“[Mother Teresa] was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction.” -- Christopher Hitchens in Slate Magazine
“I think these are very precarious times for women. So many of your rights are under assault. I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf.... You need to remind people you vote, you matter, and that they can’t succeed without your help.” --Congressman Richard Hanna, Republican NY
“The truth is that male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. Their continuing choice provides the foundation or justification for much of the pervasive persecution and abuse of women throughout the world.” --Jimmy Carter in an essay for The Age, written after his decision to leave the Southern Baptist Church.
“ No woman can call herself free who does not own and control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” -- Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.
It takes a lot to shock me. In recent weeks, I have been shocked. It takes a good deal to scare me. In recent weeks, I have been scared. Normally shock and, even more so, fear make me angry, but this time I am just sad.
I was born in 1961. Eight years before my birth, living in a small town in upstate New York, my mother, a schoolteacher in her twenties learned she was pregnant. My mother was single and having an affair with a married man in a town where her career would be destroyed if people found out about her indiscretion and the baby she was carrying.
My mother’s mother was long dead and my mother lived with her very elderly father who was by then starting to show signs of dementia. My mother could not afford to lose her job or to be driven from the town in which she grew up. She could not marry her baby’s father and in fact chose never to tell him she was expecting.
Mother told me many years later she’d have used the pill had it been available to her. She and her lover had used condoms and those had worked well enough right up til they didn’t. Abortion was not legal in 1953, at least not anywhere my mother could have gone.
My mother turned to her great aunt, a woman who had already offended many in the small town by doing whatever she darn well pleased whenever and wherever she chose. Her great aunt agreed that my mother could not afford to lose her job or be forced from her home. If it was just herself she had to worry about, that would be one thing, but my mother was all her father had left and he depended on her income as well as her supervision.
My great, great aunt arranged for my mother to spend a year away from their little town. A local housekeeper was hired to look after my grandfather in my mother’s absence and the school system was told my mother was going off to study for her master’s degree in education. There were a few who suspected the truth. I learned years later that my father’s mother was one of them, but she said nothing to anyone in town, though she was kind enough to send a note to my father, then married to his first wife and living in Texas, who had been my mother's best friend for most of their lives. The note just suggested that Peggy (my mom) might need a friend to talk with and that she had gone to Buffalo for a year to study.
My mother did eventually obtain her master’s in education but she did it by taking night classes at Alfred University over the two or three years following her trip to Buffalo. In Buffalo, mom was a guest at a Salvation Army home for unwed mothers. She gave birth to a baby boy there and he was adopted. My mother never knew who adopted him and never tried to find out. Neither have I.
My mother told me of this chapter in her past when I was 18. She wanted me to be careful if I was having sex. She knew she was several years too late to explain the birds and the bees to a daughter who had moved away from her parents’ home halfway through high school. She just thought maybe she could curb any reckless behavior I might consider. My mother didn’t know me well enough I guess to realize that, though I was not much restrained by convention, I was very, very pragmatic about how I went about doing my own thing. The result is that I have never been pregnant when I did not decide to be pregnant and have never suffered any of the other medical consequences that come from having unplanned and unprotected sex.
I did not learn from my mother how to protect myself in sex. By the time she brought the topic up, I was already making my own choices in that regard. I got my information from the Phil Donahue show which was on after school most days and from books, and, later from a doctor at Planned Parenthood.
The pill was approved by the FDA in 1960. By 1963, it was used by 1.2 million American women. #
In 1973, the supreme court legalized abortion for most circumstances with its landmark decision, Roe v. Wade 410, U.S. 113 #
I have never lived in a world where the pill was not available. I grew up in the time before AIDS. In a lot of ways, it was the most sexually free time the world has ever seen, the heterosexual world anyway. It was a time when sex could be had with very little fear of unwanted consequences.
For all my life, I have assumed women would always be free to make their own decisions about their own bodies. The pill allowed us to choose sex without fear. Abortion availability made it possible for us to undo the consequences when birth control failed or when it was not our choice to have sex. I could not imagine a world in which these rights would not be ours.
I have always assumed my daughter would not have to fight a battle for her own reproductive rights, that battle having been fought by my mother’s and grandmother’s generations. Recent months have proven my belief invalid. Evidently, the battle was never completely won and, now, in the year 2012, I find that my rights and my daughter’s rights, the rights of every woman in every state of The United States, are under attack.
In the years since 1973, there have been occasional threats to women's reproductive rights. Some states legislated against what they termed “partial birth abortion.” In 2004, George Bush II signed a law that made the murder of a pregnant woman qualify as TWO homicides, not just one.#
These laws are significant in that they forwarded the argument that an embryo is a life. That argument has been employed by those who favor the criminalization of abortion. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this point because I think we who favor reproductive rights for all women need to define our own terms and determine for ourselves why abortion is a right we must have. We need to stop letting the men who want to control our bodies and our choices define the terms of the battle. We cannot win by saying that “life does not begin at conception.” Anyone who has ever been pregnant can tell you it does. We can only win this battle when we refocus the argument on what the issues really are: the wants, needs and wellbeing of the already living mother, her already existing family and the society as a whole. If we continue to allow the argument to be about when life begins, then those who would keep women pregnant, barefoot and out of the workplace have won. If they can argue that a murderer who kills a pregnant woman has also murdered the baby she was carrying, it’s not a stretch to argue that a woman who chooses an abortion, has chosen to murder her unborn child.
In 2010, eleven states passed laws limiting abortion rights.#
In 2011, more than “19 states have enacted a total of 162(+) new laws relating to reproductive health.” Almost all limited women’s access to abortion. Several attempted to limit the availability of birth control. #
So far, 2012 has been a banner year for those who want to strip women of our reproductive rights. Several states have recently introduced what those who seek to control women are calling personhood bills. These bills make abortion illegal under all circumstances. Such laws have recently passed in Oklahoma, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and Missouri.# #
Others have introduced legislation that would submit women to vaginal ultrasound in order to get an abortion. Many have pushed for women to be shown pictures of aborted fetuses and to be told of a number of harrowing possible outcomes from abortion. At least Arizona and New Hampshire have fielded laws that require doctors to actually LIE to women who come to them seeking abortion. In Arizona a law was passed that forbids docs from revealing to patients that a fetus is in any way unhealthy or deformed. # In New Hampshire, the bill on the table would require doctors to tell patients there is a link between abortion and cancer.#
It’s only April and already dozens of laws that would restrict women’s reproductive rights have been put forth in legislatures all around the US. Some are calling it a GOP War on Women. I think that designation is incorrect. This is definitely a war of sorts, but it’s not being waged solely by republicans. Check the voting records for all the state congresses that have considered such legislation. Democrats have voted for this nonsense too. And it’s not just a war on women.
