The Southern Woman--Waking

In my writing workshop, we were discussing a hilarious piece by one of the class members who writes wild, over-the-top, occasionally bittersweet vignettes of life in the South. This piece profiled her mother-in-law as the quintessential Southern woman: keeper of heritage, wearer of Doncaster suits, lover of tobacco, and God. Painted with very broad strokes, it was a delightful read.

Then one of the class raised the question, “Shouldn’t you specify that she was White—I mean, there are a lot of different Southern women.”

Good question. And it stopped me cold.

I was still thinking about this the next morning as I lay in bed waiting for the sunrise, thinking how, as a White person myself, White is the default mode in my perception of characters—unless the character is identified as a POC, whether by description or, alas, unfortunate racial stereotype.

The Southern woman—I immediately think of my maternal grandmother. Born in Alabama, a Baptist Sunday School teacher in her youth, bridge player, visitor/supporter of Tampa’s ‘old folks’ home,’ traditional (and this encompasses Black and White) Southern cook, compulsive solitaire player in the long afternoons, and a most excellent grandmother, teaching me to embroider, sew, and even, heaven help us, to do simple drawn work, aka hem-stitching.

She was a lady of leisure—though she bustled around in the mornings, airing pillows, cutting flowers to fill the vases in the big, spotless house, and baking endless pound cakes, loaves of banana bread, and chocolate chip cookies.

And the shadowy Southern woman who kept that big house so spotless?  Annie Davis, who for many years daily prowled the premises like a noiseless dark Roomba, dusting, sweeping, polishing. It fell to her to shell the field peas and snap the beans, to hang out the laundry in the pre-dryer days, to iron virtually everything including bed linens and my grandfather’s underwear, even to take a vengeful hoe to the occasional snake that dared to appear in the back yard. 

At lunch time the two Southern women shared a meal. But my grandmother ate in the breakfast room and Annie perched on a stool at a counter in the adjoining kitchen. There was a little amiable conversation, called back and forth between the two rooms, usually about what needed doing that afternoon. Annie, by the way, was provided with her own separate plate, glass, and eating utensils, just as she had a ‘maid’s bathroom’ in the garage.

The memory of this is painful to me now. Why didn’t I see the ridiculousness of it, the injustice? But it was the way it had always been and, as a child, I never questioned it, any more than I questioned the separate drinking fountains and restrooms in public places.

It took the Civil Rights movement of the Sixties to wake me up—though I realize I still have a long way to go to understand the extent to which White privilege has permeated my life.

But this morning, as I lay reflecting on all of this, I swear I could hear the taciturn Annie Davis crying out, “Ain’t I a woman? Ain’t I a Southern woman?”

 

In Medias Res

In medias res (Latin: in the middle of things) is the literary term for beginning a story by jumping right in to a defining moment that relates to past and future events -- all of which will be unfolded gradually through flashbacks, dialogue, and narrative.

Homer did it by beginning The Odyssey with Odysseus in captivity, his journey already well underway. Dante's Divine Comedy begins with the main character in the middle of his life when he must make a crucial choice. Shakespeare opens "Hamlet" with the king's ghost and then fills in the important back story of the murder.

It's the beginning of another semester of writing class and once again, I'm finding novel openings that drag because the writer feels the need of filling in all the back story before the action starts. It seems to be the most common mistake that new writers make.

And once again, as I always do, I'll use the analogy of meeting a stranger at a party. You don't need to hear all about their background to find them interesting -- on the contrary, unless they were raised by wolves or something equally odd, you don't need their background at all. You are far more likely to be interested in what they're doing now--whether it be raising miniature horses or running a Pastafarian music ministry for hospice. The background details can get filled in later.

And again, I'l remind them, that the opening sentence, paragraph, page may be as far as a potential agent, overloaded contest judge, or busy editor will read.  It doesn't matter if page three contains the most spectacular and beautifully written scene in the history of literature --if the reader has already decided this isn't for him.

JCC Writing Class--2019

What a good group this has been! Claire, Matt, Kade, William, and Clark all showed up with novels already underway and ready to work on polishing and/or adding to them.

