brilliantheartbeautifulmind

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

end scene

Emma began to move faster, hoping that she and the puppies would be in bed before he remembered them.  She held the cup full of milk over the candle flame, warming it up. Finally, the cup became too hot to hold in her bare hand, so she quickly placed it on the counter and found her handkerchief.  Dipping the corner of the ragged cloth into the milk, she then picked up the cup with the rest of the cloth to protect her hand and carried it the few steps to the table. She dipped the tip of her index finger into the milk and then stuck it in the open mouth of the largest puppy and waited for it to start sucking.  Once his instinct kicked in and he started milking her finger, she soaked the corner of the rag in milk and pulled the puppy by his mouth to the rag.  Dangling the soaked corner above the largest puppy’s mouth, she let a few drops of milk fall into its open mouth.  

"That's it, boy.  Drink up."  The whining from the two other puppies grew louder and louder as they realized their comrade was eating.  "Don't worry, I'll get to all of you.  Everyone gets a drink here."  After a few more moments, she took the milky cloth out of the first puppies mouth and dipped it in the milk again, repeating the process with his siblings.  She continued to evenly distribute the milk among the three puppies until the cup was empty.  Only when they had eaten did she begin to make her own supper.  She pulled the remnants of a loaf of bread out of the cupboard and set it on the counter, then picked up her candle again to walk out to the cellar.  By this time the sun had set completely and Emma didn't realize her father was standing outside the house until she heard the hiss of his urine hit the dirt.  

"Finally done with those pups, I see.  I don't know why you're tryin' to save them, Emma. They're just gonna die anyways. They're puppies.  That's what they do."

"Yes, sir."

"Besides," he paused to zip his fly before taking a healthy gulp out of the bottle he was holding.  "Besides, you already have enough to do.  Puppies? They just add to.  You don't have time for that."

"Yes, sir.  I am taking them to town tomorrow and they won't come home with me."

"Sure, like some snotty town (bitch?) is going to want them.  You won't be able to find anybody that wants them."

"Yes, sir."

"Now finish up your chores and go to bed.  I don't want to see those damn puppies ever again!"  

"Yes, sir."  Emma watched her father turn away and walk back to the barn.  She turned and went back into the house, deciding that her bread didn't need to be buttered after all.  She choked down the dry slice as she grabbed the box with the puppies and carried them into the small room that served as her bedroom. Carefully placing the box on the bed, she went back out into the kitchen to finish cleaning it.  What should I do with these puppies, she wondered as she carefully put the remnants of the loaf of bread back into the cupboard.  Father's right.  No one will take them.  And I can't bring them home ever again.  Maybe they are just going to die.  I should never have picked them up.  She blew out the candle that she carried into the larder and dimmed the gas lamp until it was barely lit.  Father would be coming back into the house, eventually, and he may not run into everything if there was still a little light.  

Satisfied with her efforts, she walked back to her bedroom and closed the door.  She sat on her bed, picked the puppies up out of their box, and held them close to her chest. Maybe I should just kill them now, she thought.  Her eyes widened in horror at the cruelty of her mind, but she continued to follow that train of thought.  If they are going to die of starvation, maybe I should just kill them now so they get a fast death.  One of the puppies, by now fast asleep, burrowed further into the warm place created by her arm resting against her side with a little whimper.  That small noise pulled Emma from her thoughts and she shook her head, trying to remove the cruel idea.  She stood up and put the puppies back in their box, then changed into her nightgown. Pulling back the threadbare quilt on her bed, she crawled into bed and rolled to her side, closing her eyes tightly in pursuit of sleep.  The puppies began to whine, quietly at first and then louder and louder.  The thin walls of her room wouldn't contain their noises and she knew, at this point, that any slight provocation would throw Father into a rage.  With a little sigh, she got out of bed and picked the puppies up out of their box, setting them down on the mattress before lying back down.  

"You guys stay on that side of the bed and I'll stay on mine."  The puppies ignored her instruction and belly-crawled toward the warmth, burrowing into her side.  She sighed in resignation and closed her eyes once more.

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

hello father

As she walked back to where she saw the puppies and picked up her books, she started rehearsing her story. I found these puppies by the side of the road and I’m going to feed them myself! I’ll take care of them all by myself, you won’t have to do a thing.  No, that won’t work.  He will ask why I picked up the puppies to begin with.  I won’t even try to keep them, even though I miss Belle so much. I’ll just say I’m keeping them overnight and then taking them to school tomorrow and finding a new home for them. That has to be fine.  They will be at the house for a few hours, that’s all. He has to be fine with that.

Her steps had slowed without her even noticing as she neared the small wooden structure that served as her house.  A frayed calico sheet flapped out an open window, a relic of a happier time when her mother was alive and made an effort to make the dingy house look pretty.  Instead of turning in the driveway, Emma cut through the ditch to walk down the tree line that protected their house from the harsh north winds that would sweep through the plains in the winter.  Walking on her tiptoes, arms full of animals and books, she crept up to the window and tried to listen for her father.  Hearing nothing, she breathed a sigh of relief and walked to the door, opening it quietly and slipping inside.  She set her books down gently on the kitchen table and put the puppies back into their box.  Deprived of her comforting touch for the first time since she picked them up, they immediately began to whine again.  

“Shh!  Don’t make so much noise! Shhh, hush now,” she tried to comfort them.  Leaving them on the table, she grabbed a small cup and a spoon out of the cupboard and walked back out the door, going into the cool cellar that served as their larder.  Some of the richer girls in her class had fancy refrigerators that were kept cool by a giant chunk of ice, but the ice truck didn’t make deliveries outside of town and, even if it did, Father wouldn’t pay for such an extravagance. A few years back, Emma had walked into the larder and seen a ball of snakes preparing for the winter and, ever since, had carried a candle and a stick into the small, dark space. Setting the candle down on one of the rough shelves cut out of the earth, she took the spoon and skimmed the cream off the top of the milk she had collected before leaving for school in the morning.  Putting the cream into the jar she saved it in, she noticed that the jar was almost full. I’ve got to make more butter soon, she thought to herself.  Ever since Mother had died, the list of chores that Emma needed to do had grown so long, it was almost impossible to complete. She dipped the cup into the milk and pulled it out, careful not to spill a drop.  Balancing the candle and cup in one hand and the snake stick in the other, she climbed the stairs out of the cellar.  

The sun was just setting, but it was still bright enough after the dark cellar that Emma’s eyes were temporarily overwhelmed and she lost her vision for a moment.  She walked into the kitchen again, still shaking her head to clear her eyes.  Preoccupied with the milk, she turned to the counter and didn’t notice the new occupant of the room.

“Hello Emma.”

The sound of her father’s voice startled her so much that she jumped and spilled a few drops of milk out of the cup she was carrying.  

“Hi, Father.  I didn’t know you were here.” “I can see that.   What is this you have got?” “I went for some milk out of the larder. Beth has really been producing well these days.  Hopefully she doesn’t run dry as early as she did last year.  I need to make butter tomorrow - the milk has been really creamy recently so the butter jar is filling up faster -.”  Father raised his hand, abruptly stopping Emma’s rambling.

“I can see you have milk. I’m not blind.  I mean what do you have here, in this box.” “I found them on the side of the road. Someone must have dumped them and I’m going to take them right back into town tomorrow when I go to school.  I won’t have them for a long time, just tonight and they won’t cause any trouble, not any at all.”

“They’re already costing me milk.”  With that, Father turned on his heels and left the kitchen.  Emma heard his footsteps retreating, then the telltale clink as he searched for a half-full whiskey bottle.  He wasn’t drunk yet, but he would be soon.

Emma began to move faster, hoping that she and the puppies would be in bed before he remembered them

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

a new scene

“Am not.  I am in complete control of my sense. See?”  Emma heard more crashing and clanging before a loud thud indicated her father had fallen down.

“You’ve got to get it together, Dwayne.”