I have heard many people state they believe men should have no say in any discussion of reproductive rights. I have even heard men say this. In fact, I most often hear this from men, my partner and my father included. I am here to tell you that’s just wrongheaded.
It’s wrongheaded for a couple of reasons. The first and most obvious is that women do not make babies alone. Sure, my mom made her decision alone because she believed it was her only option. But, in so doing, she took the whole problem on herself and made herself it's only victim.
The second is that this IS man's battle as much as it ours. We are NOT “the other.” Men need to stop seeing us as separate from themselves, a species apart. We need to stop seeing ourselves that way too. We are all in this together and we all pay the consequences when a woman, even a woman we do not know, is forced to get pregnant and stay pregnant with a child she does not want and cannot or will not care for. If for no other reason than we all support the children who cannot be supported by women who should not have had them in the first place, this is an issue for all of us. Consider also the effects of overpopulation and unwanted children on the entire country. It does not serve men to say “reproductive rights are a woman’s issue.” We ALL lose and we lose big if this war against our freedoms is lost.
I suspect that I am preaching to the choir here. Still, I open the floor for discussion. This is not a time for deepening the crevices that already exist between democrat and republican, conservative and liberal. I ask that, in our discussion, we look at this question of reproductive rights as a HUMAN issue, one in which we are all invested. Without creating wider divides between ourselves and those with whom we do not agree, how can we work to change the world so that no child born is unwanted? What can we do to protect our planet and her people from the effects of overpopulation? How can we assure the safety and freedoms of generations to come?
This sermon can be viewed with footnotes at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tF6lR6N1FyYDT6LxVjTw26_OVL25UGJyyU6rGTIR9FE/edit
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Spilling Ink: Five Stock Characters You’ll Find in Pretty Much Any Book For Teens
Five Stock Characters You’ll Find in Pretty Much Any Book For Teens
by Susan Mesler-Evans
A stock character is a character that seems to show up everywhere. Shakespeare used them; Meg Cabot uses them; J.K. Rowling uses them. Pretty much everyone uses them. Some of these stock characters show up more often than others. So here are the top five stock characters that almost every teen novel, in no particular order.
Oh come on. You know this character. She’s the pretty popular girl with a loyal clique, a boyfriend she has wrapped around her finger, and perfect clothes and hair. Her natural habitat is a high school, or, more rarely, a middle school. The Mean Girl is catty, spoiled, nasty, and all-in-all, a bitch. She’s every girl who teased you in school. In a slice-of-life story, she will often be the main antagonist. If there’s another, even bigger problem for our protagonist to deal with, usually outside of the school world (such as a murderer or an evil wizard), the Mean Girl will often be just a minor annoyance.
I think the reason this stock character is used so much is because real mean girls are so easy to find. Everyone has had to deal with this girl. If you haven’t, there’s a good chance that you were this girl. Seeing the protagonist tormented by the Mean Girl for no good reason (often out of sheer boredom) makes her easy to relate to. The problem is it’s hard to write an interesting Mean Girl. Though many Mean Girls in real life are nasty for no reason at all, c, at least according to critics. Saying that she’s been bullied in the past will often cause former bullying victims to pull out the bullshit card. One plot device that many authors are using these days is to have the Mean Girl be booted out of her own clique. This knocks her down a few pegs.
The Weirdo Club is a group of two or more kids or teens who always seem to be hanging around one another, mainly because they don’t fit in anywhere else. They’re often brought together by a literal club—the protagonist and his best friends may all be part of the school play, for instance. The Weirdo Club is almost certainly the bottom of the high school food chain—the Mean Girl and her clique will make fun of them if the hero is a girl; the captain of the football team and his cronies will stuff them into lockers if the hero is a guy.
There are a few key differences between a clique and the Weirdo Club. For one, a clique is exclusive, whether it’s exclusive to jocks, popular girls, smart kids, or the like. The Weirdo Club will let just about anyone in, especially if the newcomer has nowhere else to go. A clique seems to be made up of clones. In the Weirdo Club, you’ll find just about every type of person. Last but not least, a clique almost always has a defined leader, who is often very controlling. While the Weirdo Club may have an unofficial leader of sorts, they likely won’t make decisions by themselves or kick people out.
This brings us to…
Behind just about any Mean Girl, there’s a group of equally catty, equally pretty, equally popular girls, ready to obey her every command. In most cases, the Clique isn’t really developed; they’re just sort of there whenever the Mean Girl is. If they are developed, their personality types will often be as follows.
The Queen Bee: Usually the Mean Girl. She’s the leader of the Clique. The Queen Bee decides who’s out and who’s in, and can boot someone out at the drop of a hat. She tends to be the prettiest, richest, and most popular of the Clique.
The Sidekick: The Queen Bee’s best friend and second-in-command. She’ll usually be seen with the Queen Bee delivering insults. Even if the rest of the Clique isn’t well-developed, she’ll often have a more distinct personality—i.e., you can tell her apart from the other members. A common characteristic of the Sidekick is for her to be constantly plotting a way to overthrow the Queen Bee and become the leader herself. As a result, the Sidekick is often more interesting.
The Ditz: So pretty. So rich. And so, so stupid. The Ditz is… Well, the name is sort of self-explanatory, isn’t it? She’ll often be the nicest member of the Clique, if only because she’s too stupid to know how to be mean or to realize how awful her “friends” are.
The Newcomer: Often, a new student will be “adopted” by the Clique, and sucked into their evil ways. The Newcomer is often confused the by rules of the Clique, and wonders why the members constantly back-stab each other. Sometimes the Newcomer will be booted out by the end of the story, but happier for it, but sometimes she’ll become the new Queen Bee.
