The Home Stretch

I can see the end. I am on the home stretch. Within about fifty pages, more or less, I will probably be finished with my first draft of my next novel.

I think, for the moment, it is going to be about a two hundred page book, which is a good sized read.

Although for me, when one of my favorite authors writes a really big novel, I get all a'quiver inside because I loooove big books.

That's reading them, not writing them.

In my experience, a book writes itself and will be as long as the story it has to tell.

I know you have read books where there is obviously filler, or the ending of the story just stops, or is lame.

I've read very good books until the last chapter or so, or even the last few pages, and the author makes ruination out of something that was pretty good.

I hope I never do that.

Anyway, once the first draft is complete (or I think it's complete - I thought "Out on a Limb of the Family Tree" was finished three or four times), the hard work begins.

Proof reading. Editing. Yuck.

And after I've done it myself, ad nauseum, I humbly ask others to do the same for me.

I would never send something unpolished to the publisher. I want it neat and complete.

I will hope not to get grumpy, not to become obsessed, and just be focused on the job.

Yeah. Right.

Birds of a Feather

Saturday, in spite of rain and fog, I journeyed to an event that focused on writers. I was a member of a round table discussion, with an audience listening, and many of them were 'wanna be published writers'.

It was fun, listening to what drives folks to write, what their passion is in their subject manner, and realizing what a strange lot we are.

One lady writes inspirational essays accompanied by scripture. She is working on the fourth one. Her affect, however; was a grimace and an air of unapproachability. I think she was sincere and perhaps had no idea how she appeared to others. I know I certainly don't sometimes. Maybe she was just  having a bad day. She read one of her essays and it was quite good.

Another woman wrote a memoir about her deceased son, who became addicted to drugs in seventh grade and finally died from AIDS at age twenty-six from sharing needles. He died many years ago, and she is now able to talk about it removed from overwhelming emotions.

Yet another woman wrote a book about an era circa World War II and how ethnic groups had separate neighborhoods up North who never spoke, much less had relationships. The drama is about an Italian boy marrying an Irish girl.

A gentleman who looked like a homeless man began to speak eloquently about the Korean War and the group of  men he fought with. Sounded like a great book.

One man wrote a book on two potters in Cherokee County in the early 1900's who furnished pots, jugs, etc. to homes for many years. Their pottery is now collectible, of course, and he said if he didn't write about them, he was afraid they would be lost to history.

There was the woman who wrote about haunted things...but the story she read from her book was about an elderly woman on her deathbed surrounded by family, when the smell of cigar smoke suddenly hung heavily in the air. Her deceased husband smoked cigars, no one else did. They couldn't find the source and felt he had come for her.

A man from Haiti talked about his book and how he wanted it to be a movie. He felt God was directing his steps toward that very thing.

A young woman spoke of her book and how a certain percentage would go to summer camps, as that was the subject of her book, stories from summer camps of her own childhood.

A  young mother, along with her husband, has written a children's Christmas book. With the book comes a big Santa stocking. This is for children to give toys they no longer play with, to Santa. He can take them to other boys and girls.

My favorite was the cowboy poet. He is a teacher, raised in Texas and Oklahoma, and he writes poetry through a cowpoke's eyes and voice. He read a Christmas poem that was delightful.

I was privileged to read an excerpt from "Out on a Limb of the Family Tree", which brought laughter and applause. Did that make me feel good, or what!

Each author felt deeply, passionately, almost urgent about what they had written. We know it is in the writing that keeps us fed, not the public relations, not the selling (although we want them to sell, but preferably by magic), or even the publishing, past the first stroke of the new book's cover.

I guess that means we need a benevolent agent, and as far as I know that's magical thinking, too.

What I'm trying to say to you, especially if  you want to be a writer is this: if you are writing now, you are a writer. Whether you are ever published, or whether anyone else even reads your work.

You are a writer.

Conjured Up

As most ya'll know, I am working on my sixth book.

This book is told in first person by a nine year old little girl.

Now, the more I write, the more real she becomes. I know a lot about her, more about her than you ever will, even if you read the book.

Because you can't put someone's whole life, their whole self between the covers of a book.

I believe if you have a character in a book who seems real to the person reading, then that character must be fully born, not a cardboard cutout.

For instance, I know she has an inny, not an outy. I know she doesn't like  her chin, but it isn't something she talks about to anyone for fear of hurting someone's feelings. I know she hates to pee at someone else's house, but is too polite to say so.

None of those things are in the book. But they are there, because that's a part of who she is.

I know how she turns out all grown up, more or less, but the book ends at the beginning of her tenth  year.

If you are a writer, you know exactly what I mean, you get it.

If you are not, you are pretty sure I'm just as crazy as you suspected.

I have people look at me and shake their heads, saying they can't even imagine what I'm talking about - characters in my head, not knowing what they might do in the next chapter, behaving in a way you don't expect them to.

I think they half admire me and half feel relief that they aren't that way at all.

So, the next time you pick up a book, think about the author for just a moment.

That's their baby you're holding in your  hands.

And Who Are You, Again?

Since I have started writing a new book, it  has occurred to me that I live in a very strange world.

The characters in my head, which allegedly don't really exist, become more real to me at times than those of you characters who are walking around.

That should scare me.

It probably does scare you.

Now, my characters are usually benign folks, I rarely have the bad guys to write about. Only once have I written a short story that involved a very bad person. And I put off writing that for nearly a year, but as usual they wouldn't leave me alone, and  I figured it was better to get them on paper and out of my head.

For those of you who do not write, and maybe even for some of those of you who do, it's hard to explain this phenomenon.

It's sorta like a pillow that's overstuffed and bursting at the seams, unable to contain it all, spilling out onto another surface. Only different, of course. But I have been accused of  having nothing but stuffing in my head, so maybe it ain't so different after all.


But how do people, like, say, Stephen King, tolerate all that boogied-boogied stuff going on in their heads, not just crazy characters, but evil?

So the point(s) to all this:

1. I have people in my head.
2. At least they are nice people.
3. I'm fine, thanks for asking, and
4. My hat is off to folks who write the scary, like Mr. King.

I may take my hat off, but the aluminum foil is staying firmly put.