“You don’t see the way they look at me. Whisperin’ as soon as my back is turned. This isn’t somethin’ I can forget cuz nobody is lettin’ me.  The way they look at me, Jane.”  His voice dropped to a threatening whisper. “The way you look at me, Jane.  I see your disgust.  You think I’m a coward, don’t you?”  His voice grew louder and louder, until he was screaming, “DON’T YOU? DON’T YOU?”  Emma buried her head under her pillow and plugged her ears, but she still heard the smacking sounds coming from the kitchen and her mother’s muffled screams.

One of the puppies yipped and Emma realized that she was staring at the flag in the window, frozen on the steps.  Remembering her purpose, she walked up the rest of the way and knocked on the door.  After her first few knocks, she waited and heard a few tentative steps inside the house. A pair of worried eyes peeked out of the window set into the door and Mrs. Prior opened the door.  

“Oh, it’s just you honey!  The boys’ last letter said they are off to some offensive or something and they won’t be able to write for a while.  I’ve just been a mess since I read that – every knock at the door makes me think it’s somebody coming to tell me my boys are dead.  Oh, I’m a mess.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Prior,” Emma murmured.  She didn’t want to say the wrong thing and make Mrs. Prior angry, so she kept her head down.  “I didn’t mean to bother you,” she said to the porch.  “I’ll be on my way.”

“Now honey, you don’t have to do leave.  This house is so quiet ever since Johnny and Jamey left.  Come in and sit a spell – wait, what do you have here?”  She reached down for one of the puppies that Emma was still holding. “Aww look at these!  Did your old cow dog have puppies?”

“No, ma’am.  I found them on the side of the road.  Somebody musta dumped them there.”

“Well people can’t hardly afford to feed their own babies these days, let alone a litter.  If we hadn’t butchered that steer before the boys left, we would be stuck with what we’re growing in the garden.  How are you guys doing for food?”

“We’re fine, ma’am.”

“That’s good to hear.  So what are you going to do with those puppies?” “Well, I was hoping that you may take them, ma’am.”

“Their eyes aren’t even open yet! I can’t take care of three puppies still on the teat, I don’t have time for that!”

“Well, thank you, ma’am.  I’ll see what else I can do.”

“Honey, the nicest thing you could do is just put them back in that ditch and walk away.  They aren’t gonna make it.”

“Yes ma’am.  I hope your boys are ok.  I’ve got to get going now.”

“Thank you honey.  We’re all prayin’ up a storm here.”

“Yes ma’am.”  Emma started backing away from the door.  She needed to see if anyone else would take the puppies before she would have to walk home in the dark.  Even though she, at 12, knew that there was nothing hidden in the dark, the imagined terrors occasionally frightened her more than the very real horror awaiting her at home.  

“I’ll see you at church on Sunday, Emma.  Bye now!”

With dejected spirits, Emma walked back down the driveway.  Mrs. Prior was always so nice to her, so her response to the puppies was disheartening at best.  She soon reached the edge of the short driveway and stood for a moment, looking at the road in front of her.  If she turned right, she would head back into town, where she may be able to find a home for the puppies.  Turning to check behind her, she saw that the sun was steadily sinking into the horizon and she knew if she walked all the way back into town she would end up walking home in the dark.  She gazed then to her left and for a moment, the road leading to her home stretched out before her in a long, eternal line.  With a sinking heart, she turned left and began the final stretch of her walk home.

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

begin again

Disclaimer: I am rewriting the chapter we critiqued in class.  This is the newly expanded first section.

The setting sun had finally emerged from the clouds as Emma wandered home, taking the longest way possible.  She had stayed at school as late as the teachers would allow, watching the shadows lengthen along the dull wood floor of her classroom as she did her homework and read, leaving only when the janitor came to the library and kicked her out.  

“You’ve got to leave, Miss Jones,” he said.  “I’m headin home and I gotta lock up.”

With a little sigh, she acknowledged his words, packed up her books, and headed toward the door.  

“What time do you get here tomorrow?” she asked.

“Round five, I spose.”

“I’ll see you then.”

That had been forty minutes ago.  After leaving the schoolhouse, she sat on the creaky swing, slowly rocking back and forth on her tiptoes.  The slow steady motion, combined with the constant feeling of dread that sat in her stomach like a lead balloon when she thought about going home, caused her to feel sick to her stomach.  She stood up from the swing and nearly fell to the ground: her legs had fallen asleep.  She wobbled over to one of the poles that supported the swings and pressed her forehead against the warm metal.  

“I can do this.  I go home every single day,” she whispered against the pole.  “Maybe this will be another good day and I’ll just eat dinner and go to bed.  Maybe Father hasn’t been drinking.  And anyway, I’ll be good!  I won’t make him mad.  I’ll be quiet and good and helpful.”  

With this whispered resolution, she pushed herself up and walked to the street.  Looking both ways, she decided that getting home as late as possible would be the safest option.  The hours that had passed since the last bell dismissed the students weren’t enough, so she made a deliberately wrong turn out of the schoolyard. Today, she challenged herself to walk back using only left turns.  Left on Maple, left on Elm, left again on Cherry.  Were all streets everywhere named after trees or was it just this town, she wondered.  Maybe the people who named the streets just wanted to pretend like there were trees. After all, the only trees to be seen for miles around were the scrappy, sticky cedars that were the bane of her existence. Each year, Father assigned her the summer task of clearing the back pasture of the scrubby cedars.  Her hands would blister and start to bleed from the rough wood of the shovel, but the hot sticky work was much better than the alternative, so she kept her grip on the shovel and managed to stay outside all day long.  Every year the trees returned and every year there seemed to be even more of them, turning her whole existence into an exercise of futility.  

Emma was so caught up in her thoughts that she barely noticed the sounds coming from the ditch that ran alongside the road. She had long since left town and was slowly walking along the edge of the gravel road, each reluctant step taking her closer to home.  The faint mewing noises caught a strand of her attention and pulled her to a stop. She turned around and slowly approached the tattered cardboard box that was lying, half open, in the ditch.  The noises coming from it sounded almost human, like a baby just waking up.  

Just keep walking…you don’t want to know what’s in that box, she thought. Nothing good in there.

Her curiosity won out and she carefully lifted one of the flaps to peek inside the box.  She let out the breath that she didn’t realize she was holding when she saw the contents of the box.  Three puppies lay on a tiny scrap of faded fabric.  They couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old as they squirmed around each other with their eyes still shut.  

Oh no! Poor little things!  She sat down with a bump and tried to take them all in her arms at once.  They immediately started snuggling against her body, trying to absorb the measly amount of heat it was putting off.  Oh these poor puppies.  Somebody must have dumped them off – people can’t afford to feed puppies these days.  Might as well let them starve in a ditch. Maybe I can take them to the Priors or the Reeses.  Father wouldn’t ever let me keep them.  Oh, they’re so cute.  I wish I could – but no.  That could never happen.

Emma set down her books at the edge of the road and picked up the box, placing the puppies back in it.  As soon as she set them down, their pitiful cries tore at her heart and she picked them up again.  She had just passed the Priors’ farm a few moments ago, so she turned around and walked back down the road, clutching the puppies to herself.  She turned in the driveway and walked up to the house. After Emma’s mother died, Mrs. Prior was always so nice to her and she hoped that she would be the one who came to the door.  As she climbed the stairs to the front porch, Emma noticed the flag in the window was unchanged: still two blue stars on a red background.

Last fall, the two Prior boys, John and James, enlisted in the Marines and they were now fighting somewhere in in the Pacific. Emma wasn’t sure where because Mrs. Prior never said anything specific – probably because she didn’t have any information either.  The boys came back before they shipped off and there was a big party at the church. Jane, Emma’s mother, was still alive, so the two of them went together and prayed for their safety with the rest of the weeping congregation.  It was the saddest party Emma had ever attended.  When they came back, Father was in the barn, allegedly chopping wood. However, there was no new wood stacked up and Emma heard him later, screaming at Mother as things started crashing in the kitchen.  

“Dwayne, come to bed,” Jane said.