In almost any story set in middle school or high school, there is at least one exceptionally smart kid. And in almost any story set in middle school or high school, there is at least one smartass. Many authors decide to combine the two, creating a Smart ‘n’ Snarky character. There are several logical reasons for a child prodigy to be sarcastic and deadpan. It could be because they’re smart enough to understand more dry humor at a young age, because being excluded due to their intelligence made them bitter and jaded, or because they read Oscar Wilde in middle school. A Smart ‘n’ Snarky character has a tendency to subtly insult the Clique, but they (especially not the Ditz) don’t usually notice.
And now we have the standard protagonist of a YA novel. The Everyteen is, for lack of a better word, average. They’re not particularly smart or good-looking or talented (except in maybe one area). They make mistakes, but are still good kids. The Everyteen is a bit of a loser, but they usually come out on top in the end. Teens and preteens will relate to them, because the character is so much like the unremarkable, ordinary, flawed reader.
by Susan Mesler-Evans
A stock character is a character that seems to show up everywhere. Shakespeare used them; Meg Cabot uses them; J.K. Rowling uses them. Pretty much everyone uses them. Some of these stock characters show up more often than others. So here are the top five stock characters that almost every teen novel, in no particular order.
- The Mean Girl
Oh come on. You know this character. She’s the pretty popular girl with a loyal clique, a boyfriend she has wrapped around her finger, and perfect clothes and hair. Her natural habitat is a high school, or, more rarely, a middle school. The Mean Girl is catty, spoiled, nasty, and all-in-all, a bitch. She’s every girl who teased you in school. In a slice-of-life story, she will often be the main antagonist. If there’s another, even bigger problem for our protagonist to deal with, usually outside of the school world (such as a murderer or an evil wizard), the Mean Girl will often be just a minor annoyance.
I think the reason this stock character is used so much is because real mean girls are so easy to find. Everyone has had to deal with this girl. If you haven’t, there’s a good chance that you were this girl. Seeing the protagonist tormented by the Mean Girl for no good reason (often out of sheer boredom) makes her easy to relate to. The problem is it’s hard to write an interesting Mean Girl. Though many Mean Girls in real life are nasty for no reason at all, c, at least according to critics. Saying that she’s been bullied in the past will often cause former bullying victims to pull out the bullshit card. One plot device that many authors are using these days is to have the Mean Girl be booted out of her own clique. This knocks her down a few pegs.
- The Weirdo Club
The Weirdo Club is a group of two or more kids or teens who always seem to be hanging around one another, mainly because they don’t fit in anywhere else. They’re often brought together by a literal club—the protagonist and his best friends may all be part of the school play, for instance. The Weirdo Club is almost certainly the bottom of the high school food chain—the Mean Girl and her clique will make fun of them if the hero is a girl; the captain of the football team and his cronies will stuff them into lockers if the hero is a guy.
There are a few key differences between a clique and the Weirdo Club. For one, a clique is exclusive, whether it’s exclusive to jocks, popular girls, smart kids, or the like. The Weirdo Club will let just about anyone in, especially if the newcomer has nowhere else to go. A clique seems to be made up of clones. In the Weirdo Club, you’ll find just about every type of person. Last but not least, a clique almost always has a defined leader, who is often very controlling. While the Weirdo Club may have an unofficial leader of sorts, they likely won’t make decisions by themselves or kick people out.
This brings us to…
- The Clique
Behind just about any Mean Girl, there’s a group of equally catty, equally pretty, equally popular girls, ready to obey her every command. In most cases, the Clique isn’t really developed; they’re just sort of there whenever the Mean Girl is. If they are developed, their personality types will often be as follows.
The Queen Bee: Usually the Mean Girl. She’s the leader of the Clique. The Queen Bee decides who’s out and who’s in, and can boot someone out at the drop of a hat. She tends to be the prettiest, richest, and most popular of the Clique.
The Sidekick: The Queen Bee’s best friend and second-in-command. She’ll usually be seen with the Queen Bee delivering insults. Even if the rest of the Clique isn’t well-developed, she’ll often have a more distinct personality—i.e., you can tell her apart from the other members. A common characteristic of the Sidekick is for her to be constantly plotting a way to overthrow the Queen Bee and become the leader herself. As a result, the Sidekick is often more interesting.
The Ditz: So pretty. So rich. And so, so stupid. The Ditz is… Well, the name is sort of self-explanatory, isn’t it? She’ll often be the nicest member of the Clique, if only because she’s too stupid to know how to be mean or to realize how awful her “friends” are.
The Newcomer: Often, a new student will be “adopted” by the Clique, and sucked into their evil ways. The Newcomer is often confused the by rules of the Clique, and wonders why the members constantly back-stab each other. Sometimes the Newcomer will be booted out by the end of the story, but happier for it, but sometimes she’ll become the new Queen Bee.
- Smart ‘n’ Snarky
In almost any story set in middle school or high school, there is at least one exceptionally smart kid. And in almost any story set in middle school or high school, there is at least one smartass. Many authors decide to combine the two, creating a Smart ‘n’ Snarky character. There are several logical reasons for a child prodigy to be sarcastic and deadpan. It could be because they’re smart enough to understand more dry humor at a young age, because being excluded due to their intelligence made them bitter and jaded, or because they read Oscar Wilde in middle school. A Smart ‘n’ Snarky character has a tendency to subtly insult the Clique, but they (especially not the Ditz) don’t usually notice.
- The Everyteen
And now we have the standard protagonist of a YA novel. The Everyteen is, for lack of a better word, average. They’re not particularly smart or good-looking or talented (except in maybe one area). They make mistakes, but are still good kids. The Everyteen is a bit of a loser, but they usually come out on top in the end. Teens and preteens will relate to them, because the character is so much like the unremarkable, ordinary, flawed reader.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Haiku Throw-Down
It's Monday. Again. I overslept this morning and really want to go out to play this afternoon. I planned to write a review this afternoon, but am still busy with the novel which I generally work on in the mornings. Today was no exception but I find that when the novel is really cooking I have little else about which I wish to write. So there will be no review today. In its stead we will have a Haiku Throw-Down. I will write one and post here. I challenge you to write and post one in the comments below. Good luck, poets!
