We Bought A Zoo

Hi there and Happy New Year.

Did I end the New Year revising a chapter so Tessa can move along in my sister’s novel?  No, I have to admit, I did not.  I decided to postpone  penning words until New Year’s Day.  Instead of writing I made up new calendars, paid bills, cleaned out drawers, talked on the phone, played online, — you know, all those things we writers do when we are trying not to sit our butts down in the chair and spit out the words.

And then I went to a movie, “We Bought A Zoo,” with my sweetheart of many moons.  And, what a great movie.  I expected a story about animals.  But no… it’s a dynamite story about people, a family of three, a dad, a son, a daughter, who struggle to mend after the loss of a wife, a mom.  It is based on a true story, and that makes it more genuine.  The little girl is fabulous.  She has some great lines as do the dad and brother.   Okay, enuf about the movie.  Go see it.  You will love it.  If that doesn’t sound like your cup of glog, well then try Mission Impossible.   I understand it has some marvelous chase scenes.

After the movie came dinner.   Scored flounder for me.  I inhaled it as we laughed and joked around with our next-door neighbors, Joyce and Fred.  A fun evening.  We were home in time to smooch at  midnight and ring in yet another new year.  So now it’s here and my fingers are on the keys.  I feel right at home.  I’ve stored up many tales the last few weeks. The words are elbowing one another trying to get out.  Ah, that’s a great feeling.

I’m ready to face the bad stuff along with the good.  As Ernest Hemingway said,  ”Every good writer needs a shock-proof shit detector.”   (I should have requested one from Santa.)  I just read a similar writer’s quote from a book called “Advice to Writer’s:  A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes and Writerly Wisdom…” that went something like this: “If you’re working on a novel and you don’t once in a while feel like you just passed a hot turd, you aren’t working hard enough.”  Well, I certainly feel that way at times, so I guess I’ve aced that test.

How about you?

Lisbeth

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Birth Order

I belong to a book club, and one of our members has selected The Birth Order Book:  Why You Are the Way You Are by Dr. Kevin Leman.  I have just barely gotten into it, but I’m already fascinated with some of the interesting theories about how your position in the family line up affects your life.  There are a lot of variables that go into listing traits differences between the first born, second born, baby of the family and so on.  One comment rang a loud bell for me.  Levin said,  ”Second children are know for going in exactly the opposite direction as the first born in the family.”  Bingo.  My character, Tessa, is a second born, and she’s nothing at like her older perfectionist sister, Claudine.

Second born children are often independent –they tend to leave home.  In my latest chapter,  Tessa, a trailblazer from the Midwest flies to California to follow her dreams, — thinking she’s untied the family cords.  But Miss Tessa’s in for a surprise.  She’ll soon discoverthat the bonds we create with our siblings and parents remain in place no matter how far away we go.   Tessa has always been and undoubtedly will continue to be the family mediator — a common second child trait.  She’s leaving in hopes of avoiding constant family conflict.  What she doesn’t know is that there are a boatload of serious family problems down the road.  And staying with the tradition of many firstborns,  Claudine won’t hesitate to bring Tessa back home to do some negotiating.  I figure that this birth order scenario just may help guide Tessa and Claudine to the finish line.

Does anyone have a birth order scenario to share??  If so, let me know.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Lisbeth

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Runners make it look easy…

Hello,

It’s a sunny day here in Savannah.  In just two weeks we have 23,000 runners coming to town for the Rock and Roll Marathon.  Runners get my praise.  You die-hard souls of all ages hit the trails in all kinds of weather, push forward no matter what, with an unwavering dedication.  You go miles and miles day after day reaching personal goals of fitness.  You make it look easy, however I suspect that is a myth.

Just like sitting down to write, my guess is that becoming a runner takes hard work and requires a mountain of discipline.  I’m sure as we writers struggle to keep the creative juices flowing, you runners and bikers, and swimmers, and yes, you marvelous triathletes also must fight numerous temptations to stray from regimented patterns of training.