“Why would I?  I’m fine why would I come to bed? I, I, I’m fine. What could possibly be wrong?  Everyone in this town is lookin’ at me like I’m some kinda coward for not fightin’.  It’s not my fault I, I…It’s not my fault I have, what did those Army doctors call it? Plain foot? No, hard foot…no it’s flat feet.  It’s not my fault my feet are flat.”

“Dwayne, you’re drunk.”

“Am not.  I am in complete control of my sense. See?”

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

chapter 2

Still sniffling, Emma rose from the ground and wiped her face.  Her hands were still raw from their bout with the roses, so her attempt at cleanliness only made her look dirtier.  With one last touch to the gravestone, she walked away from her mother and back down the road to school.  The midmorning sun was bright on her back and reminded her how much time she had spent on her mother's grave.  Without a watch, there was no way Emma could tell exactly what time it was, but she was familiar enough with the sun's daily path through the sky that she knew she was late.  As she got closer to school, she started listening for the bell that would call the students in but when she walked into the playground, she realized the bell had rung long before she was in hearing distance of the school.  

Oh well, maybe I can run to the washroom before I go to my classroom, Emma thought.  But her hopes for clean hands were dashed when she saw Mrs. Durmstock standing in the doorway, smoking a cigarette and waiting for her tardy student.

"Hi Mrs. Durmstock," Emma began.

"Why are you late?"

"I went to the cemetary."

"Why on earth would you do that?"

"I wanted to see my mama."

"She's dead, honey.  There's nothin to see."

"I know, Mrs. Durmstock."

"That's no reason to be late to school.  I called your Daddy, he -"

"What!" Emma interjected.  "You called Father?"

"Well yea, you weren't here yet."

"Oh no!  What did you tell him?"

"I just asked why you weren't at school.  He said he had no idea where you were and, well, I probably shouldn't tell you what else."

"Please, I need to know."

"Well he said he didn't really care, so long as you came home at night."

"Oh, that's all?"

Mrs. Durmstock looked down.  "Yea, that's all."  She couldn't bring herself to tell the dirty, terrified girl in front of her what else her father had said.  Nobody needed to know that, especially not at 12.

"I'm sorry for being late, Mrs. Durmstock.  It won't happen again."  

"I'm sure.  Now follow me."  She took a long, leisurely pull on her cigarette and opened the door, exhaling as they walked into the school.  

"Can I go to the washroom, Mrs. Durmstock?"

"Honey, you've already missed half of your first class. You can't be missing any more today. Wait for recess."

Emma sighed.  By recess it would be too late, for all of her classmates would see just how dirty she was when she walked into class.  They already called her EmMUDDY and her appearance today wouldn't help matters. Mrs. Durmstock opened the door to her classroom and all the sixth and seventh graders turned around.  Some tittered and some sneered, while others rolled their eyes and turned back to face the blackboard in the front of the classroom.  

"Alright, now that everyone is here, please take out your papers and put away your books.  It's time for our spelling quiz."  Mrs. Durmstock clapped her hands and waited for silence.  "The first word is aardvark."

 ***

 School was horrible that day.  Emma raced for the washroom as soon as the recess bell rang but LouAnne and Caroline had passed notes to all their friends during class to keep the sink and mirrors occupied so Emma couldn't clean up.  They whispered to each other and giggled in the mirror, moving back and forth to keep Emma away from the sink.  

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

continuation

The trip to school was one of her favorite parts of each day, as she knew she would have almost 12 hours before it was time to come home again.  With every step away from the farm, Emma felt a small amount of her burden slip off her shoulders.  By the time she got to the outskirts of town, she felt ten pounds lighter as she skipped along in the early morning sun.  The school was on the very opposite end of town and Emma took her favorite route today, walking by the big grass yard behind the Catholic church and into the small neighborhood near the school.  

She slowed down as she walked down the double row of houses, imagining the families within.  The big blue house on the corner was where LouAnne lived, the prettiest girl in school.  She was just a little older than Emma, who would turn twelve in a month, but the two girls couldn’t be more different.  Emma was small for her age and her father’s cruelty had worn itself into her physical appearance, causing her eyes to retreat within her head and her skin to cling to her bones.  Her dirty blonde hair looked like it hadn’t been brushed for a while because it hadn’t. One night, her father went on a rampage around the house and broke all the mirrors and threw out the hairbrush that had belonged to her mother.  When they were being kind, Emma’s classmates called her dirty and the teachers called her plain.  LouAnne was bright and shiny and beautiful.  Her mother brushed her hair every night and her father bought her a new dress any time he had to drive to Omaha for work.  LouAnne’s house was still dark; there was no need for anyone to wake up early and escape the claustrophobic confines of the house.  Emma imagined pretty little LouAnne sleeping in her bed, the one she described to the class as “big and white and fluffy!”  What must it be like to go to sleep and know you’ll wake up to a big breakfast cooked by your mama, Emma wondered.  She realized that she had stopped walking and was staring at LouAnne’s house from the sidewalk.  Guiltily, she looked around, hoping no one was watching her.  

Satisfied she was alone, she turned her gaze back at the house where she noticed a small row of roses under the window.  Mama loved roses, she thought.  One more look to ensure she was alone and unwatched and Emma crept onto LouAnne’s lawn, tiptoeing through the grass until she reached the side of the house.  She took one look at the big, white, fluffy roses and started snapping them from the bush until all the blooms were in her hands. She stood up, took one final look around, and ran down the street.  Once LouAnne’s house was out of sight, she stopped running and realized her hands and arms were bleeding from the thorns.  There were so many roses she couldn’t hold them in one hand and they were spilling out of her grasp.  Emma stood there for a few moments, staring at the white flowers and bright red drops of blood caused by their pinpricks before her feet started moving her automatically.  As if in a trance, she walked down the road, past the school, and back out into the country. Only when she saw the sign reading “Hope Country Church, ½ mile,” did she realize where she was going.  

The small cemetery sat between the church and the wooded river flowing through the farmland around it. In the clear light of early morning, the mist was still heavy near the ground and Emma seemed to enter another realm as she stepped under the faded white gate.  The outside sounds of birds and cows and crickets stopped as she moved across the wet grass to the small, familiar headstone near the back of the cemetery.  She stood there with her stolen treasure, looking down.  “Marlene Jones, beloved wife and mother, June 6, 1912 – February 13, 1940.”  She sunk to her knees in front of the headstone, letting the flowers slip out of her arms and onto the ground.  Emma’s small shoulders began to shake, but her eyes were dry.  

“Why did you have to go, Mama?  He is so awful now.  You wouldn’t even know him.  He’s mean and drunk and mad and awful.  He’s so, so, so awful.  They won’t let him fight cuz of something with his feet or his eyes or some organ thing. All of our cows died and he only planted half the fields this spring and hasn’t done anything with them since.  I don’t know what I’m gonna do.  It’s so awful.  And he’s mean.  He would rather hurt me than do anything else.  The only reason I’m still able to wake up every morning is because I can go to school and I think he’s gonna make me stop after this year.  Most everybody goes until high school now but he said he’s gonna say I need to help him on the farm so he doesn’t have to send me anymore. Mama what do I do?”  Emma’s tears finally came and she collapsed over her knees, curling into a ball on top of her mother’s grave.  

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

characters + questions

Character Studies:

Emma May Jones, the grandmother of the matriarchal triad about which I am writing.  The actions taken against Emma really end up creating the key tension in the novel and impact every single character.  As visible in the first part of the novel, Front-Piece, she starts out as a gentle, quiet girl, but becomes an absolutely awful woman due to the circumstances of her life.  She is the woman you see at the grocery store and turn down another aisle so you don’t have to push your cart past hers.  She’s the mother that makes you think about calling Child Protective Services but also scared to take that same action because of the possible after-effects.  Her one kind action, finding and taking Terri Jo away from the orphanage, has disastrous consequences and it is clear that Terri Jo would be better off with literally anyone else.  She never keeps a steady job, but bounces from one strange, minimum wage job to the next (grocery store clerk to waitress to gas station attendant to cemetery caretaker). Her death around the mid-point of the novel comes about due to ovarian cancer.