Down a potholed road
under high Florida sun
bike wheels fly toward sand.
 |
| That's my bike, Dolly, taking a break on today's outing. |
under high Florida sun
bike wheels fly toward sand.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Spilling Ink: The Mary Sues or The Reason I Leave So Many Scathing Reviews Online
by Susan Mesler-Evans
 |
| Susan Mesler-Evans Taking Aim |
I, like most teenagers of modern-day America, grew up online. And I, like roughly 45 percent of teenagers of modern-day America, am a nerd. I’m also a nerd that likes to write. The logical conclusion of this equation is that I, of course, write fanfiction.
O + N(Wr) = FF
For those of you who don’t know what I’m rambling on about, here’s a short explanation. Fanfiction (fanfic, for short) is when fans write stories that take place within another story’s universe. For example, if you really like Harry Potter, you can write a story including Harry Potter’s characters, settings, etc.
I love fanfic. I have over 70 stories on http://www.fanfiction.net/ in over 20 different fandoms. (For clarification, a fandom is the web site for a group of fans of a book, movie, artist, or the like. For example, the Harry Potter fandom is made up of people who like Harry Potter.) Unfortunately, with fanfiction, comes the dreaded Sue, the most dreaded of them being the Mary Sue. There are different types of Sue (I’ll get to them all in a bit). You can expect to find them in most amateur writing, fanfiction and original fiction alike.
A Mary Sue is a flawless character. She’ll be smart. She’ll be resourceful. She’ll be pretty but oh-so-modest. Think Bella Swan. (My first column and I’ve already taken a cheap shot at Twilight! Whee!)
According to my sources (TV Tropes and Wikipedia), the term, Sue, first cropped up in a Star Trek fanfiction making fun of characters that are common in that fandom. They’re almost always female, but there are exceptions. (Male Sues are called Gary Stus or Marty Stus, depending on who you ask.)
Why do writers create Sues? There are as many reasons as there are authors. Sometimes it might be because they’re just starting out and don’t know any better. In these cases, I’m a bit more forgiving. After all, some of my early writing is horrible, especially the main characters. Most authors’ skills improve and their Sues disappear.
If the author is a teenage girl, the Sue character is almost certainly an agent of wish fulfillment. The author’s Sue is someone the author can never be, but desperately wants to. There is also the possibility the author is just a crappy author. Teenage girls do tend to be crappy writers and I can say that because I am a teenage girl…
Now that we have the basic definition cleared up, onto the sub-types.
Mary Sue Classic
Also called Purity Sue. This is the character most people think of when they hear the words “Mary Sue.” She’ll be pretty, but she’ll constantly deny it. After all, in order to be perfect, you can’t be stuck up. Mary Sue Classic will be sweet and innocent (to a maddening degree), and friendly to the point where everyone (except for the villains, of course) loves her. Expect her to have a lot of guys (and occasionally girls) falling over themselves to be with her. Sometimes she’ll convince the villain to give up his evil ways. If a Mary Sue dies, she almost always finds some way to worm her way back into the story. Oh, and one more thing, if she’s not a princess already, expect her to become one.
Tragic Sue
You know how a lot of characters have a dark and troubled past they like to brood about (usually in the form of an internal monologue)? Of course you do. It’s been used a million times. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A dark past can give a nice sense of back story to your hero or a compelling motivation for your villain. The Tragic Sue will often whine and complain about her horrific back story, or, if she’s not doing that, being completely sunny despite it. She (or the narrator) will bring up her past at every opportunity. Everyone will feel so sorry for her. Common elements in her past are rape, dead parents, rape, abuse, rape, kidnapping, rape, mind control, rape, and rape.
Bitch Sue
As in, “why am I supposed to like you?” Sue. As you may have guessed from the name, Bitch Sue is a complete ass to everyone, even her “friends” and the guys who chase after her. Sarcastic and even flat-out nasty characters are fun, but playing them up as a perfect person is not. If a character yells at a guy for telling her she looks nice, I will not like her. Next Sue.
Self-Insert Sue
Remember the teenage girls I mentioned earlier? This is the type of Sue they tend to write. These Sues are often called Author Avatars, but there is a distinct difference. AAs are not always a bad thing, so long as you flesh them out and don’t make them exactly you. As my mom once told me (my mom who happens to be an author and my editor when I am writing this column), “no author can write any story but her own.” Self-Insert Sues tend to be the author, but idealized. If the author is a short, skinny brunette with no boobs, average intelligence, and no special talents named Alexis, it’s no surprise that her Sue will be a tall, curvy, ultra-talented, super-smart D-cup named Alexandra.
There are dozens of Sues out there. I’m only covering the basics. Look hard enough and you’ll find other Sues, or combinations of the ones above.
So go. Go to fanfiction and fictionpress.net! Find the Mary Sues! And flame them! FLAME THEM, my pretties!
Ahahahahaha!
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Vernal Equinox, Amsterdam, NY 1968
For three years in the 1960s, my family lived in a house by the Mohawk River in Amsterdam NY. We lost more than one pet on ice flows in spring thaws.
VernalEquinox, Amsterdam NY 1968
by Stephanie Mesler
Spring sprung and the dam broke!
Fish beneath the ice stroked
away from Mohawk’s frozen yoke.
Twelve hour day and twelve hour night,
equal time for dark and light.
Kiddies down the hill in flight!
Last chance for winter rites.
Felines know the walleyes move
as seasonal instincts them behoove.
Kitty menus thus improve.
A day for fun and for play,
school closed for holiday,
Saturday life on a midweek day,
cause for mirthful laughing brays.
Tabby on a block of ice
feasts on carp snared with a slice
of paw now locked like a vice.
Sledding in our short sleeves
‘tween thawing mounds whip and weave,
darting twixt budding trees,
crash landing under brinicled eaves.
Orange cat adrift, away!
Well fed but trapped, the price he pays
for snatching spring’s first bass fillet.
Unaware of kitten’s fate
children rest in a happy state
sure earth’s tilt will actuate
a vernal revelry mandate.
VernalEquinox, Amsterdam NY 1968
by Stephanie Mesler
Spring sprung and the dam broke!
Fish beneath the ice stroked
away from Mohawk’s frozen yoke.