They said I could share with you the blurbs (one of my assignments) for their novels-in-progress. I have a feeling these books will make it into print before long. I'll keep you informed.

Claire's YA in progress is Would Your Crush Come to Your Funeral? 

"Asha Cynthia Khalidi is just like other girls: she tries to do well in school, enjoys her hobbies, and is always thinking of ways to get her crush’s attention. There’s just one difference: Asha is also dead.

As a recent member of the dearly departed, Asha is overwhelmed by the afterlife and its seemingly endless rules. She misses her parents, her cat, her sleepy suburban hometown, and Penny, the most beautiful girl to ever walk the halls of Haybury High. It’s also hard to leave behind her comfortable bedroom, her brand new car, and the clothing collection she’s spent years assembling.

When a cute, smart-talking girl named Li shows up claiming to be her spirit guide, Asha is pulled into the dizzying process of saving her own soul. The lucky souls who pass all the tests get to go to A Better Place, where they’ll live in eternal bliss. The ones who don’t risk suffering as ghosts forever.

As more pieces of her memories return, Asha begins to suspect her life wasn’t nearly as rosy as she remembers it. When a frightening demon begins to haunt her every step, Asha realizes that the only way to find peace is to pass on to. Li knows the way, and wants Asha to come with her. All Asha has to do is let go of everything that made her human.

Matt (who turns out to be writing about my stomping grounds -- what I called Bear Tree Creek in the Elizabeth books) titles his book Troublesome Gap.

"Chance Creason is an FBI Agent in search of his missing partner, who disappeared investigating mysterious occurrences deep in the hills surrounding Asheville, North Carolina. 

While looking into the disappearance, Chance uncovers unrest among the mountain folk, spurred on by strange occurrences emanating from the mountains themselves. Mysterious lights float up out the mountains. Locals seem to take on different personalities for days on end. Researchers find evidence of foul play among ancient Native American sites. Trackers find electromagnetic devices scattered along mountain trails. And all trails lead back to Troublesome Gap…"

Kade (An Uncommon Barrier) "Throughout the fabric of history, Uncommons and Hunters have stayed along the edges of society. A centuries old battle pulls Tink into the conflict when the Hunters zero in on her location in New York City. All because her parents had met and fallen  in love. On a bus heading for Asheville with her best friend Nat, they meet another Uncommon with his Protector on the way to camp. A special camp for Uncommons and Protectors. 

Filled with many unanswered questions and the knowledge she is more unusual than any of the others at Camp, it takes four months for Tink to settle in. When she is blamed for the Hunter's finding the boundaries of Camp, she becomes filled with a desire to return home.  With Nat getting kidnapped and a dead raccoon showing up with a note, Tink has to make a choice. It doesn’t help a boy shows up from the Hunters camp promising he isn’t the enemy. But can she trust him? He could answer many of her questions. At what cost? And what is she going to do about Nat?"

William (One For My Baby) " How far will Professor Stetson Marbray go to avenge his wife’s death?  He’s already pledged to sacrifice his own life, but is he willing to expose his secret past?  Join Marbray as he navigates a maze of cold war intrigue where everyone - both friend and foe - wants to stop him."

Clark (Rain for the Confluence)  "When seventeen-year-old Brett Vanderley experiences a loss of a neighbor, his lifetime girlfriend, he resolves to cast a cage of steel about his heart to ensure it could never be crushed again. Yet when young Gracie Britton is ripped from Ohio and her family settles in a small north-Florida town in 1976, Brett is compelled to have her gain a secure foothold in a place that she sees as primitive and mundane. His efforts whisk Gracie to an alluring landscape along the banks of the Suwannee River and into the multitude of voluminous crystal springs uniquely found in the unspoiled region of Florida.

 But each encounter to achieve his ambition cultivates a heartfelt bond that neither wants. Gracie holds hope that her sharp intellect will land her in a large mid-western university despite having to graduate from the unremarkable high school. Brett’s pursuit is a predictable straight line to sustain the family farm. The gravities of culture, ambitions, and parents weigh heavy on their deepening relationship, but it is the captivating raw nature of the Suwannee that ultimately decides the course of their affection."