Terri Jo Jones, the middle woman in my group.  She is Emma’s daughter and was left by her mother at the Holy Cross church as an infant, where she was shuffled sideways until she eventually came to a stop at Bernie’s, the familiar name given to St. Bernadette’s Orphanage by its residents.  She’s really happy there, taking care of the younger children and working with the kind nuns.  This is not your stereotypical orphanage experience.  However, at 12, Emma decides that she’s actually going to be a mom and comes to take Terri Jo from the only home she has ever known.  Terri Jo doesn’t know her mom and Emma’s original goodwill disappears in the face of actually having to raise a daughter.  The child she has with her high school sweetheart is raised in a loving home falls in love with a boy from her high school and they make plans to be married.  She finds out she is pregnant just as his draft number is called up for Vietnam. When Emma finds out that Terri Jo has made plans with her boyfriend to run to Canada, she beats up Terri Jo and tells her boyfriend’s parents about their draft-dodging scheme.  His parents force him to enlist and, within a few weeks of his deployment, is killed.  Terri Jo blames her mother for his death and refuses to talk to her.  Terri Jo tries to be everything that her mother is not: kind, loving, caring, smart, and hard-working.  For a while, this works. After her daughter, April, is born, she starts going to the local teaching college at night, gets her degree, and gets a job teaching.  She tries to give April the opposite of her childhood and, for a time, they are happy. Emma gets ovarian cancer and is dying when Terri Jo decides to talk to her mother again.  She finds out that she is the result of her grandfather’s rape of her mother just before Emma dies.  Her life is shattered.  She stops going to work, stops showering, stops eating, stops everything.  Then she starts doing drugs.  Her health (both mental and physical) is shattered.  Her death comes about due to suicide.

April Anne Jones, the final woman in our family.  She has an idyllic childhood and seems to be poised to be the only Jones woman to make it past her teenage years without having a child.  She has just begun her college career when the story turns to her, but we don’t spend much time with her in an academic setting, as she returns home to take care of her broken mother.  April is unable to leave her mom alone for long enough to make any money, so she turns to prostitution as a last resort.  While her desire to succeed doesn’t go away, she is completely beaten down by her circumstances.  Her mother’s suicide gives her an opportunity to restart her life and she walks away from her tragic background to rewrite her own story where no one knows her.

Unresolved:

- April is the most unfamiliar character to me, but she’s also the farthest away as far as writing goes. 

- I’m trying not to be too cliche with the horrible things that happen, but there are lots of bad things!  I have neglected to completely outline the good things and have mainly noted the bad things that act as turning points.  I will try to insert small points of brightness in many places throughout the story so that there is a balance.

- There are several historical events that I will need to research as I’m going along - orphanages during the Boomer era, the Vietnam War, etc.  While these historical events serve mainly as background, it’s important for me to get right!

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

the muse + cont.

The muse doesn’t just exist in our minds.  We, as a culture, haven’t pulled this idea of divine inspiration out of thin air.  In fact, we know about this elusive muse because of the authors who have written about it.  Milton tells how the words to Paradise Lost were dripped in his ear while he was sleeping.  Arnold ruminates on the scholar-gipsy wandering around the countryside waiting for the “spark of inspiration to fall.”  Even King, though I am loathe to include him in this company, acknowledges the existence of a muse.  So what must we as burgeoning authors do? Is there a secret temple in the basement of Thomas Hall at which we need to sacrifice weekly?  Maybe a deal can be struck involving my firstborn child and a publishing deal.  While there is some mystic side to writing (After all, we are creating and destroying worlds out of words.), the ugly side of it is just plain, hard work and all three of the previously-mentioned authors, as varied as they are, would agree. Milton’s drops of inspiration came during an exhausted sleep.  He, famously, seems to have truly sacrificed for his gift: many poets that followed him drew a direct connection between his loss of sight and poetic brilliance.  The Scholar-Gipsy, as recorded by Arnold, does not gain the inspiration he seeks.  Wandering the countryside waiting for lightning to strike is an excellent way to procrastinate, but not such a wonderful way to put pen to paper. Finally, King compares his muse to a grumpy old man sitting in a basement.  You have to dig down to his level, clean the room, and make sure that all of the elements are in place for him to lean over and give you that one inspired line. 

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She sat up very slowly and turned to look at the puppies.  The strange, unnatural position of their heads made it clear they had not died a natural death.  A number of possibilities ran through Emma’s head.  Her first reaction was to start screaming, but she knew that would only make things worse.  The thought of tears crossed her mind, but she dismissed that as useless.  At twelve, Emma already understood the pointlessness of grief.

Instead, she slipped out of bed and tiptoed over to her closet, avoiding the creaky spots in the wood floor of her bedroom.  On the top shelf she found a small shoebox, left over from the last pair of new shoes she was given.  The shiny Mary Janes that she still keeps in the box are now much too small and she makes do with the thin-soled boots she snuck out of the missions’ basket at the church.  She pulls the shoes out of the box and sets them back in the shelf.  After placing the puppies in the box, she looks at her work.

“No, it’s missing something,” she murmurs and walks to the small dresser that sits next to her bed. In the top drawer, hidden under the lining at the bottom, is a faded floral scarf.  It’s the only thing that Emma has remaining of her mother and it still bears the tear-stains from when she was weak enough to cry.  She holds the worn piece of fabric to her heart one last time, then wraps it around the tiny forms and places them back in the box.

“There.  You didn’t have a mama when you were alive and neither do I, but now you are soft and warm and comfortable.  Rest easy, little babies.”  Emma put the lid on the shoebox, slipped on her dress, and slowly opens her door.  After looking both ways to ensure her father wasn’t lying in wait, she tiptoes down the hall and out the back door.  

The sun was just starting to rise as she found a spade and ran to the back of the barn.  Luckily, there hadn’t been a hard freeze yet and the ground was still soft.  She dug a small, deep hole and placed the makeshift coffin in it.  What was she supposed to say?  She was too young when her mother died to remember much more of the funeral than the long line of sad faces and her father’s drunken rage when they came home.  What was that prayer that Mama had taught her to say?

“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.  And if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”  She felt a tear start to form in the corner of her eye, but stiffened her resolve and pulled it back in, stiffening her back. She shoveled the dirt into the grave without ceremony and jumped up and down on the loose pile of dirt at the top to disguise it.  Her funeral now complete, she walked back to the house and straight up to her room before realizing that she still gripped the spade in one hand.  The grunts and groans of her father greeting another hungover morning were clear and there was no time to run back out to the barn.  She shrugged and hid the tool under her bed, then went downstairs to fix breakfast.  

I won’t give him the pleasure of seeing my reaction, she thought.  I’ll just act like everything is normal.  She carved two thin slices off the nearly-moldy loaf of bread and scraped a miniscule amount of butter over one.  Two hard-boiled eggs would serve as lunch.  The small batch of chickens that scratched out a living in their barn were the only animals that remained alive on the farm, and without them there would be even less to eat.

She heard her father’s footsteps thudding down the stairs and realized that she could leave without even seeing him.  She threw the extra piece of bread down on a plate in the middle of the table and ran out the door, picking up her book bag where she had dropped it the night before.  She let the door slam behind her and ran down the three steps to the walkway, almost safely on her way to school.  

“You see the present I left for ya last night? Heh heh.” She flipped around to see her father standing on the porch in his formerly white underpants.  She kept her face blank and didn’t respond to his question.

“Turn around when I talk to you, Miss Priss.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir.”

“Oh yes you do.  I found your little mutts hiding in the barn last night.  You know that I don’t allow anything on this place that doesn’t pay its own way.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They whimpered and whined and cried.  I’d tell ya I made it easy for them but I don’t take much stock in lyin.”

She understood all he was trying to do was get a reaction out of her and she refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he got to her.  

“Have a good day, sir.”

“Have a great day at school honey.  Love you!” This pantomime of parental affection disgusted her and she felt the few bites of toast she had managed start to claw their way out of her stomach.  Swallowing down her bile, she waved once more and headed down the road.  