Twelve hour day and twelve hour night,
equal time for dark and light.
Kiddies down the hill in flight!
Last chance for winter rites.
Felines know the walleyes move
as seasonal instincts them behoove.
Kitty menus thus improve.
A day for fun and for play,
school closed for holiday,
Saturday life on a midweek day,
cause for mirthful laughing brays.
Tabby on a block of ice
feasts on carp snared with a slice
of paw now locked like a vice.
Sledding in our short sleeves
‘tween thawing mounds whip and weave,
darting twixt budding trees,
crash landing under brinicled eaves.
Orange cat adrift, away!
Well fed but trapped, the price he pays
for snatching spring’s first bass fillet.
Unaware of kitten’s fate
children rest in a happy state
sure earth’s tilt will actuate
a vernal revelry mandate.
Monday, March 19, 2012
About Writing:To Outline or Not To Outline?
Generally speaking, organizing my words on paper is not problematic. Sometimes, I make a few notes, especially when I am writing nonfiction that needs to be factually accurate in a way that fiction does not. Other than writing a note that will remind me of an idea I have had, a starting point usually, I never plan poetry or short stories. They pretty much write themselves. Even my plays have not required much by way of a grand plan. This is probably because each scene in my dramatic works stands on its own. My previous plays have been vignettes linked together by a common theme but having no connective plot or characters.
The novel I am currently writing is the first piece I have done that is long enough to need a master plan. I started without one and found that there were just too many details to keep track, from character descriptions to minor plot twists. Letting the muse flow as I usually do was not working.
Over the years, I have read a lot about writers and writing. I have taken many writing classes and attended several writers’ workshops. I have actually taught English Lit and Creative Writing. Teaching techniques for writing is a great way to learn them! I can safely say I know a thing or two about how one can organize one’s work. When I started this novel, I was sure I had all the skills it might take to get the job done. I am still sure of that (proof is in the progress) but am amazed at how easily I have become tangled in plot line.
I seem to handle character development well and I am having no trouble writing individual sections, scenes in the book, especially when they can be handled as short stories themselves. However, I don’t want this book to feel like a short story collection. I want it to have clear and believable narrative that flows from one section to the next without feeling like each chapter is a new start.
Years ago, I read a collection of short stories by a southern author who will remain nameless. I loved this author’s short stories. Each one spoke to me, so when this nameless author released her first novel, I rushed out and bought it in hard cover even. Boy, was I disappointed! It turned out this “new novel” was really the short stories linked together. There were a couple of chapters that had not appeared previously as short stories, but essentially I was rereading what the author had previously published as short fiction. Each chapter of this novel, including the two new ones, read like short stories. The voice was consistent but the resulting narrative was disjointed. I have never purchased another work by this author.
I want to avoid short story syndrome in the writing of my novel. I figured knowing the potential hazard would be enough. And, for a while, it was. I wrote 20,000 words or so of smooth and logical narrative. My characters grew as their story told itself. Then one day I realized I had no specific idea where the story was headed. I had a general notion of how things would turn out for my main character, but really not a single clue as to how he would get there. I sensed that if I kept working as I had been, sort of freestyle fiction, the plot lines were going to tangle. I was going to need a plan.
I loathe outlines. LOATHE is almost not a strong enough word. I have taught outlining to many students over the years. I see it as an annoying but useful tool. For other authors. I believed I could make myself get organized, but not by using an outline.
I started by making note cards with a plot point written on each. (I also had a set of note cards for character descriptions and another for back story.) The note cards for plot development were nice in that they could be put in any order I wanted. Just because I wrote the card mentioning my main character’s shooting lesson first did not mean that had to be the first event in the book. I could move that note card wherever I wanted in the stack of cards, thereby reordering events in the novel any way I wanted. That was a very handy tool indeed.
The problem I had not anticipated was that even having the cards, essentially a list of significant plot points I wanted to include in my novel, did not assure that they would connect smoothly. I found myself writing what were really individual stories, exactly what i did not want to do.
I decided I would have to outline after all. So I did, hating every minute of it. I felt like I was prepping for the GRE not telling a story. I love telling stories, but detest test prep work, so this was not a fun process for me. Still, I did it, sort of like taking medicine I knew would gag going down. Now, on a single sheet of paper, I could see all my planned plot twists. Yay me.
I went about the business then of writing from the outline. Individual chapters were working but linkage between them was still shaky. I was flunking narrative continuity and I knew it. Not sure how to proceed, I put the story aside for a couple weeks. I worked on some other pieces, generally giving myself a chance to decompress from the pressure of work that one senses is not going as well as one would like.
Then, one day, the light dawned. More than an outline, I needed a timeline, but I needed it to be flexible so that I could follow the story where it lead me. I tried a number of approaches to creating a timeline, first attempting to do it in a word processing file, then putting it on notebook pages. I found by trial and error that visual cues offered by the timeline were very important to my process. The more of the time line I can see at once, the better it works.
The timeline that works best for me combines my earlier note card method with the traditional outline. I rewrote what was on the note cards, the individual plot points, on post-it notes. I posted them on a wall in a possible order for events as they appear in the book. Following is a picture of my timeline as it stands today.
I say as it stands today because some of the points have been reordered several times already and because there will be more plot developments added as they become necessary to getting my characters from point A (West Virginia in the year 2000) to Point B (Florida in 2010). I will be adding some developments in the middle section of the timeline, The Road, and adding some to the very end, once I settle on a resolution for this first book in what will be a trilogy. I also allow for the fact I may reorder what has already been written and will no doubt deep six entire sections as it becomes clear they don’t work or are superfluous.
My answer to this column’s title question, To Outline or Not To Outine, is yes and no. There is no one right way to write anything. For me, when it comes to novels, it seems a sort of outline works well. What is your process? What works? What does not? Please share your comments below.
The novel I am currently writing is the first piece I have done that is long enough to need a master plan. I started without one and found that there were just too many details to keep track, from character descriptions to minor plot twists. Letting the muse flow as I usually do was not working.
