the clod of his foot

on the stair, where covers ended

and air allowed night inside

her eyes, hiding all means to hide.

Silent Saturday

Friends and students of the King
have locked themselves behind closed doors
deep in the city in an upper room,
deep in grief, their hope
not yet resurrected

After seeing hope seized,
scourged and fastened to wood
His students forget
the King only sleeps
in the heart of the earth

Gold Making a Day Terrible

I thought clouds were supposed to have silver walls

but I guess that was my delusion

because gold-breathed mist and

thunderous cherub cheeks make home

above my head, naturally.

As I look up from the sidewalk

the cloud tuck Señor Sun under their edges

in a humid quilt too heavy for winter.

No frost or hail or sudden downpour

makes the clouds any less.

They just hang there, you know,

as if they take pleasure
in taunting their underlings.

Craft Wednesday #6 An Intro to Blogging

This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

Things I Learned About Blogging
(in two months)

I was fairly new at using blogging platforms when I started this creative blog at the beginning of the year.  I had dabbled in a few for my coursework, but I had not consistently kept updating a webpage - besides Facebook. In that time I learned a few things about this particular blogging platform, but also about blogging in general. I hope this entry becomes a great help to beginning bloggers.