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

on writing pt. 1 + a beginning

I mistakenly read six chapters from the third section of Stephen King’s book On Writing before realizing that I should, perhaps, check the assignment again. Back I flipped in the book and found the section marked Toolbox. In it, King describes the necessary components found in every writer’s toolbox.  The top shelf, easily accessible, is lined with vocabulary words and grammar knowledge.  The first is unique to the writer: the words we know and use are linked to our background and lifestyle and education.  What matters is not the syllable length or usage level but the comfort we have using the words we do.  If you commonly use large words when you talk, if you are comfortable with their meaning and syntax, then that’s how you should write.  Whether you put purposeful pen to paper every day or not, you still manipulate language through your speech.  Whether through elevating or lowering, altering your normal speech patterns when writing will result in unnatural, stilted narrative.  Grammar is more universal, in that we all use the same, basic rules.  Verbs and nouns combine to make subjects. Adverbs drive Stephen King up a wall. The passive tense should be avoided (yes, that was intentional).  Both grammar and vocabulary should be a tool that you can find blindfolded, in the dark, with one hand tied behind your back.  The handles are well-worn, fitting into the contours of your hand, and polished by constant use.  

The second level is only accessible after steady use of the first.  In this level are found the elements of style, both official and personal.  King talks about general ideas presented in The Elements of Style, but also dives into several specifics such as paragraph length.  Different authors have different paragraph lengths; some may have pages go by before a paragraph break, while others use short, choppy writing to emphasize their writing style.  He leaves the other tools in our individual toolboxes lying about, ready for us to pick up. I thought it would be interesting to list a couple discipline specific tools:

Interviewing -  This skill would mostly be used by journalists, as they often have to work directly with a source.  Interviewing requires treading a delicate line between setting your source at ease and asking hard-hitting questions precisely aimed at their most vulnerable spots. You also have to remember to ask all the right questions – no interviewing a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and forgetting to ask them about their writing schedule!

Disseminating scholarly work – As a writer who most often focuses on academic essays, I have learned that research is a toolbox skill in and of itself.  It’s easy to find short snippets of quotes to pull out of context and use to support your point.  Not quite so simple is understanding the point each author you are researching and accurately incorporating that into your paper.  

Dialogue only – Here, I’m thinking of dialogue specific to playwriting.  While some stage direction is needed and accepted, part of the beauty of drama is leaving certain details up to the director, not the playwright.  This means that you have to convey detail, movement, and setting only through your characters’ speech.

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The setting sun had finally emerged from the clouds as Emma wandered home, taking the longest way possible. She had stayed at school as late as the teachers would allow, leaving only when the janitor came to the library and kicked her out.  

“You’ve got to leave, Miss Jones,” he said.  “I’m headin home and I gotta lock up.”

She acknowledged his words, packed up her books, and headed toward the door.  

“What time do you get here tomorrow?” she asked.

“Round five, I spose.”

“I’ll see you then.”

That had been forty minutes ago.  She had made a deliberately wrong turn out of the schoolyard and spent at least fifteen minutes backtracking before starting her walk home all over again.  Today, she was challenging herself to walk back using only left turns.  Left on Maple, left on Elm, left again on Cherry.  Why are all the streets in this godforsaken town named after trees, she wondered.  After all, the only trees to be seen for miles around were the scrappy, sticky cedars that were the bane of her existence.  Each year she tried to clear the backyard of the little ones.  Her hands would blister and start to bleed from the rough wood of the shovel, but she managed to stay outside all day long. Every year they returned the next spring and every year there seemed to be even more of them, taunting her with their very existence.  

Emma was so lost in the thoughts of her long vendetta with the cedar trees that she barely noticed the sounds coming from the ditch beside the road.  She had long since left town and was walking along the edge of the gravel road, each treacherous step taking her closer to home.  The faint mewing noises caught a strand of her attention and pulled her to a stop.  She turned around and slowly approached the tattered cardboard box that was lying, half-open, in the ditch.  The noises coming from it sounded almost human, like a baby just waking up.  

“Just keep walking…you don’t want to know what’s in that box,” she murmured under her breath.  “Nothing good in there.”

Her curiosity won out and she carefully lifted one of the flaps to peek inside the box, poised to run at any sign of danger – or snakes.  She let out the breath that she didn’t realize she was holding when she saw the contents of the box.  Three puppies lay on a tiny scrap of faded fabric.  They couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old as they squirmed around each other with their eyes still shut.  

“Oh no! Poor little babies!” She sat down with a bump and tried to take them all in her arms at once.  They immediately started snuggling against her body, trying to absorb the measly amount of heat it was putting off.  “Poor, poor babies.  Left here all alone, no mama around or anyone to take care of you.  It’s ok now, I’ve got you.  Emma’s got you, poor babies.  I’ll be your mama now.”  

She went to put them back in the box but their pitiful cries once she set them down tore at her heart and she picked them up again.  Carrying the puppies in one arm and the box in the other, she set off for home again at a much faster pace.  If I make it home before sundown, she thought, I can hide them in the barn before Father knows I’m home.  Within five minutes she had reached the entrance to the farm yard and hidden her precious cargo in the barn.  She checked and double checked that the puppies were safely hidden in the straw before sighing, turning away, and trudging up to the house.  She rinsed off the dirt that caked her bare legs after the walk from school and shook out the dust from her thin dress.  The house was dirty enough already and since she was the one who had to clean it up, she tried to prevent messes before they could happen.  Realizing that there wasn’t anything else she could do to delay anymore, she grasped the door handle with one hand, placed the other on the door for leverage, and turned the knob as silently as she could.  It wasn’t enough.  

“EMMA.  Finally home, your royal fucking highness?”  The first syllables out of her father’s mouth still made Emma jump but she shook her shoulders back and tried to hide her fear.

“Yes, sir.  I had to stay late after school,” she replied, trying and failing to keep her voice from shaking.

“Oh I see they’ve figured out that you’re as dumb as your whore of a mother.”

“No, sir.  One of the teachers asked me to stay late and help her clean the blackboards.”

“Oh so they’re putting you to work cleaning.  That’s all you’re good for, heh heh.  If those dumb bitches at the school are tryna put my daughter to use, they better pay me.”

“Please don’t call the teachers that, sir.”  She braced herself for the angry response she expected would follow her slight disagreement, but the silence that followed chilled her to the bone.  Every nerve in her body felt like it was on fire and she was aware of every little sound that wasn’t being made.  After an eternity of silence, she let out a shaky breath and turned on her tiptoes to run to her bedroom.  

She walked straight into the waiting form of her father.  Somehow, he had avoided every creaky floorboard and snuck up behind her, waiting for the moment she would let down her guard.  He grabbed her by the throat and pushed her up against the wall.

“Don’t you ever talk to me like that ever again, you hear me?  Ever.”  He hissed the words a few inches from her face, so close Emma could smell the liquor on his breath and see the bits of dinner remaining in his teeth.  “I am in charge here and I take care of your scrawny ass.  You don’t talk back.  You don’t argue.  You do what I tell you.  That’s all. You don’t do anythin else.”

Between the firm grasp on her throat and the stench of her father’s breath, it was hard for Emma to breathe and her father’s face swum in her vision.  She frantically nodded her head, knowing that any other movement would be punished.  The first time he hit her, she had squirmed and tried to get away.  He made sure she didn’t sit down for a week after that. The only option was to do exactly what he said. Just as suddenly as he grabbed her, he released his hold on her throat.  She wanted to double over, gasping for air, but knew from experience that he would only add to her pain.  

“Clean up the kitchen. I’m goin out to the barn.  When I get back, this goddamn house better be clean and you better have your ugly ass in bed.”  Emma stayed pressed against the wall, eyes closed, as she listened to his footprints, audible this time, head toward the door.  The screen bounced against the door frame as he left the house and she finally slumped to the ground.  After so long, tears no longer came, but she waited for them anyway. She allowed herself a few moments of rest before pushing herself off the floor and beginning her task.  