Over the years, I have read a lot about writers and writing. I have taken many writing classes and attended several writers’ workshops. I have actually taught English Lit and Creative Writing. Teaching techniques for writing is a great way to learn them! I can safely say I know a thing or two about how one can organize one’s work. When I started this novel, I was sure I had all the skills it might take to get the job done. I am still sure of that (proof is in the progress) but am amazed at how easily I have become tangled in plot line.
I seem to handle character development well and I am having no trouble writing individual sections, scenes in the book, especially when they can be handled as short stories themselves. However, I don’t want this book to feel like a short story collection. I want it to have clear and believable narrative that flows from one section to the next without feeling like each chapter is a new start.
Years ago, I read a collection of short stories by a southern author who will remain nameless. I loved this author’s short stories. Each one spoke to me, so when this nameless author released her first novel, I rushed out and bought it in hard cover even. Boy, was I disappointed! It turned out this “new novel” was really the short stories linked together. There were a couple of chapters that had not appeared previously as short stories, but essentially I was rereading what the author had previously published as short fiction. Each chapter of this novel, including the two new ones, read like short stories. The voice was consistent but the resulting narrative was disjointed. I have never purchased another work by this author.
I want to avoid short story syndrome in the writing of my novel. I figured knowing the potential hazard would be enough. And, for a while, it was. I wrote 20,000 words or so of smooth and logical narrative. My characters grew as their story told itself. Then one day I realized I had no specific idea where the story was headed. I had a general notion of how things would turn out for my main character, but really not a single clue as to how he would get there. I sensed that if I kept working as I had been, sort of freestyle fiction, the plot lines were going to tangle. I was going to need a plan.
I loathe outlines. LOATHE is almost not a strong enough word. I have taught outlining to many students over the years. I see it as an annoying but useful tool. For other authors. I believed I could make myself get organized, but not by using an outline.
I started by making note cards with a plot point written on each. (I also had a set of note cards for character descriptions and another for back story.) The note cards for plot development were nice in that they could be put in any order I wanted. Just because I wrote the card mentioning my main character’s shooting lesson first did not mean that had to be the first event in the book. I could move that note card wherever I wanted in the stack of cards, thereby reordering events in the novel any way I wanted. That was a very handy tool indeed.
The problem I had not anticipated was that even having the cards, essentially a list of significant plot points I wanted to include in my novel, did not assure that they would connect smoothly. I found myself writing what were really individual stories, exactly what i did not want to do.
I decided I would have to outline after all. So I did, hating every minute of it. I felt like I was prepping for the GRE not telling a story. I love telling stories, but detest test prep work, so this was not a fun process for me. Still, I did it, sort of like taking medicine I knew would gag going down. Now, on a single sheet of paper, I could see all my planned plot twists. Yay me.
I went about the business then of writing from the outline. Individual chapters were working but linkage between them was still shaky. I was flunking narrative continuity and I knew it. Not sure how to proceed, I put the story aside for a couple weeks. I worked on some other pieces, generally giving myself a chance to decompress from the pressure of work that one senses is not going as well as one would like.
Then, one day, the light dawned. More than an outline, I needed a timeline, but I needed it to be flexible so that I could follow the story where it lead me. I tried a number of approaches to creating a timeline, first attempting to do it in a word processing file, then putting it on notebook pages. I found by trial and error that visual cues offered by the timeline were very important to my process. The more of the time line I can see at once, the better it works.
The timeline that works best for me combines my earlier note card method with the traditional outline. I rewrote what was on the note cards, the individual plot points, on post-it notes. I posted them on a wall in a possible order for events as they appear in the book. Following is a picture of my timeline as it stands today.
I say as it stands today because some of the points have been reordered several times already and because there will be more plot developments added as they become necessary to getting my characters from point A (West Virginia in the year 2000) to Point B (Florida in 2010). I will be adding some developments in the middle section of the timeline, The Road, and adding some to the very end, once I settle on a resolution for this first book in what will be a trilogy. I also allow for the fact I may reorder what has already been written and will no doubt deep six entire sections as it becomes clear they don’t work or are superfluous.
My answer to this column’s title question, To Outline or Not To Outine, is yes and no. There is no one right way to write anything. For me, when it comes to novels, it seems a sort of outline works well. What is your process? What works? What does not? Please share your comments below.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
About Writing: The Daily Commitment
Process varies from writer to writer, but there is one fact that seems universal: if a writer wants to be a writer, a productive author who turns out a significant body of work, he or she has to actually write. Obvious as that may sound, it is not always easy. In my own writing life, which stretches back over four decades, there have been productive times, which I have referred to as fertile periods, and times when my well has not just been dry but completely absent, not even appearing as an occasional mirage to goad me on, teasing me out of a slump. Most writers experience such dry spells, some lasting longer than others. (My longest was about 12 years.) If we are to survive as authors, we find ways to get out and stay out of the darkness that is not just writer’s block but a complete lack of energy for writing. Creative inertia must be avoided if one is to be a productive writer.
Last weekend, I had the privilege of hearing Randy Wayne White, author of the Doc Ford series of books set mostly in Florida, speak at the library in Cocoa Beach. White is an extremely prolific and skilled writer, one of the pantheon of successful Florida novelists that include the likes of John D, McDonald, Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiassen. He talked about his own creative process, saying that there is only one way to get the job done and that is to do it. White told those gathered, a handful of whom admitted to being aspiring novelists, that he writes every day, no matter what else is going on in his life. He shuts himself in a room, closes the door, shuts off the Internet and the phone, ignores anyone and anything else demanding his attention. He told us this is how he gets the job done over and over again.
Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep, put it succinctly. “The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at the least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything but write.” (Source: Timothy Hallinan) My own experience has born this out. For me, it’s not just the amount of time I devote to writing that matters, though that is important if I want to complete anything. It’s also the routine of when and how I write that makes a difference. Isaac Newton said that a body in motion tends to stay in motion until something stops its progress and that a body at rest will stay at rest until something makes it move. This is Newton’s first law, the law of motion and inertia.