***

It turned rainy Wednesday, curtailing my picture taking. Also, this was a short week and I didn't have time to visit the other studios as I was trying to get through the material I usually cover in a longer week. I'll be returning home this afternoon -- where I hear it's been raining too.

The Picky Editor

Five weeks into the critique workshop I lead, I'm editing about sixty pages a week -- three submissions of twenty pages each. I try to treat each one as if it were an edit-for-hire job -- something I do on occasion.  I read carefully, paying attention to grammar, spelling, and punctuation, of course, but mainly to the flow of the story -- is the writer choosing the best way to get his/her story across? Would this word or that phrasing be a better choice? How could this confusing bit be cleared up?

The folks in my class are all pretty knowledgeable in the basics. But sometimes we clash on some odd points. For example, two of the group are very fond of using colons. And they use them correctly. But, in my opinion, the colon is somewhat formal and breaks into the story by calling attention to itself, whereas a dash, a semi-colon, or perhaps a separate sentence would not.

The other recent point of contention was whether one should start a new paragraph with each change of speaker -- a fairly  common rule most of us learned early on and one which helps the reader to keep track of who's saying what. 

But, as one of the class pointed out, some well known writers break this rule, usually in order to show fast conversation, and may feature several different speakers in the same paragraph. 

True, enough. And some writers don't even use quotes for dialogue. Cormac McCarthy, for one. Me, for another, in  the historical sub-plots of Signs in the Blood and In a Dark Season. I just thought it seemed more in keeping with the story. And my editor didn't disagree.  

The bottom line? I try to convey to the folks in my class that my editorial opinion is just that. I suggest what sounds/looks better to me but the author has the last say. (Although, I don't feel that way about spelling. Sure, we could quibble over gray vs. grey --I prefer grey but use gray since it's the American standard spelling and I'm a standard American writer -- or theatre vs. theater  -- this gets more complicated. But, generally speaking, it's better to stick to standard spelling unless one wishes to be very avant garde and artistically obscure.)

Along with editing those sixty pages a week, I'm working my way through one last edit of The Devil's Brother, the first (and never published Elizabeth book,) applying the same stringent standards that I do for the class.

 I'm tweaking small things -- trying to get rid of some of the egregious smiling, grinning, and shrugging, along with lots of actually's and finally's. There are big issues I wish weren't there but to fix them would require rewriting the whole thing and I'm not going to do that. 

I'm hoping to self-publish it as an e-book sometime in March --I've got about fifty pages to go and then I have to see what Amazon has to offer with its KDP program. Then, once I get  that done, I'll get to work on the Birdie collection.

Never a dull moment.

Your Novel Starts Here

Your Novel Starts Here is the name of the class I'll be teaching in Asheville beginning mid-September. This is basically the same class I teach every year at John C. Campbell -- the same class that has given rise to a number of completed and published novels.

The class is similar to the one I took back in 2000. Bill Brooks, our instructor, suggested we proceed as though we were writing a novel. He encouraged us to choose a main character, a setting, and to decide what sort of novel we wanted to write.

I chose to write a mystery and decided that my protagonist would be Elizabeth Goodweather, a middle-aged widow living on a farm not unlike ours. 

By the time the six classes were over, I had the opening of my novel, some good scenes, a sense of who Elizabeth was, and an idea of how to turn these bits and pieces into a novel. 

And I did.

You could too.

The class I offer will include instruction and practice (via writing prompts) in writing realistic dialogue and creating three-dimensional characters that move through and interact with a fully realized setting. We'll discuss varying approaches to plotting and I'll help you fill your writer's toolkit with useful tricks for building suspense, insuring continuity, avoiding info dumps, and, as they say, many, many more. 

We'll discuss forming or joining critique groups to keep you going and talk about the ins and outs of self-editing. Finally we'll talk about querying agents and discuss the many publishing alternatives available today.