She was halfway through cleaning the disaster zone of a kitchen when she remembered the puppies. It was too late to intervene at this point.  All she could do was hope they would be quiet.  As fast as she could, she finished cleaning the kitchen and hurried to bed.  At some point, the worrying and fear faded to an uneasy sleep.  She awoke in the pale, pre-dawn light and rolled to her side. In a precise line, next to her pillow, were three still, dead forms.  

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

genre + the author as designer

The point that Carolyn Miller eventually gets around to making is admirable, but the journey she takes her audience on before arriving at that point is one only a linguist could enjoy.  John Stuart Mill once wrote about the importance of “insist[ing] upon having the meaning of a word clearly understood before using it.”  Miller uses the word “exigence” countless times throughout her essay, especially in the middle section, and each time the word is expected to mean something a little bit different.  In some places, it seems that the best way to understand this word is to replace it with “crisis,” but that also seems to only apply to one of her sources, Brinton.  However, that is my specific critique of a work that, overall, makes an excellent argument.

Miller works her way through the historical catalogue of thinkers, examining Aristotle as well as modern philosophers and linguists.  She rejects a taxonomic style of genre analysis, as that is both too simplistic and restricting.  Defining genre is a personal act in a social sphere; we are informed by the cultural bank of knowledge that we share.  This idea explains why the three Aristotelian genres were understood and applied to a small, closed Greek society but are not applicable today.  We have a large, complex world that is connected, but we still lack a unifying understanding that would allow us to empirically organize all the available information into three categories.  Genre is able to be examined from two viewpoints: overarching and edifying. The overarching viewpoint takes a general group and distills it down until there is a very small group left. The example provided in the essay is that of public addresses, which can be reduced to inaugural speeches, which can be further narrowed to U.S. presidential inaugural addresses.  The other manner of looking at genre goes in the opposite direction.  We start with a word, then create a fragment.  From that, we have a sentence, a paragraph, a section, a chapter, etc.  

The main argument presented in the paper is that genre is not about a style of writing, a mode of communication, or an idea, but is rather about the action taken.  She steers away from discipline-specific organization as she tries to answer the difficult question that is posed by anyone trying to understand genre: how is it that we can instantly identify the genre to which a certain work belongs, but if we try to create guidelines for that genre, they are either much too broad or far too specific?  She finishes with a list of what constitutes genre itself.  First, genre is a conventional category of discourse. Second, genre is interpretable by means of rules.  Third, genre is distinct from form.  Fourth, genre can be the substance of forms at higher levels.  Fifth, genre is a vehicle with which we reconcile private intentions and social exigence (Miller 163).  Even these rules are not enough, as Miller goes on to say that genre must have a pragmatic component through which we can see a social action. 

***

One of my favorite things to think about is the fact that we live in a totally designed world.  From the moment we wake up, our interactions with the world around us have been created. The house or dorm you live in was designed by an architect, the toaster you use went through 500 prototypes before making its way to your kitchen to deliver your perfectly toasted bread, the car you drive has been calculated down to the millimeter for performance, comfort, and usability.  When you walk on the sidewalks through campus, you are following the plan set out for you by a designer.  

While preparing myself for the mammoth writing project ahead of me, I have spent quite a bit of time pondering the role of the author in relation to the reader.  Does the author create the characters, set the scene, begin the action, and walk away, leaving the reader to draw their own conclusion?  Or does the author take the audience by the hand and lead them, step by step, through the intricate experience of their story?  While some authors may like the ambiguity provided by a loosely-set scene and story, I think that takes the job of the author and puts it in the hands of the audience.  When writing a story, no matter the length, the author is creating a narrative and a story.  While notes of ambiguity and slightly fuzzy endings are absolutely acceptable (and some of my favorite books have them), these elements are intended to cause the reader to think in a way that is guided by the author.  

Whether I’m writing an academic essay or a work of creative fiction, I always start with an outline.  Even this blog post, as amorphous as it is, has a few thoughts jotted down on an electric sticky note to guide me.  When I sit down with a lump of clay or withdraw a gather of hot glass from the furnace, I have a general idea of the shape that raw material will create.  As an artist, I will be influenced by the process, but the idea I start with is almost always similar to the finished object.  In the same way, a writer should know the journey they will take their reader upon. The author of our text for today, Carolyn Miller, said, “Form shapes the response of the reader or listener to substance by providing instruction, so to speak, about how to perceive and interpret; this guidance disposes the audience to anticipate, to be grateful, to respond in a certain way” (159).  

In all genres (scared to use that word from now on!) and styles of creative writing, a world is created.  Even biographies have, to a certain point, a created world in that the physical place in time no longer exists, except in the pages of the book.  You may have the most realistic setting for your novel but because your characters are invented, the way they interact with the world around them reflects their inventor.  It is impossible to completely describe every tiny aspect of every physical scene and the decisions you make in choosing which aspects of that to describe go on to influence the picture in your reader’s head.

The use of plant-and-payoff is an excellent way to take your audience in a certain direction.  Some of my favorite novels have endings that harken back to a minute, escapable detail in order to have a satisfactory ending.  As an author, knowing little tidbits and not spilling the beans can be a difficult test of willpower, but the reward is great.  However, there is a point to stop doing this.  Jane Austen didn’t release a sequel to Pride and Prejudice so we are free to imagine what her invented characters are up to with no restraint – except that provided in the novel itself.  In contrast to that, J. K. Rowling can’t stop talking about the characters she created and their past, present, and future lives.  While it is important to determine the journey your readers take, it’s also important to know when to step back and let the work you have created speak for itself.

Finally, clear editing is so important!  Even with a strong outline, you may get into a flow state while writing or have inspiration strike halfway through your piece of writing that changes quite a bit.  Plant-and-payoff rarely happens by accident; usually that is put into the story during the editing process.  Give everything you write a read-through.  See what words you over-use, what phrases may be awkward, what information overlooked.  If you read through every single thing you write before calling it “done,” the point you are trying to make becomes so much clearer and the way in which you convey that point becomes much more streamlined.

I’m not trying to make writing any more difficult than it already is.  Taking an idea, putting form to it, and adding some level of artistry is already a challenging process.  Throughout that process, with the use of outlining, created worlds, plant-and-payoff-like techniques, and clear editing, you take your audience on a journey.  You control the narrative; you control the reader.

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

google + my reading list

Nicholas Carr picks up where our previous readings from Phaedrus and about the invention of writing and movable type left off.  He brings us to the present day, when we get our news in 140-character tweets and our attention spans are smaller than they have ever been.  The invention of the Internet and, to a lesser extent, Google, changed the way we approach knowledge and information forever.  No longer are extensive allusions in literature and the possession of arcane bits of trivia impressive; the information that once was reserved for those with excellent memories and expensive educations is now available to all with a few clicks.  This is an extension of the fear that Plato expressed in Phaedrus, of people being “filled with the conceit of wisdom instead of real wisdom.”  We don’t even have to read and absorb knowledge, we can find a definition or opinion for us to read off our glowing screens.

The part that struck me most in this essay was when Carr talks about Taylor’s theory of automation in factories and Google’s plan of applying that to the internet.  My favorite quote at the moment and one that I have been basing many of my actions around recently comes from the Victorian art critic John Ruskin.  In The Stones of Venice, a book that nominally addresses the form and function of Gothic architecture but is really about humanity, he says, “…while in all things that we see, or do, we are to desire perfection, and strive for it, we are nevertheless not to set the meaner thing, in its narrow accomplishment, above the nobler thing, in its mighty progress; not to esteem smooth minuteness above shattered majesty; not to prefer mean victory to honourable defeat; not to lower the level of our aim, that we may, the more surely enjoy the complacency of success” (178).  As a perfectionist myself, it is tempting to only attempt projects I know will succeed, rather than trying for something that will stretch me that may also completely fail.  The internet takes away the possibility of failure but removes much of the potential for learning.  To illustrate this, allow me two examples.