Inertia is this writer’s greatest enemy and, as I have heard from many, many other writers, it is theirs too. The periods of my writing life that have been most productive have been times when I was willing and able (sometimes required) to write every day or close to it. These were times when I was in school, so writing was a part of my “job,” or when I had not much of a social life or when, as now, I have been able to write full-time. I will admit to all of you that I have never been able to maintain family, friendships, writing and an outside day job simultaneously. There are many who do. We have all heard the tales of how John Grisham wrote The Firm, the novel that made him famous, while commuting by train to and from his job in Chicago and how J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter while working in an eatery. I am impressed by these people, even a little awed by them, but I will never be one of them. I am someone who needs sleep and a limited number of priorities in my life. I do have some health problems that may make my case different from theirs, but I think we all have a thousand reasons not to write. We have lots of commitments, reams of distractions. The trick is finding the way to not let distractions take us away from our work. For me, the only way to get the words on the page is to put them there and that means I have to take the time to do it. The only way to be sure that will happen frequently enough that I might produce something of worth is to make sure I write a great deal.
At least two thirds of what I write is crap. I may not know it as I am writing, though often I do, or even when I am done writing, though often I do. But in order to get to the one third that is not crap, I have to plow through the first two. This takes time and a commitment to showing up each day to face the words written the day before and the blank pages that lay ahead of me. For me, it really does seem to take writing every. single. day. no matter what else is going on. If I miss even one day at my keyboard, I lose sight of my creative well and it can take a long time to find it again. I do not believe I am alone in this. Establishing and maintaining routine is as important to authors as having pen and paper or keyboard and electricity at the ready.
These last two years have been transitional ones for me. I have written about that in A Poet’s Diary on this blog. Now, I am in a stable position, possibly the most stable of my lifetime. As a result, I have produced a great deal of verbage and seen some publishing success in the last 12 months. Still, I struggle with routine, with keeping the well from running dry.
Recently, I have made the commitment to do exactly as Randy Wayne White and Raymond Chandler insist writers must: I will write every single day, no matter what. I am finding this easier than I thought it might be, possibly because I have been getting closer and closer to this place over the last two years, not that two years ago I had even the slightest idea where I was headed, literally or figuratively. For whatever reason, I am finding it very easy to fall into a routine that results in my writing roughly four and a half hours per day.
I invite other writers here to discuss their own writing habits. What works for you and what doesn’t? Who inspires you and how do you stay on track? Please post your comments below.
Last weekend, I had the privilege of hearing Randy Wayne White, author of the Doc Ford series of books set mostly in Florida, speak at the library in Cocoa Beach. White is an extremely prolific and skilled writer, one of the pantheon of successful Florida novelists that include the likes of John D, McDonald, Elmore Leonard, Tim Dorsey and Carl Hiassen. He talked about his own creative process, saying that there is only one way to get the job done and that is to do it. White told those gathered, a handful of whom admitted to being aspiring novelists, that he writes every day, no matter what else is going on in his life. He shuts himself in a room, closes the door, shuts off the Internet and the phone, ignores anyone and anything else demanding his attention. He told us this is how he gets the job done over and over again.
Raymond Chandler, author of The Big Sleep, put it succinctly. “The important thing is that there should be a space of time, say four hours a day at the least, when a professional writer doesn’t do anything but write.” (Source: Timothy Hallinan) My own experience has born this out. For me, it’s not just the amount of time I devote to writing that matters, though that is important if I want to complete anything. It’s also the routine of when and how I write that makes a difference. Isaac Newton said that a body in motion tends to stay in motion until something stops its progress and that a body at rest will stay at rest until something makes it move. This is Newton’s first law, the law of motion and inertia.
Inertia is this writer’s greatest enemy and, as I have heard from many, many other writers, it is theirs too. The periods of my writing life that have been most productive have been times when I was willing and able (sometimes required) to write every day or close to it. These were times when I was in school, so writing was a part of my “job,” or when I had not much of a social life or when, as now, I have been able to write full-time. I will admit to all of you that I have never been able to maintain family, friendships, writing and an outside day job simultaneously. There are many who do. We have all heard the tales of how John Grisham wrote The Firm, the novel that made him famous, while commuting by train to and from his job in Chicago and how J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter while working in an eatery. I am impressed by these people, even a little awed by them, but I will never be one of them. I am someone who needs sleep and a limited number of priorities in my life. I do have some health problems that may make my case different from theirs, but I think we all have a thousand reasons not to write. We have lots of commitments, reams of distractions. The trick is finding the way to not let distractions take us away from our work. For me, the only way to get the words on the page is to put them there and that means I have to take the time to do it. The only way to be sure that will happen frequently enough that I might produce something of worth is to make sure I write a great deal.
At least two thirds of what I write is crap. I may not know it as I am writing, though often I do, or even when I am done writing, though often I do. But in order to get to the one third that is not crap, I have to plow through the first two. This takes time and a commitment to showing up each day to face the words written the day before and the blank pages that lay ahead of me. For me, it really does seem to take writing every. single. day. no matter what else is going on. If I miss even one day at my keyboard, I lose sight of my creative well and it can take a long time to find it again. I do not believe I am alone in this. Establishing and maintaining routine is as important to authors as having pen and paper or keyboard and electricity at the ready.
These last two years have been transitional ones for me. I have written about that in A Poet’s Diary on this blog. Now, I am in a stable position, possibly the most stable of my lifetime. As a result, I have produced a great deal of verbage and seen some publishing success in the last 12 months. Still, I struggle with routine, with keeping the well from running dry.
Recently, I have made the commitment to do exactly as Randy Wayne White and Raymond Chandler insist writers must: I will write every single day, no matter what. I am finding this easier than I thought it might be, possibly because I have been getting closer and closer to this place over the last two years, not that two years ago I had even the slightest idea where I was headed, literally or figuratively. For whatever reason, I am finding it very easy to fall into a routine that results in my writing roughly four and a half hours per day.
I invite other writers here to discuss their own writing habits. What works for you and what doesn’t? Who inspires you and how do you stay on track? Please post your comments below.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Read It Before You See It: The Hunger Games, A Book Review
About thirty pages into the book, I contacted my 14 year-old daughter to suggest she read it too. It turned out she had read it for school last year and had not enjoyed it at all. I was surprised and asked her why. She said there was only one character in the story she actually liked. Beyond that, she did not say much and I did not push her. Now that I have completed the novel I am ready to speculate on that topic. I will return to my daughter’s opinions of The Hunger Games after I share my own.