We writers can relate.  We know how difficult it can be to get to the finish line.  We get that I can’t keep going feeling in the middle of a book.  We think, I’m out of juice.  Why did I think I could do this?  I stink.  I should have taken up gardening.  Whatever made me think I could go down this road?  What was I thinking?  But then, we slink through the rough spots.  I guess for a writer it’s that period when observations start coming out as prose and it all feels so good — all the way to the finish line.

Okay, this was fun to write.  It makes me want to go out for some exercise and then get back to work revising my novel about the sisters, Tessa and Claudine.  It is high time we headed further toward the finish line.

PS:  Kudos to daughter-in-law Kara Thom, a writer and a runner, who is This Month’s Revlon Role Model and co-author of Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life As A Fit Mom. She is featured in a Revlon ad in the October 24 People Magazine.  Way to go Kara.

Lisbeth

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Real Life vs. Fiction

“Sometimes real life takes over my fictional fantasies. I recently found myself in ambulance on the way to the ER after suffering a coronary spasm while driving my car.  Not fun, I can assure you.  The ambulance driver asked me if I’d been under any kind if stress.  “Not really,” I said.  After all, I had walked three miles that morning with my good pal, Phyllis, and that afternoon I planned to give a talk to a book club.  Life was rolling along at a normal speed.  I almost mentioned that Tessa and Claudine were driving me a bit batty, but I kept my thoughts to myself.  Think about it.  If that guy found out that Tessa and Claudine were fictional characters, he’d be sure to question my sanity.

Just for the record, I’m home and doing much better, but I must mention my twelve hours in ER land.  Here goes:  I was placed on a gurney in the hallway that was mobbed with doctors and nurses scurrying in every direction.  The rooms were all filled.  Gurneys covered every inch of space.  A young doctor named Aaron stopped by and asked me a list of questions.  He looked like he just stopped playing with his Brio train and didn’t need to shave.   He took notes.  I imagined him writing down.  “Older woman.  Typical chest pain case.. “I’ll report this to Dr. Rogers, my boss, he said and walked away.  In side my head, I started humming,  “Oh, its a wonderful day in the neighborhood…”

I got wheeled into a small room and hooked up to a heart monitor.  My husband paced the floor.  We were in a supply room which became a great people-watching center.  We heard voices and saw all kinds of action outside the door.  A new patient arrived, a woman on a gurney.  “Ma’am, why did you call an ambulance,” an attendant asked.

“I was feeling lousy,” she said.

“Do you have pain in your chest?”

“No.”

“Any vomiting?  Didn’t you say you’d been throwing up?”

“No, I never said that.”

“Did you fall?”

“No.  I didn’t fall.  My bones are just fine.”

“Why did you call?”

“I just did.  I feel real bad.”  The man sighed.

A male nurse took my blood pressure.  He said they were trying to get a  hospital room for me, but the hospital was full.  My husband went out to get us a sandwich.   After we ate, they moved me out of the supply room, rolled the gurney out the door.  That’s when the real circus began.  It was 9 pm, and life in the ER had begun to escalate.

I got wheeled past an African American man who refused to lie down on his gurney.  Like a jack-in-the-box, he sat up.  The nurses laid  him back down.  Up, down, up down.  It continued.  He talked in a loud voice.  He pointed at me as we passed by.  He jabbered and laughed, pointed at other patients, and shouted.  It seemed he was flying high on something, feeling no pain.  The other patients scowled,  acting irritated at his noisy behavior. 

“Cleveland,  now just where did they pick you up this time?” the nurse asked.

“I don’t reckon I recall,” he said, with a sly grin.  “I jes don’t recall.”

