On the Hunt for "The End"

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~Hart Crane

Once more I am searching for the end of a story. Once more it seems to be hiding from me behind a crazy mixture of words that don’t seem to be paving the pathway I need to glide on toward “the end.” Once more I’m feeling the way I did back in 2009 when I wrote this:

It's been a hard work week so far with too many other things I have to do getting in the way of my five pages a day quota to make sure I meet my summer deadline. I've been writing and maybe almost getting my pages, but at the end of the day I sometimes end up thinking that I'm going to have to cut most of those words in the final draft. But I tell myself to just get the words out there where I can cut them or improve them, where I can tell the story I'm trying to tell. In the best way I can.

That’s one of the good things about keeping a writing journal. You can see you’ve been in the same place before. You can see that it wasn’t fatal. The story did get written. You can see that it even got published and people read it. Maybe not as many people as you might hope. Most all writers wouldn’t mind an appearance on the New York Times Bestseller list, but any reader’s list is good too.

I’m not sure which book I was writing in 2009. Maybe The Seeker or The Blessed. I’m almost sure it must have been one of my Shaker books. That’s what I’m searching for the end of once again. A Shaker book. I’m anxious to be at the end. I tremble a bit thinking about reading it over once I find those elusive words for fear I have not written the story I hoped to write when I first typed in the words “Chapter 1” and began.

The post back in 2009 was titled “Making the Words Disappear.” You can click on this link if you want to read the rest of what I wrote then. That is what a writer needs to do - make the words disappear. A writer wants readers to be living the story with the characters and not simply reading about them. Some years ago I was teaching a community ed class on writing and one of the sessions was how to make characters come to life. In the process of searching for something that might keep my wannabe writers interested in this very uneducated in writing processes teacher I searched for inspiring advice from other writers who were more educated in the writing process. One of the things I read that I have never forgotten was a writer saying she wanted to create characters who would crawl up into a reader’s heart and find a home there. That’s what I want to do. That’s what I’m trying to do with this book as I push my people out on the paths that will help me find an end of the story that will satisfy them and me and you, the reader.

Do the words disappear for you when you’re reading? 

Have you met characters that you invited into your heart and that you remembered long after you came to the end?

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Sassafras, Boysenberries and the Sound of Words

Do you like the sound of your voice? It's funny, but somehow when we're speaking, we don't hear our voice the same as when we hear it recorded. I remember the first time I heard a recording of my voice. I was in high school and somebody had brought in a tape recorder. None of us had recorded our voices before and so we were playing with it. I remember my shock when I heard my voice. It was so awful I decided I'd never speak aloud again. Of course, that lasted about two minutes. It's too much fun to talk.

The reason I'm remembering all this is that not long ago somebody told me I should make some videos. He's been trying to help me improve my use of media and after he met me face to face and witnessed firsthand how much I like to talk, he told me I was a storyteller. He thought I should try videoing some of my Facebook posts. So I've been playing around with the video on my iPhone. And you know what? I'm still not crazy about the sound of my voice, but I am more used to it now. Anyway, I decided to test out my very first live video on you sweet people. It's about picking boysenberries and is less than a minute long. 

If you listen to it, you can tell me what you think. Stupid? Wait, you wouldn't tell me that. You're too nice, aren't you? Silly? You might tell me that. Boring? You'll probably tell me that. Just keep in mind - this is a test. This is only a test. If it were a real video, I would have hired a voice-over actress and maybe a script writer too. LOL. 

But back to boysenberries and sassafras. I posted a photo of sassafras leaves on my Facebook page and asked how many people had tried sassafras tea. You'd be surprised how many. I'm not sure if I have or not. I think Dad brought in roots and Mom made it once, but I can't positively remember tasting it. But whether you've tasted it or not, you know the word. 

One of my Facebook friends said she loved the word - sassafras. Doesn't it roll off your tongue just the way you think it should? And boysenberry is the same. A treat for the tongue - both the berry and the word. 