If you've ever thought you might like to try your hand at a novel, this class is for you. Or if you've already made a beginning but haven't followed through, this class could help you sort things out and energize you for the long haul.

The class meets in Asheville on Tuesdays from 6 to 8:30. The first class is on September 11. Full information on registering 
HERE (under 10 Week Classes.)

All the words are there -- waiting for you to get them in the right order. So shove that cat off your laptop and let's get started!

A Fun Class

Last night was the tenth and last meeting of my Wordplay class -- and what fun it's been! The students have written to prompts of taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight, as well as situational prompts -- a family gathering, a significant loss, an unexpected fork in life's road. They've written pieces that  began with a dictated sentence: "Looking back, ___realized that he/she should never have . . ." or "If only . . ."

And the writing has been consistently good. Funny, touching, insightful -- amazing what got produced in brief (5, 10, or 15 minutes) bursts of writing.

Last night they each brought in a prompt for the class. They were all good but one of the most unusual was this. Write a story in 26 sentences. The first sentence begins with A, the second with B, and so on.

I couldn't believe how well the resulting stories flowed. I doubt that anyone reading them would have noticed the pattern if they hadn't been told of it.

Dialogue worked quite well: For example:

"Again I tell you, I'll do it!"

"But you never-"

"Can't you hear me saying I'll do it?"

"Don't promise something you can't carry out."

"Extra effort is all it'll take -- that and a little luck."

"Foolish to count on luck . . ."

"Great, thanks for the vote of confidence, pal."

If you keep on, it turns into a story. There were some hilarious ones.

Folks said they enjoyed the class -- the spontaneity, the lack of homework or stress. One noted that it was good practice in reading your stuff aloud -- something that's difficult for some folks but this good humored, non-critical gang was a great place for a shy reader to gain confidence.

Great Smokies Writing Program has asked me to offer a 5 week version of the class this summer. (Information HERE.)

I'm looking forward to it!

A Week on the Magic Mountain

Come July 7, I'll be leading a critique workshop at Wildacres -- aka The Magic Mountain. It's a week of learning and having fun with your fellow writers -- all of whom are serious about their work, whether they're new to the game or seasoned veterans. 

Classes meet either morning or afternoons (and there's one day off) to allow for attendees to sit in on other classes, hike, write, or just hang out. At night there are readings, jams, and parties. Plus box wine.

If John C. Campbell (where I'm teaching June 10-16) is summer camp for grownups, Wildacres Writers Workshop is its wild and crazy kid sister. 

Still, lots of good stuff is incubated in the various classes and writers from across the country make the yearly pilgrimage to the mountain to kindle or renew the writing flame. And drink box wine.

If this sounds like something you might be interested in, follow THIS LINK for complete information. If you still have questions about the workshop, feel free to ask me in the comments.

John C. Campbell Again!

Once again I'll be teaching A Practical Guide to Writing Popular Fiction at John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

A stay at JCC puts you amidst creative people of every persuasion -- the surroundings are inspirational and the food and accommodations are excellent. (You do have to make your own bed.)

My class runs from Sunday, June 10 to Saturday June 16. 

As the catalogue says: Your novel starts here with instruction and practice in writing realistic dialogue and creating characters that move through and interact with a fully realized setting. Study different approaches to plotting, and learn tricks for building suspense, ensuring continuity, and avoiding info dumps. We'll discuss forming or joining critique groups, the ins and outs of self-editing, how to query agents, and the many publishing alternatives available today. All levels welcome. 

This is an excellent class for anyone who wants to begin a novel (or has one underway.)  I try to cram a lot into this week but several completed novels have been published that were begun in this same class in past years. 

 

Plus it's a most pleasant way to spend a vacation -- especially if you have a friend or partner (all rooms are double occupancy) who might be interested this class or any of the many craft offerings.

There's complete information about John C. Campbell, this class, and how to register HERE. And, of course, I'm happy to answer questions

A Letter from Judy

When I teach classes in novel writing, an exercise that has proven quite useful is to have my students write letters to themselves in the voice of their main character, explaining why that character wants his/her story told. In some cases these letters are quite moving, and in most cases they help to clarify the author's vision of the book under construction.