In the first, I am trying to recall the name of a poet.  I tell my mother, “I can’t think of the name of that poet who wrote a ton of depressing poetry and eventually stuck her head in the oven and killed herself.  Do you know her name?”  My mom nods her head and I quickly interrupt her, “Don’t tell me!  I’ll think of it.”  

“Let me know if you need a letter,” she replies.  In our family, we frequently play the name game.  Someone asks another person for help remembering the name of a family friend or famous person, living or dead, and the person who has the answer gives the first letter of the searched-for first or last name. Needing a letter is, of course, admitting defeat, so I start rattling off the things I remember about this nameless poet.  

“She had a horrible husband who cheated on her and knocked up his mistress…he wrote a radio play about the affair and she was horribly humiliated and that led to her successful suicide…It’s not Edith Wharton; she’s a novelist…” This tactic is not working out so I switch to the Alphabet Game.  “A…B…C…D…E…still not Edith Wharton…F…G…” Somewhere around “M” I have my eureka moment and shout out “Sylvia Plath!”

This whole interval took me about three minutes.  I just tried Googling the exact question I asked my mother.  It took nine seconds for me to type in my vague clues and get the correct answer.  In the week since my little memory work, I have never once had to reach any further than a second to find Sylvia Plath’s name.  

My second example finds me, as is typical, needing the answer to a technical question.  I enter “how to screenshot on a mac” into the Google bar and find the answer (command + shift + 4).  A few days later, I need to screenshot something yet again and can’t remember how to do that, so I return again to Google for my answer.  

These examples show, to me, the difference between memory and accessibility. In the first instance, I searched my brain for a bit of knowledge I knew was there, but couldn’t remember at the moment. After a few minutes of musing, I found the answer within myself (in the least cliché way possible) and have had no trouble recollecting that answer since.  The process of looking and coming up empty, of trying and failing has cemented certain pieces of knowledge into my brain in a way that instantly retrieving information from a secondary source will never achieve.  However, knowing how the invention of printing revolutionized the way we interact with and gain knowledge, it seems foolish to decry what is obviously the next great step in accessible information.  Instead, I would encourage everyone, where and when it is possible, to take a few minutes to search your own personal information database before turning to that blinking cursor and typing in “what is a word that means outside but attached to your body?”

 What I’m Reading and Why

After much deep thought over the past week, I have come to the realization that I am avoiding the inevitable.  I have been staying in my comfort zone.  I have written short stories before and the idea of writing 12 short stories was not as formidable as what I now understand I must do.  This is a novel.  A novel about three women, related to each other by blood and experience and location. The inspiration I took from Paul-Albert Besnard’s prints does not lead me to a series of vignettes, but rather to a larger work, encompassing generations. 

I avoided this decision because I will need to have a grander theme with a more acute reason for the action to begin.  Since I’m writing literary fiction, the need for a momentous action is not as necessary as it would be if I was writing a mystery or thriller but the need still exists.  I also want to keep the original order of the Besnard prints intact.  In addition to an overarching plot, I will also be jumping around in time quite a bit and will need to decide how to do that. These struggles and decisions will impact the research I need to do, hence this announcement. 

Renascence by Edna St. Vincent Millay:  This poem by one of my favorite poets depicts the sensation of dying, being buried, and deciding to rejoin life.  It will be helpful when crafting the chapters that deal with suicide and apotheosis.

Willa Cather: Our Nebraskan author fulfills several needs from the fiction I am reading.  She provides a female voice and a rural setting.  I have loved her work since I first read My Antonia years ago and am really looking forward to reacquainting myself with it.

Mari Sandoz:  This historian provides stories from the rough and tumble days of the homesteaders, an important group to know about when you are writing about people who still live in the glory of their successful ancestors.

Non-Fiction and Essays:  I will be using my favorite search engine (JSTOR) to find academic essays and research papers on the psychological and emotional repercussions of the various traumas my characters will undergo.  JSTOR offers a list feature in which I will collect these various articles until it is time to read them.  A few examples of the search terms I am using are:

-       After effects of rape within a family

-       Hereditary mental illnesses

-       Influence of evangelical Christianity on self-esteem after trauma

-       Results of a matriarchal society on adult children

-       Drug abuse in rural America

As you can see from these categories, the issues I will be doing research on are the themes on which I feel unqualified to address without further study.  If necessary, I will expand my search past journals only to books, documentaries, etc.

Sylvia Plath:  A famously troubled poet, Plath tried and eventually succeeded in taking her life. The themes she expresses in her poetry are similar to the themes that I will be working with and will provide additional insight into the emotional mindset of my troubled characters.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney:  This is a great intergenerational family drama that fits into the genre I chose.  I read this book when it first came out, but I think it warrants a reread so that I can learn at the feet of a master.

Literary Fiction:  The former is only an example of that, but I will be reading this genre in general so that I can truly understand the mechanics. This isn’t as pressing a To Be Read item as the rest of the items on this list, but I will be focusing my “fun” reading time on this style. 

Of course, this is only the start of my list.  I feel like these texts will give me a good jumping-off point from which to begin outlining and writing.  

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

‘How much do you know about Shakespeare,’ I once asked a friend who has committed much of her life to studying the Bard. She replied, ‘Not as much as he knows about me.’ Remember this the next time someone tells you literature is useless.

Don’t Turn Away From the Art of Life, by Arnold Weinstein (New York Times, Feb. 2016)

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

failure to plan is planning to fail

While in Amsterdam this past spring, I had the pleasure of visiting the Van Gogh Museum and viewing a temporary exhibition of prints that was currently on display.  Amid the instantly recognizable Toulouse-Lautrec and Gauguin prints, I saw a tucked-away series in the French Printers section. Paul-Albert Besnard had depicted, through the careful, delicate work of etching and printing, the life cycle of a woman.  This group of 12 prints, titled Series la Femme, showed various instances within the life of one woman. Some of these are typical, such as love, flirtation, and childbirth, while others are deeply disturbing, like the prints depicting rape, prostitution, and suicide.  The prints follow a timeline that begins with happiness and contentment but ends with tragedy.  The last print is titled L’apothéose and it is the most modern of all the images, with a simple line drawing showing the woman taken from life and finally at peace.

This print series would be interesting as a novel, but I am planning on writing a short story series interweaving the lives of three generations of women.  They will live in a small, rural town.  I’m inventing a town that many in this area would be familiar with – the small Nebraska hamlet where everyone knows everybody’s business. These women have been in this town for so long that the dirt is practically mixed into their blood. There will be movement away from and back to this town, all of which I have yet to figure out.  Which brings me (finally) to the point of this blog post: I will be detailing my structured creative process here before I begin. Each week, I will post another aspect of this story series, going more in-depth into my research progress and publishing my detailed outline.  Eventually, I hope to post snippets of these stories on this blog.

Outline: It may not work for some people, but outlining is my personal lifesaver.  Anytime I have to write an academic essay, I always sit down and rigorously outline, including direct quotations from my sources and main points already written into sentences.  I spend a great deal of time on this planning stage because it saves so much time when I have to sit down to actually write the paper.  Most of the work has already been done, so I just need to connect the dots. This also helps me stay on topic and not get sidetracked by obscure details because I can see the big picture! Since I’m not accustomed to writing fiction, it will be even more important to include this step.  In the next week, I will be writing a general outline that includes the major characters for each story, the research I need to do, and the important events that occur.  From this, I will craft a more in-depth outline for each story.

Major Themes:  Much like the prints these stories are based on, the themes will run the gamut from light and lovely to dark and tragic.  Young love will be examined, as will the serious issues of drug abuse, prostitution, sexual and physical abuse, and suicide.  The intra-family dynamics of the multi-generation group about whom I am writing will also play a large role in the story cycle.

Research: This step includes everything from academic essays to fiction.  Several of the themes I’m dealing with are very serious and I would like more understanding of them from a psychological standpoint.  For this, I will need to be reading medical articles and encyclopedias, but since I’m writing fiction, it’s important that I immerse myself in the genre in which I will be writing.  Some of the stories will be light-hearted and comedic, while others will be extremely difficult and dark.  I’m also planning on writing the last story, Apotheosis, in a very post-modern style so I definitely want to explore some more abstract works.  Stephen King tells us that the best way to become a better writer is to read, so I will be spending a lot of time exploring this genre over the next few weeks and months.