I love words that glide through your ears and look good on paper too. I like fun words that sound what they mean. Like nincompoop. Or rain. If you draw that word rain out with a bit of southern drawl, you can hear drops sliding down your window. Or fever. Or hash. Add an 'r' and you have harsh. It sounds just that. But then think willow or whisper. 

So even though I don't particularly like the sound of my voice, I do like the sound of words. And somehow just seeing those words written down plays the sounds in our heads as we're reading. As you're reading, you might not even notice the words. That's the way a story is supposed to read, but if the writer has chosen the right words, the best words, then those words can add so much to the story.  So maybe I need to add a few boysenberries and some sassafras tea to my next story or have a willow tree whispering in the breeze. 

Oh yeah, and there's that word "ow" or "ouch" I said you would hear a lot if you were here picking boysenberries with me. Maybe it will be better if we just sit in the glider and sip some of that sassafras tea. Or eat a piece of that boysenberry cobbler.

Thanks for reading. What words can you think of that are a treat to the ears or that sound exactly as they should?

Book after Book

"But how do you come up with enough to make a book - book after book?"

Once more I've written those two very important words "the end." And of course, I had to shout about it on Facebook. That's what Facebook friends are for, to help you celebrate the ups and send you {{{hugs}}} during the down times. So naturally I shared with my FB friends that I had found those words for the who-knows-how-many time. I've published over twenty books, but I've written way more than that. Some that will never be published. Some that might have a chance of ending up in front of a reader some day. 

This story that I finally found the end on has a very good chance of being published. First, I have to clean it up, tighten the words, make sure it's at least halfway okay in the next week or so before I show it to anyone. Editing waits in the wings. 

But one of my FB friends asked me the question above. How do you come up with enough for book after book? A very good question and a daunting one when you are a writer - whether you're a beginner or an old hand at writing. A book is a lot of words. Words that have to tell a new story each time. There are only 26 letters in the alphabet but they go together in amazing ways. I'm sure someone out there knows how many words there are in a dictionary. I don't. I just know it's a lot and that those words can be put together in endless ways by writers as they think up new stories, hunt fresh ways to describe things, create new people with different characteristics. 

How do we do it? I suppose the simple answer is one letter or word at a time. And there's truth to that. But the answer my reader was seeking is more complicated than that. So complicated that it will take a smarter person than me to answer it. Boy, that was a cop-out, wasn't it? 


So okay, although I can't answer for the great mass of writers out there arranging and re-arranging those letters and words into stories, maybe I can answer for me. Each new book grows in my imagination, little by little. Each one starts with an idea. A lot of time a what if question. Sometimes it starts with a character. Sometimes an event or place and the characters spring from that. I don't wait for the story to be fully formed in my imagination. I let the characters grow and the plot develop as I go. And somehow the words keep spilling out, sentence by sentence, until I do have enough of them strung together for book after book.


The first book I wrote was the hardest and the easiest. The hardest because I'd never done it before. I didn't know if I could even find that many words to tell a coherent story. It was also the easiest because I'd never done it before. Every description I came up with was fresh and new. Now I have to try not to echo my other books and find new and different ways to tell a lot of the same sorts of things. That can make book after book challenging. But it is good when I get to those two words that never change from one book to the next. The End.


If you're a writer, what do you think is the most challenging thing about writing book after book or story after story? And if you're a reader, what do you think would be the most challenging if you did try to write a story? 


Thanks for reading. And I know. I let Wednesday slip past me again. The out-of-state grandkids spent the night here Monday, and I knew it would make me forget what day it was the rest of the week. Top that with Bible School and Mom having some rough mornings and no wonder I don't know where I am or what I'm doing sometimes. I am hoping I knew what I was doing when I wrote the end. That remains to be seen when I do my first read through.

Expert Writing Advice

"An expert is someone who tells you why you can't do something." Alec Issigonis

One afternoon last week I was working away in my office with everything humming along. Then I went for a walk and when I got back the electricity to my office and all that part of the house was off. We tripped all the breakers in the box on and off. Nothing happened. Except I had to reset every clock in the house. But still no juice getting to my computer and lights in my office. It seemed a sign. A higher power in control of the power had turned me off. No ice had downed any lines. The front part of the house still glowed with light. The t.v. was playing. But my office was dead. I couldn't write.