So, of course I did this for my Civil War book. But I had to write five letters.

Here's a brief synopsis of the novel:

During the American Civil War, the western North Carolina county still known as Bloody Madison was deeply divided, with the wealthier townspeople supporting the Confederacy and the poorer folk, especially in the outlying communities known as the Laurels, opposed. THE WAY OF IT follows events surrounding the Shelton Laurel Massacre -- the execution by Confederate soldiers of thirteen men and boys suspected of Unionism.  

The story unfolds in five alternating voices of witnesses from both sides. Judy, the strong-willed unmarried mother of a growing brood, the descendant and keeper of traditions of the earliest settlers in the Laurels, is the voice that opens and closes the book so I'll begin with her letter. (I'll post the others over the next few weeks.)

Writing a book, are you? About the Massacre and them Thirteen buried up yon? And you want my opinioning?

Don't seem like an unlearned mountain woman can have much to say to a book writer. Still, I was there and you weren't. I know what it is to go through hard times, to hear my young uns crying for food, to fear the soldiers plundering our food . . . and worse.

When you first begun to spin the story, going back to one of the beginnings of the trouble, I couldn't see what good a book would do -- what happened, happened, and ain't nothing can change that.

But as I come to think on it some more, I thought of all the tales going around concerning them dreadful times -- and they's mostly about the men. The women don't feature much in stories about the war.

But it was the women held things together while their men was off playing soldier or hiding away from conscription up in them old rock houses and thickets on the mountain. 

You tell about the women and how they kept old Laurel going.  Tell as how we're still here. Now that would be a fine thing to have writ down.

And don't forget to tell about that other feller buried up yon where the Thirteen rest. . .

                                                        Your friend,

                                                                  Judith Shelton 

Get Your Head Out of the Clouds . . .

For writers in the Asheville area here's a chance to take a positive step toward improving your writing skills!

Registration is open now for the various terrific classes offered through the Great Smokies Writing Program and beginning as early as August 30. Go HERE for more information.

The class I'm leading is SYNERGY CENTRAL -- an advanced creative prose workshop offering students the chance to have up to fifty-four pages( eighteen pages at a time) of their work -- fiction, non-fiction, memoir, or any combination thereof -- critiqued by their peers and line-edited by the instructor. 

 There will be brief in-class writing sessions but the focus will be on responding to each writer's work with thorough and constructive critique. It's been my experience that the synergy emerging from groups like this can inspire, energize, and propel a writer to the next level.

The class will meet at The Asheville School on Wednesday evenings from 6:00 to 8:30, beginning August 30.

This could be the start of something big!

My, How They're Growing!

Claui sent me these pictures yesterday and I'm amazed at how Josie is changing and becoming more of a person in so few days. And speaking of growth and change . . .

It's been a great week here with terrific students, all of whom have a good start on their novels and a road map for where their story is going. I think they've all experienced a lot of growth in a few short days.

I shall hope to hear someday that they've finished these novels and are headed toward publication. I want to read them all!

Writing at JCCFS

I am always amazed at the ability of people to knuckle down and respond to off the wall writing prompts. And respond with grace and wit.

My students are writing police procedural, fantasy, women's fiction, environmental issues, and what appears to be a Southern Gothic ghost story -- all books I look forward to reading someday.

Monday was spent in talking/writing about their protagonists and I think each of the students got a clearer sense of who those folks were or will be. 

I assigned them the task of doing observations -- noting down interesting overheard conversations, descriptions of interesting sights, random profound thoughts -- anything that might find its way into a novel. And they had some goodies.

One of my observations was the bumper-stickered car I posted yesterday. One could construct an interesting character from the passions inferred -- or one could describe a character by the bumper stickers on his/her car.

 (Query -- are bumper stickers a peculiarly American thing? Do people in other countries paste their preferences on their cars?)