I made a trip to the restroom, right next to Cleveland’s gurney.  I had left my long pants on.  I’d seen enough people walk past with hospital gowns on, their rear ends hanging out.  “Hey, girlie,” he said, pointing at me.  I refused to make eye contact with him.  When I headed back to my room, I noticed a  husky, strong-looking police officer walking with a huge ER patient  in handcuffs.  Once this patient got onto an oversized gurney, they handcuffed him to the rails. 

Barney, the transport nurse, kept busy wheeling patients to X-ray.  He took me down the hall, on what he admitted was the hospital’s squeakiest gurney, for a chest X-ray and then brought me back.  At this point, we’d been in the ER for nine hours.   On the way back to my ER cubicle I watched as nurses and doctors rushed from patient to patient  I saw all varieties of patients young, old, tall, short, fat, thin, Asian, Caucasian, Spanish, African American, and who knows what else.  Cops hung out in every corner.  A black woman over six feet tall walked in limping, her hands handcuffed behind her, a strong-looking female police officer at her side. 

“Do you think my wife will get a room tonight?” my husband asked a nurse. 

“I’ll check,” she said.  “She’s been here a long time.  A lot of people won’t.”  She came back an hour later and said,  “Consider yourself  lucky.  You’ve got a room.  It still needs to be cleaned, however.” 

We left the ER after 12 1/2 hours.  I felt like I’d had enough real life for one day.

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Lib’s Writing Tips

I went to the first meeting of my summer writing workshop.  When the first chapter of my novel, Tessa and Claudine, was critiqued, our workshop leader pointed out several instances where I’d stepped out of the narrative to explain something.   He emphasized the importance of character development and staying in the character’s voice.   He showed where I’d listed details and explained how it would be better to filter in the details by showing them.  I did some backdooring, meaning I tried to stick in info I wanted the reader to have.  He said to be patient. I could tell the reader later on when it worked better.   “It’s a novel,” he said.  “You have plenty of time.” I did a bit of overwriting.    The good news is I came home and spent hours revising this chapter. 

.My main tip from the first workshop is this:  watch out for those times when you are simply telling the reader something.  It stops the narrative.  Trust your reader and keep the narrative moving.  I found that to be such good advice.  I’m often afraid the reader won’t understand the narrative, so I stop to explain.  DON”T do this.  I hope you won’t  step out of the narrative either.  (Nobody said novel writing was going to be easy.)

(By the way, a few other tidbits from our workshop leader  regarding my manuscript, “This is nice.  Great line.  Another great line.  Perfect line.  Cut.  Cut.  And, what does this mean?”)

If this helps only a few writers, I will be delighted.  If you have any tips for me , I’d love to hear them. 

Cheers, Lib

www.lisbeththom.com

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March Madness

          I love March Madness.  Here we are almost to the end of the NCAA tourney.   I’m still revising TESSA AND CLAUDINE and my main character, Tessa, has become a big basketball fan now that she’s moved to Indianapolis, a big basketball state.  In fact in a recent chapter she attended a high school tournament at the Butler fieldhouse, so in light of that I’m rooting for the Butler Bulldogs.  I know it’s a long shot, but Tessa wants me on their side.

          The fun part about writing fiction is that the characters slowly come to life as the story progresses.  At first, they are like paper dolls.  I can get them to do what I want.  But, not for long.  The characters soon start driving the story forward on their own.  I remember the time, when I was writing my first book, ROW AWAY FROM THE ROCKS, and my husband invited me out to dinner.  (I think it was because he came home from golf at dinner time and I was still working on the computer).  

          At dinner, he said, “So how’s your book coming along?”

          “Okay, I guess,” I said, “but I’m so angry at Carrie, my main character.  She always has to have everything her way.   I’m getting sick of her attitude.”  

          My husband rolled his eyes and looked at me like, oh man, she’s really gone over the edge.   As for me, I got excited because at that moment I realized that my character had become real.  

           And now my characters in TESSA AND CLAUDINE hve reached this stage.   Each time I sit down to redo a chapter, I reread the chapter before making changes and wonder just where some of the scenes came from.   I suppose I have my characters to thank for some of the fun surprises.