Of course I think it's a little sad that the loss of electricity so disturbs my writing world. Whatever happened to the inkpen and wirebound notebooks where I scribbled my first stories? Well, I don't know about the ink pen, but I have to admit I know exactly where those notebooks are. I would probably cringe to read them now, but I kept them. Will keep them forever. My children can cringe if they read them right before they pitch them in the garbage after I pass on. There are some things a writer can't throw away even when she should.

Words. That's the hardest thing for us to throw away. Our words. It's hard to slice and dice our beautiful words. I find it even harder to slice and dice other people's words. Aspiring writers come to me wanting encouragement. I want to give encouragement, but I'm far from an expert editor on anybody else's work. My own words - those I can edit. Ruthlessly.

But I have to be in the story to do editing and to immerse myself into other people's stories requires far too much creative energy. I need whatever creative energy I can catch hold of to make my own story hunt. And I don't want to be the kind of expert who just tells somebody they can't do what they want to do. Because I don't know how good they can be.

I learned this lesson years ago when I was asked to teach a class on fiction writing and prior to the class, I critiqued the first chapters of the participants' novels. One of the writers seemed to be completely off base and to have no handle on how to put together a story. But then we had a read aloud session. She brought something else to read and what she read that day was the best in the class. I still worry that my comments on her writing weren't as encouraging as she needed them to be. But she was a writer something like me. I sensed it in the way she rejected my what I hoped was positive criticisms. She knew she could write and she wasn't about to let a little upstart of a writer who had lucked into publishing a novel tell her any different. I'm glad. Because I'm not an expert just because I've managed to publish a few books. That makes me blessed and perhaps a stubborn hard-working writer, but not an expert about anybody else's writing.

The best advice I could have gotten early in my quest for publication was "Write." That's still the best advice for up and coming writers. You know that might still be the best advice for me. "Write." Then again that might be the second best advice for wanna be writers. The best will always be to read. Or maybe you have a different idea? What is the best writing advice you've ever gotten or read or maybe given someone?

A Story of Words

I just talked to a bookclub in New York and one of the questions they asked was "Do you like to read?" That was an easy question. I not only like to read, I feel deprived when life keeps me too busy to read as much as I want. I'm one of those people whose eyes seek out words, on the cereal box or toothpaste tube or billboards along the highway if that's all that is at hand. Words are powerful. In the right hands, they can come together to tell an unforgettable story, inspire a generation, make you buy something you don't need, or perhaps bring you to your knees.

And if you string enough words together you have a book - a story to be shared with readers. I like sharing my stories with readers, but I also like reading other writers' stories. Reading fills my creative reservoir. When I'm researching and reading history books, whispers of stories bounce around inside my head. What if my character did this? What if he or she did that? When I read fiction, I might not be gathering ideas for a new story, but I'm absorbing the rhythm not only of the words but also of the characters' lives. And that makes me a better writer when I do sit down to invent my next story.

So in honor of book club members everywhere who love reading so much they not only assign themselves a book to read every month they come together to say what they liked or didn't like about the book, here are some quotes about books and reading.

• Anyone who says they have only one life to live must not know how to read a book. ~Author Unknown (Ilike the idea behind this quote!)
• A good book has no ending. ~R.D. Cumming
• I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves. ~Anna Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," New York Times, 7 August 1991
• Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. ~Charles W. Eliot
• Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind. ~James Russell Lowell
• If you have never said "Excuse me" to a parking meter or bashed your shins on a fireplug, you are probably wasting too much valuable reading time. ~Sherri Chasin Calvo
• These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. From each of them goes out its own voice... and just as the touch of a button on our set will fill the room with music, so by taking down one of these volumes and opening it, one can call into range the voice of a man far distant in time and space, and hear him speaking to us, mind to mind, heart to heart. ~Gilbert Highet

One of my goals for the year is to gift myself with a little extra time for reading. Hope you all read dozens of good books this year. But watch out for those fireplugs!