Yesterday we worked on dialogue -- writing believable conversations, using BEATS instead of TAGS  (see HERE) to enrich the reader's sense of what is going on, writing dialogue in which one participant is silent but responds with body language, writing dialogue when more than two are in the conversation, et cetera, et cetera.

While they write, sometimes I go out and take pictures. And sometimes I blog.

Then they read what they've written and the class comments. 

And then I give them another prompt and off they go!

Ideation

I recently received a batch of anonymous evaluations from a class I taught a year ago – a 15 week work shop wherein each student submits almost 60 pages of prose which the class and I then discuss with a view to pinpointing what is and what isn't working.

Generally I get good reviews – and these were no exception. A few grumbles about odds and ends – you can’t please everyone—and a suggestion which I shall take to heart – more writing prompts to break up what can be the drudgery of fifteen week of critique.

But there was one puzzler. A student complained that he (I suspect it was a guy from the handwriting) would have liked more focus on ideation.

Huh?

The student repeated this criticism in his summary – he would have liked more discussion of ideation.

I have a pretty big vocabulary but this word ideation isn't part of it. Obviously it has to do with ideas . . . 

So I Googled ideation creative writing and found THIS LINK
'Boost your creativity -- ideation techniques for writers. '

Aha! It's the old "Where do you get your ideas?" question that always gets asked in interviews and at book readings.

My answer, after I've fought back the impulse to say 'Walmart, Aisle 4', is generally that I get ideas from life -- living, observing, reading, paying attention.

I'm not sure one can cold-bloodedly generate an idea, as suggested in the link above, that will sustain a writer through a novel. Writing prompts are great for short pieces -- and sometimes in a writing prompt one may meet a character that demands more attention or a situation that could be a part of a longer piece.

What was it this student expected, I wonder -- especially since the class dealt with work (presumably) already written?

I'm also wondering if this is a kind of creative writing buzzword -- it's happened before that I get a student who's taken lots of writing classes and is fixated on certain words or techniques -- in another class one student kept talking about filtering which was a term new to me, as applied to writing anyway. 

I looked that one up too -- and found much very useful information. It's basically the same advice that Strunk and White give in Elements of Style (avoid unnecessary words) but HERE is an excellent explanation.

Always learning . . .

Writers and Their Day Jobs -- Another Class Ends . . . -

Wednesday night was the last meeting of my 15 week prose  class.It will be nice to have a little time off but I'll miss these folks and their fascinating stories. 

It was one of the strongest groups of writers I've had yet and one of the most thorough and generous when it came to the attention they gave to their classmates' pages.

The submissions ranged from memoir -- growing up in a large Roman Catholic family in Boston; growing up in middle class, small town Appalachia; growing up poor and gay on the streets of NYC -- to alternate reality fantasy set in another version of Asheville -- to  beautifully crafted short stories about ordinary people . . . and some not so ordinary.

And there were novels in progress -- a thriller about a woman vs. the Medellin Cartel; a YA with supernatural elements that moves between Nazi-era Vienna and present day Atlanta; a coming of age/road trip/buddy story with excursions to the past; the story of a woman faced with the loss of the illusions that have supported her; the story of a heiress, tangled in a web of deception; and the story of a woman on the verge of brilliant success, forced by family circumstance to abandon her passion and find a new means of fulfillment. 

Every writer puts something of themselves into their work, whether it's fiction or not. Sharing your writing with others is opening yourself to criticism -- and learning to accept suggestion for change. It's a scary thing to do that requires a bit of bravery and a thick skin, even when the critics are trying to be kind. 

 One of the group made the remark that the class had been, in a way, like a therapy session.

And then someone else commented that at least half of the class were or had been practicing therapists of one kind or another. (I would include the hair stylist in this group.)

I'd never thought about it before but I have, indeed, had a lot of therapists/social workers/psychologists in my classes over the years. 

What is it, I wonder, that draws this group to writing in such numbers? A habit of introspection? An interest in the human condition and the twists and turns a person's life may take? The many stories they've heard in the pursuit of their practice?

Or is it a reaction to dealing with difficult clients -- a relief to work with characters on the page, who will behave, at least most of the time, as you want them to?