Tag: writing

Frances Liked Oranges

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Combing Frances’ hair, Mrs. Buhle turned her around and tried to smile with lips too thin for the gesture. Her black eyes squinted. The skin on her forehead was marked with lines and two oval brown splotches. Mrs. Buhle was very old, but then everyone appeared very old to Frances, who was five. The woman’s shoulders were rounded, padded with a thick black sweater, fluffed like feathers. Frances tried not to move. She was sure she was going to be eaten, or at least pierced by some hidden instrument.
“Now Frances, your mother is coming to visit you today. She wants to see a happy girl. You’re a happy girl.”
This was not a question.
“I’ll take you downstairs, you can go into the front room today. Don’t look so scared. When your mother leaves, I will have a little present for you. How about that…Frances?”
Frances turned her face up toward Mrs. Buhle. Maybe she would get an orange, she liked oranges. She closed her eyes and waited for the blow that didn’t come.

“Frances, Frances, where are you? Are you hiding…sweetie?”
She was trying to hide from her mother, Maude, but her small foot stuck out from behind the large rose-colored wing chair.
“I think I can see you, I see you.” Her mother began a singsong voice.
“Come out, come out, where-ever-you-are. I have a present for you, come out, come out.”
Peering from around the chair with one eye, Frances saw her mother holding a big box with a yellow ribbon.
“Come on, come on…. I’ll help you open this big box. Is it too big for such a little girl to open? Let’s just see what could be in here. You can do it along with me, sweetie.”
Frances crossed the room, smiled and began to pull on the ribbon. The box contained a tea set, a real tea set, not play size like the one she once saw a girl playing with in a book. Frances was very disappointed.
“Give your mum a big squeeze. I have missed you so much. Give me a big hard hug so I can always remember how it feels.”
Her mother had a soft face, with blonde curls falling from under a little red hat. The hat matched the color of her lips and her fingernails. The hug pulled Frances into the folds of a white dress where an exotic scent sealed the moment.

A few days later the tea set disappeared into one of Mrs. Buhle’s cabinets. Mary was determined to get it back to their small room on the third floor.
“It doesn’t belong to them, does it, Frances? It belongs to you; it will always belong to you. I don’t care what she does to me…I’m getting it back.”
Mary was caught, standing on a chair in the pantry. Mrs. Buhle’s daughter watched as her mother pulled Mary off the chair and dragged her into the back room where they kept the punishments.

Draft From: The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light

My mother was raised in multiple foster homes.  Once she received an orange as a Christmas present.  Her mother never gave her a yellow tea set.

Finding Your Place

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The story takes place in your town; the streets and houses are as familiar as the little wrinkle near your eye. You know where the bus stops, and when the kids from the local high school invade the coffee shop on Elm Street. Maybe your children went to that school, it might be more than likely that you did too. So to write about how it feels to walk down a street, choose the sunny side and smell the freshly baked bread coming out of Greta’s Bakery is easy.

If your place is the city, you jaywalk and nearly get hit by a taxi as you rush to cross to the shady side of the street. The pavement is melting in August; you want to be some place else, so you hurry like everyone around you. You never notice the man with a briefcase staring at you. You stop and check your reflection in the window of Barney’s and when a stranger starts a conversation you’re startled. No one talks to each other in the city.

What happens when the place you are writing about is on the other side of the world and your story begins in 1859. Researching the country, the city, and the era is part of finding the place. Reading journals and letters from public figures are a more intimate glimpse into the daily life of the population. Archives in libraries are often online and reading old newspapers give you the color of events the way they were seen. I found that looking at historic photos of people and streets in my place made it come to life.

How fortunate for me that one of my characters, James Light, took the same ship, The Roman Empire, as Samuel Butler. (How fortunate indeed!) Using Samuel Butler’s life and diaries I had grist for conversations during the long voyage. I found a description of the The Roman Empire and how it sailed into Lyttleton Harbor NZ in 1860. (Time and place recorded in the Lyttleton Times 1860). Somewhere in my digging through the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, I read that a Judge Gresson, lost all his law books on Sumner sand bar (anecdote for character to use). James brought twenty-one boxes of books with him from London (of course he did and none of his books were lost).

When you have done your research putting your characters in a place is like finding a briar patch.

Part of a conversation between James Light and Samuel Butler in The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light:

They pushed themselves away from the table and pulled out their pipes and small sacks of tobacco. Going out on the deck to catch the night air and enjoy their habit, they rejoiced in the kindness of the weather: the still wind, the calm sea, and the light from the universe allowing them to see each other clearly.

“My mother was born on a large estate in Sussex, her mother was a nursery maid and my great-grandmother was the head housekeeper.”

James looked out over the endless black swells of water.

“I will not pry, as all families have their histories. I am of the belief that what has made us evolve is the struggle and cunning of the individual. This is passed down through the generations by way of unconscious memories and habits. So I am more interested in your daily life and communication with your mother. We all too often tell of the big events and leave out the subtle details that make us who we truly are; what was happening every day is more important. What did you discuss over your evening meal?”

 

 

 

Name Game

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`Don’t stand chattering to yourself like that,’ Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time, `but tell me your name and your business.’