Characterization: The characters that inhabit my fictional world are the most important part of this creation process.  I want to know these people inside and out and that will require such detailed research that I thought it necessary to include it as a separate step so I can outline some of my tactics.  One of my favorite aspects of Tumblr as a writer is the ability to post blogs, but also to reblog other users’ content.  I will use this feature to curate an aesthetic for each of my characters and will organize them using tags.  This content will include photos, music, and quotes that I feel either contribute to some aspect of my character or even that the characters themselves would be drawn to.  To fully inhabit the world I am creating (even though it is the same realm in which we all reside), I have to be able to see images to realize my vision and much that I post in the first few weeks while I’m still figuring out my story will be related to the setting. 

I’m extremely excited about this project; as soon as I saw those prints in Amsterdam I knew I needed to write this short story series.  As always, my life has been hectic and I haven’t had the necessary motivation or time to dedicate to a project of this size.  I’m looking forward to a semester of stretching myself academically and creatively.

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

a history of writing

For centuries, the written word was reserved for a privileged few, those with the wealth and status to possess and understand the words themselves.  In his book A History of Writing, Steven Fischer remarks upon the importance of the invention of the printing press by saying, “…printing has been as important to humankind as the controlled use of fire and the wheel” (285).  This bold statement can be better understood by looking at the religious and political shifts that occurred in Europe after books became widely available.

Books were the sacred domain of the clergy, for the most part.  Countless monks spent their lives bent over manuscripts in monastic scriptoriums, painstakingly transferring words from an old book to a new text in an effort to preserve the information contained within.  While the Middle Ages are colloquially known as the Dark Ages, that term is slightly misleading.  All across Europe, bright flames of knowledge burned in these monasteries.  This acquisition of understanding was still restricted to a select group of religious intelligentsia and they doled out information as they pleased.  Johann Gutenberg finalized his famous printing press by 1450 and published his 42-line Bible using movable type by 1452 (Fischer 271-2).  In 1517, Martin Luther nailed the 99 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Castle church and religious reformation swept Europe.  The schism that occurred in the Catholic Church following that act would not have been possible without the ready availability of printed Bibles.  One hundred years after the invention of the printing press, the religious landscape of Europe was irrevocably changed.

The social upheaval caused by the relatively sudden liberation of knowledge also affected the political system in Europe.  Prior to the invention of the printing press, feudal society was sorted into one of the Three Estates: nobles, clergy, and peasants.  While admission into the clergy was more fluid, the other two were firmly closed castes.  If you were born a serf, you died a serf.  These two estate of nobles and peasants enjoyed a symbiotic relationship; the serfs raised the food that would feed the nobility and the lords protected their peasants.  Towns flourished near castles that provided protection and in these towns, we see the early roots of the middle class through trade organizations called guilds.  After printing presses became commonplace, the formerly strict class structure began to disintegrate and was replaced with the three-part class structure we can still see today: working, middle, and upper class.  The Protestant movement decentralized the clergy, placing the religious elite among their neighbors, free to marry and have families if they so choose.  The upward mobility now available to those in the working class led to the rapid growth of cities and took humanity from the Medieval Era into the Renaissance.  

When asked to contemplate the landmark achievements of humanity throughout history, many would cite the wheel, agricultural cultivation, or fire as most important. These tools are all critical to our physical survival, but the written word feeds and inspires our collective mind. The act of writing has been in existence for millennia, but Johann Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in 15th century Germany exponentially accelerated the growth of knowledge throughout the world.  While Fischer’s original observation about the invention of the printing press may seem extreme, by looking at the ramifications of this momentous discovery we can see the veracity of this statement.  

*          *          *

The focus of the readings this past week on the early history of the written language brought to mind a book I recently read and a few experiences I had relating to the book.  This past year, I stood in more monasteries and ruined scriptoriums than ever before in my life.  The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, sat on my bookshelf ever since I bought it six months prior with the ambitious hope of finally reading it one day.  With long flights and train rides waiting for me, I threw the five-pound tome into my carry-on bag and set off.  As luck would have it, this book was the perfect companion for a summer in Europe and transported me to the Middle Ages.  The Name of the Rose is so densely written you feel the need for a Latin dictionary and a history of Medieval Europe to even begin to understand it.  However, once you accustom yourself to Umberto Eco’s highly stylistic prose and allusive style, the humor and craftsmanship become apparent. 

Eco wrote his book in a frame style, similar to early Gothic novels such as The Castle of Otranto. His first narrator writes from the Early Modern Era, a few centuries removed from the drama recounted in the book. The discovery of the fantastical story that consumes the bulk of the novel takes up the first few chapters and we soon head back in time to the foothills above Florence.  Brother William of Baskerville, a highly educated monk and former inquisitor, arrives at a Franciscan monastery with his young protégé, Adso, who serves as our second narrator.  This unlikely pair has been sent to attend a theological debate, but their arrival is marred by the apparent suicide of a young brother who fell to his death from the top of the library.  This monastery is unique due to its famous library, located in an octagonal building and guarded fiercely by its librarian, who is the only person allowed in the actual library itself.  Most of the monks spend their days copying the rare manuscripts located in the library or brought by distinguished guests.  In this way we see the knowledge of previous centuries preserved for posterity.

The novel is rigorously structured to emulate the schedule of the Italian monastery in which our main characters find themselves.  This 600-page-long book describes the events of just seven days.  Each day follows the monastic pattern of Matins (around 2:30), Lauds (timed to end at dawn), Prime (shortly before daybreak), Terce (mid-morning), Sext (noon), Nones (mid-afternoon), Vespers (sunset), and Compline (before the monks go to bed).  Since the novel is set in early winter, the days are short and the nights are long which, combined with the pre-dawn Matins and Lauds, result in much of the novel taking place at night. Eco proves his mastery over the Gothic style by packing this book chock full of well-known tropes such as hidden passageways, cryptic writings, mysterious deaths, and strange characters.  Adso in particular is prone to experiencing terrifying visions. These visions are made more awful by the use of religious imagery based around the book of Revelations throughout the book and monastery itself.  

While the book only covers the span of a week, the action that occurs has been building for years. A dangerous sect has broken from the church under the lead of Fra Dulcino and has taken the countryside by storm. Adso describes in detail the various battles and tortures that the members and founders of this group undergo. The Church itself is caught in between two Popes and two Emperors and the meeting in the Abbey is called to discuss the current situation.  Eco intermingles historical figures with his fictitious characters during this meeting: one of the famous inquisitors, Bernardo Gui, is a strong force both at the meeting and in the effort to solve the murders at the monastery.  He immediately accuses and arrests several peasants and servants as the murderers.  William has a theory about the murders being related to a certain prophetic passage in Revelations and he continues his search for the true killer, eventually stumbling sideways upon him.  

Brother William’s search for the truth caused him to look too closely and see patterns and plans where there were none.  In the end, the intricate designs he was trying to understand were the effects of mere luck.  The book closes with the aged Adso writing in Latin, “stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus,” which translates to “the ancient rose remains through its name, naked names are all we hold.”  William’s focus on Aristotle’s lost book on comedy, the burning of the beautiful peasant girl, and the total destruction of the library and the priceless knowledge contained within show Eco’s point that the true beauty and experience of the past has been destroyed and all we have now are the words that remind us of such times.  

While The Name of the Rose deals with dense theology, Medieval history, and gruesome murders, it is an engaging and engrossing read.  The first hundred pages drag by as you accustom yourself to Eco’s detailed style, but after that I found it hard to put the book down.  Reading this work while being able to stand in both ruined and preserved scriptoriums through France gave me a greater appreciation for the nameless monks who preserved the written word by hand and the subsequent invention that spread that knowledge to all.

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

[brilliantheartbeautifulmind]

not to be poetic but it’s finally september and i feel like i’ve gained a little piece of myself that i always lose over summer