           Well here’s hoping we have some plenty of surprises in the tournament next weekend.  Obviously, we have four dynamite teams– Duke, Michigan State, West Virginia, and Butler – vying for that top spot.

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Sister Sharing Update

I know, I know.  Everyone is hustling and bustling around this week getting last minute things done in readiness for Christmas.  Me too.  We head to Minneapolis on 12/23 to visit family.  And yes, we have  read the weather reports — a big snow storm is on the way.  I haven’t been dreaming of a white Christmas, but guess what?  I’m getting one anyhow.  I think the grandkids will be building giant snowmen, or is it better  to say snowpeople?   We certainly don’t want to get stuck in an airport.  Just in case, I’ll have my Kindle with me  and a notebook for jotting down people-watching observations and whatever else pops into my head.

I’ve been busy reworking my novel in first person, present tense, and it sounds more natural.  The good news is my characters are happy with me.   I hated that guilty feeling when they were sitting across the room, breathing down my neck.  Now, they come with me to holiday parties, to church, out to dinner, shopping, on walks, into the bathtub.   We ‘re back in synch — they march around in my head giving me tips on what they would like to do or NOT do next.  Tessa, my main character, had the nerve to ask me what I got her for Christmas.   I told her to simmer down.  What I got her was a new lease on life.  I put her back in action, as if that wasn’t enough.  She acts like a goody two-shoes.  But, I can assure you, she is not all perfume and roses.  Like everyone else, she has her devious moments.  Everyone knows her older sister, Claudine, has a bit of the devil in her, but Tessa puts on this nice-girl front.

As many a writing instructor has told me, a character cannot be all good or all bad.  Everyone is made up of a little of both.   That’s always a good thing to remember.  My sister used to be the one who got in the most trouble.  She argued with my mom a lot, which got her in  hot water.  As for me, I often behaved poorly, but didn’t talk back.   Acting innocent saved my skin.  Mouthy Charlotte often got blamed.  (Sorry Charlotte.)

Here’s hoping all of you have a blessed Christmas.  I wish  you peace and joy in the coming New Year.  I’ll check back in with a report after we return from Minnesota.

Do you have sister stories to share?  Did you let your sister take the blame?  Feel like confessing?

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Time to Market Tessa and Claudine

I must tell you that the dinner last weekend went well.  Doug grilled the lamb to perfection and the Tomato’Zucchini Tart was a BIG hit.  After several requests from readers for the recipe, I added a recipe section to my website, so check it out.  For now it includes the tart recipe and my family favorite Failed Fudge recipe.

Writing update:  This has been a summer of poetry writing.  I have been working on a special poetry project this summer in hopes of having a book of poems out in time for Christmas giving.  I have also been doing revision work on my new novel, Tessa and Claudine, my story about two sisters who try but never seem able to bond. Their rudderless, alcoholic mother is forever driving a wedge between them.   And I still have the fun of giving talks about my first novel, Row Away From the Rocks.

Yesterday I had a fun phone call from Kris,  a girl in Oostburg, WI, telling me how much she enjoyed reading Row Away From the Rocks.  Her mother had just died, so she could relate to the story line — the caregiving,  Gram’s death., and referen es to local Wisconsin places.   She asked me to speak at her book club, since she also lives in Savannah part of the year.   It was delightful hearing from Kris, who also has a sister and would like to read Tessa and Claudine — soooo, I had better get busy on the marketing trail for this book.

I am off on vacation this coming week.   To Tahiti.  Yes, I know  –  it sounds pretty wild.  I will be gone for ten days.  When I get back it is time to get those query letters out, hit the marketing trail.  Come along with me.  I will give updates on rejections, maybes, and hopefully an acceptance.  I could use the company.  By the way, I  will keep my notebook handy and promise some Tahiti tales when I return.  Enjoy the warm August days.

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