Suzanne Collins has made a career of writing for children, first working in children’s television where she has written scripts for shows ranging from Oswald to Clifford’s Puppy Days. After nearly a decade of tv work, Ms. Collins decided to try her hand at writing a children’s book. Her first was Fire Proof, number 11 in the Mystery Files of Shelby Woo. Since then she has written a partial handful of picture books and two book series for young people, the first being The Underland Chronicles, a fantasy series of five books about a boy named Gregor and his adventures in Underland, the city beneath New York City. Then came The Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games is no fairy tale. It presents a dystopian society far in the future, a nation, Panem, that takes up all of what is now North America. Panem is a nation divided into 12 districts, with people of The Capital, a sort of uber-district, ruling the 12. Collins paints a vivid picture of a nation where people of different districts are very different from one another, leading incomparable lives, having very little contact with or knowledge of one another. Each district has its own industries and no district is allowed to produce everything it needs for its inhabitants to survive on its own. One district produces coal while another produces grain and still another grows fruit trees. They are well guarded with wide borders between districts to prevent the sharing of resources across district lines.
16 year-old Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, the poorest of the districts, with her mother and sister, Primrose. Katniss’ and Primrose’ father was killed several years earlier in an explosion in the coal mine where he labored. After his death, the girls’ mother falls into an immobilizing depression leaving Katniss to provide for her family. At much personal risk, she takes up hunting in a forbidden area and selling what she takes on the black market.
At first reading I thought we have seen this sort of character before, the independent and honest (sometimes surly) teenage girl who has a kind heart hidden under a tough exterior. Think Hermione Granger without the wand. Then, Katniss did something that surprised me. She killed a kitty cat. She didn’t do it to be cruel. She did it because the cat, a lynx, had taken a liking to her and followed her while she hunted. Katniss said she hated to kill the beast because he was such good company but that he’d had to go because he was scaring off all other game.
We learn early in The Hunger Games that there was once a 13th district. 75 years prior to the start of our story the powers that were in The Capital wiped out the entire population of that district when it rose up in rebellion against its decadent overlords. Since then, the government has staged an annual event to celebrate the destruction of District 13 and all its inhabitants, The Hunger Games. The Games as they are called are designed to both commemorate the great victory of The Capital over rebels and to remind residents of the remaining 12 districts that their lives are not their own and can be taken away on any whim that serves the “national good.”
The Games are “played” by 24 teenagers, two from each district, randomly selected by lottery to represent their communities in a battle that will kill all but one, he or she being declared the victor and being rewarded handsomely for the accomplishment (along with all the residents of his district, especially the members of the victor’s own family). It is possible for one chosen by lottery, a “tribute” as the competitors are called, to be replaced by any other eligible teen willing to volunteer in his or her stead. Such an act of heroism is the basis for the main plot line in The Hunger Games.
The story is a horrifying one, yet I find it plausible. In some ways, the society of Panem reminds me of Margaret Atwood’s Republic of Gilead. The main difference is that Atwood’s government of dystopia is much younger and not quite as good at what it does. Collins’ Capital society is a society that knows how to keep control, how to keep its subjects in line.
I can indeed imagine an America gone this far wrong, possibly sooner than Collins’ fiction predicts.
Collins does not write beautifully but she tells a compelling story compellingly. She makes the reader see Katniss, see the people of District 12, see the arena in which the 24 fight to the death until victory is claimed. She also manages to make even the most despicable characters multi-dimensional. One wants to hate the people who would hurt our Katniss but Collins manages to make them all human. In part, she does this by making Katniss herself a flawed woman who sometimes does not know her own mind and who frequently jumps to unjustified conclusions. By making our protagonist human, Collins makes it possible for us to see the humanity in even the most unlikeable of characters.
When I asked my daughter about The Hunger Games, she told me there was only one character in the book she liked. I was only a few pages into the story at that point and already there were several I would want to know if they were real people. I assumed the one my daughter admired was Katniss Everdeen. I made this assumption partly because Katniss is the character who most reminds me of my own child. Katniss seems very, very real to me, real in a way Hermione Granger will never be. But I assumed wrong. My daughter’s favorite character is Rue, one of the other competitors in The Games.
I will not tell Rue’s story here because it would give away too much of the story, of Katniss’ story. I will say that Rue is the purest of Collins’ characters, the sweetest and most innocent. She is also the youngest. She is the only one of the tributes who is all goodness. It was in thinking about that fact that I came to some conclusions about my daughter’s opinion of The Hunger Games and about the book itself.
I think Collins takes a huge risk as a writer of stories for young people when she writes a character like Rue and then subjects that character to much suffering. As a former teacher and a mom, also as a former young adult reader, I think I can safely make a sweeping generalization. On the whole, young readers, especially females, like stories to end justly. Young readers are largely black and white thinkers who don’t care to explore much by way of varying shades of gray. Young readers want the good guys to come out on top and the bad guys to be vanquished. As readers grow into their teens, they are more willing to see the depth of characters but still they want justice. Most would never accept a wizarding world in which Harry Potter is forced to kill one of his friends in order to save his own skin, least of all if that friend had not turned evil.
As an adult reader, I admire Katniss and many others of the tributes. They are good kids in an abhorrent situation. Their main job is just to survive, justice being no consideration for them. Rue, sweet as she is, is the one of the tributes who is not a natural survivor. She lacks the pragmatic and seemingly cruel backbone that comes with life experience. She may grow up to be tough as nails but in The Hunger Games she is too innocent to be admired.
I suspect though that The Hunger Games appeals to many young people in spite of the injustice of events between the competitors in The Games because of the overall injustice of Panem. It is much easier to deal with the great big black/white, right/wrong, good/evil dissonance between the people of The Capital and the people of the districts than it is to deal with the comparable pragmatism of the tributes.
I admire Collins choice to not pretty things up, to let the muck fall where it may as the story tells itself. I like that kind of honesty in fiction. For that reason, I hope my own child, an aspiring author herself, will one day give The Hunger Games another chance.
I plan to see The Hunger Games movie when it is released and I plan to read the other two books in Collins’ Hunger Games Trilogy. If you would like to discuss The Hunger Games, please post your comments below being careful not to spoil the plot for anyone who has not yet read the book.
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