`My name is Alice, but –‘

`It’s a stupid name enough!’ Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. `What does it mean?’

`Must a name mean something?’ Alice asked doubtfully.

`Of course it must,’ Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: `my name means the shape I am — and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.’”

—– Lewis Carroll, Through The Looking Glass, Chapter VI,
Humpty Dumpty

John Forster wrote that Dickens made his “characters real existences, not by describing them, but by letting them describe themselves”.

Because my novel, The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light, is based on some threads of family history, I invented names for my characters, whose lives reminded me of what little I knew about them.  Keeping the continuity of the surname Light, which, strangely enough, was an ancestral name that appeared in England in the 1700’s on my family tree, turned out to be one of those wonderful coincidences.

I had too much fun with secondary characters. Here we are introduced to Harold Hollows the first time:

“Taking a closer look at the young man, Elizabeth noticed the splotches of youth still visible on his face and his somewhat fleshy figure. He had small hands and his nails were bitten away.

“I am planning on being a butler for the family, once I gain the experience, that is.  I have a plan—I will return to London in a few years and be able to run the household of any family I choose. What is your plan, Elizabeth?”

Looking down at her, he had already made up his mind that she had somehow ruined whatever chances she might have had. Her baggage—the baby—had sealed her fortune.

“I really don’t have one—do you think it’s necessary?”

The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light

Some insight to picking names for your characters can be found from Elizabeth Sims

Keeping Focus

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“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do” – Steve Jobs

Finding Focus

The meeting on Monday was attended by seven little people.

Grumpy requested an add to staff; he wanted to have Serious join the group. Sneezy sneezed. Bashful turned red. Happy was looking out the window and not listening. Sleepy jerked to attention, adjusting his Ray-Bans. Dopey, raising his hand, wanted to know why we were meeting on a Sunday. Doc rationalized the addition. He was all for Serious, but only if we would hire his friend Curious. The idea of adding Serious and Curious at the same time was intriguing.

I called HR and had the requisition forms filled out. “Curious’ name sounds very familiar, she might have worked here before the last big layoff,” said HR. I told HR: “Serious will have to bring a megaphone to the office. Part of his job description will be to stand on his desk, position the megaphone to face the cubicles, and shout Focus every forty-five minutes. We should never have fired Focus.”

Focus had been fired four years ago, he was missed at the end of the day when bits of ideas were lost. He was missed when the pile of books started and not finished were ankle deep. He was especially missed when the paints were not used or had dried on a few brushes.

Now he would be able to be called with Efficiency (scratch that, Efficiency had been fired too—the very same week). “We really don’t have enough in the budget to go out and look for Focus; the number of incentives and perks he would require will be enormous. He may have moved to some Nordic country where he is more loved. Who would blame him?” HR said.

The question remains: will we find Focus by just shouting his name?

Here are some tips from today’s  Writer Unboxed

Taking Time

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Taking Time

If we steal time                                                                                                                                              the watching never ends.

If we lose time                                                                                                                                               the searching unearths the past.

If we make time                                                                                                                                             the inventing stretches science.

But when we find time                                                                                                                                   the discovery reveals a gift,                                                                                                                       always there to take.

B LeFlore ’09

Writing takes time. Everyone has a routine to make their words take shape on a blank page. My routine while writing The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light was to carve out three hours a day, sometimes three would turn into six (that was a really good day). I would edit what I wrote the day before first to get back into my characters life.  I was lucky that there were many days they often took off ahead of me and I had to chase them as fast as I could type.

Fact or Fiction

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“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.” – Mark Twain

Autobiography, Memoir or Fictional Memoir?

An autobiography tells the story of a life, a memoir tells a story from a life with touchstone events and turning points. Relying on memory, well, you know how that goes.

We remember what we want to or how we want to.  There is the saying that there are three sides to every story: mine, yours and the truth. Memory is often a liar.

Is there such a genre as Fictional Memoir?  I think so.  Here’s a list of famous fictional memoirs according to goodreads. 

So why is there a picture of a trapeze artist attached to this post? She is Erma Ward and she could fly.

My grandmother was in the circus = Fact

She had TEX tattooed on her arm = Fact

She saw Erma Ward fly = Fiction

“ I will make it okay. Everything is possible, see—look at Erma, she just lets go. You have to believe.”  – From The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light

Telling Stories

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This is a blog about writing, writing my stories, and the journey taken to get to here.

My debut novel The Last Daughter of Elizabeth Light has not found a publisher or even an agent, but that’s not what this blog is about.  It is about what I have learned in the process of writing.  The fictional family tree going back nine generations was inspired by curiosity.  Why did my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother leave their home, their family, and their country to travel great distances to find a new life? My research using newspapers, diaries, journals, and biographies led me to uncover a real history of women struggling to be themselves.

Before 2005 I only wrote business memos, but one beautiful day in San Francisco, after I had left my career in advertising behind, I had an argument with my mother about a plastic ruler.  That was the day I really began to write.

My mother inspired me because she  “embraced life like a bride married to amazement”.   Whether we have had to lean in, or follow another path,  history repeats itself.  We are part of what comes before us, each generation leaving something for the next.

Later edit from 9/16: The novel’s title has changed in this journey, and in October 2016 it was self-publish.