December 28, 2008
“Clarinet or Sax?”
On December 21, I visited the Arts Extended Gallery in Detroit on the occasion its 50 year—golden—anniversary. The director for as many years as well as a co-founder is Dr. Cledie Taylor. Not only is she is a magnificent artist and art collector, but she happens to have been my art history teacher in high school. We have kept in touch throughout the years (she does the same with all of her students) and she was eager to know about my future writing projects.
I described one project that will focus on my paternal grandfather who—in addition to his day job—played the alto saxophone in a jazz ensemble that bore his name. I explained my desire to take saxophone lessons in order to be able to delve into his life more fully. Dr. Taylor suggested that I start with the clarinet. “Same fingerings. Breathing is less difficult,” she said.
I considered her advice. But in the end my decision is a no-brainer. More of a struggle to conquer the breathing technique? That’s the friction I wrote about before. The rub that’s necessary in order to create any well-crafted tale.
If I want to know more deeply some bit of the pain and anguish embedded in my grandfather’s life, then plunging headfirst and learning this instrument with all of its difficulties will do that for me.
So I’ll embrace the struggle. I’ll begin with the sax.
December 21, 2008
“A Major Intersection”
A few weeks ago I took part in the celebration of National Inspirational Role Models Month by conducting a workshop on inspirational writing for youth. For various reasons, only one pre-registered participant actually arrived for the session. After listing my published work as well as describing my resume as a professional writer—which includes stints as a contract editor—this person asked me a very potent question. She queried, “If you’re a professional editor, why do you let others edit your work?” I will expand upon the answer I gave to her.
We neither live nor write in a vacuum. The world of which we write and the world in which we live of necessity must intersect. That intersection takes into account the fact that we cannot always see the weaknesses inherent in what we have written.
So looking at the Acknowledgments page of my most recently published book Who’s Jim Hines?, I give editorial thanks to three people in particular. The Wayne State University Press acquiring editor asked that I transform the manuscript from a picture storybook to a chapter book for older readers. My sister—who not only knows me but also knows the family history very well—suggested the title, which in turn set my course for the development of the revised manuscript. That new title kept the scope of my thinking within perimeters that helped me create the book as it now stands.
When I submitted the revised chapter book manuscript, my editor pointed out three chapters that—to her reading—did not add to the flow of the story. I liked those chapters. Very much. But I took them out because I trusted her belief in the book’s potential and what was required to create a strong story. I sincerely believe that the book is better without them (though I might use them in another form in another book!).
My son smiled—versus his standard grunt—upon reading certain chapters. That was all the validation I needed to keep writing.
A manuscript is never the product of one person’s mind. And when we refuse to allow others into our creative processes, we do a great injustice to what we create.
December 14, 2008
“That Hurts”
A few months ago I attended a writers’ retreat. One of the participants was bemoaning the fact that she was not yet published and she basically knew the reason: The subject matter of her plots was…boring. Of the interesting stories she could explore she replied, “Some thing’s are just too painful to write about.”
I thought of her reply as I perused the list of 20 titles selected as the Library of Michigan’s 2009 Michigan Notable Books. My most recent book—Who’s Jim Hines?—is among the list and I am thrilled to be in such superb company.
Here’s what I noticed. The topics explore the depths of the human struggle to survive, serve, overcome, and take the road less traveled. The books address war, competition, social upheavals, mental illness, rejection, exploitation, and exploration.
The tone of these books is not always dire by any means. But the hook, the grabber, the lure to any well-crafted tale is the edge. The rub. The friction in life that keeps us from losing our footing and sliding down a slippery slope.
In exploring their topics and creating their books, these authors certainly didn’t shy away from pain. And no writer should.
December 8, 2008
“Truth through Fiction”
I took part in two book signing events this weekend at two very different locations—one at a major chain bookstore, the other at a church bazaar. At each venue, one comment was repeated over and over. Several people, whether they bought the book or just thumbed through the pages, remarked to me how important it is that we share our stories.
They didn’t go into detail and they didn’t have to. Even strangers to me and my family history recognized the necessity to pass along the details of our past. Whether they be anecdotes, secrets, schemes, or even myths, pulled together these bits of history provide a narrative that preserves the past for successive generations.
The rationale is a no-brainer. The accomplishment is no small feat. Various tales woven together often appear as gibberish or as a lot of ancestral noise that is just as well forgotten.
As a writer, I find that’s the beauty of portraying the truth through fiction. Holes can be plugged up. Narratives can be expanded. Names can be changed—the noise dampened—and the truth be told.
December 1, 2008
“Walking on My History”
Interviewing three writers with immigrant backgrounds, National Public Radio produced a series during Thanksgiving week on becoming American. One writer described her parents as saying they had one foot here and one foot in their homeland—they are American citizens, but they are still connected to the land of their birth.
It’s that pull of the soil. I know it all too well.
Upon hearing the comment of the writer’s parents, I immediately recalled my visit during the previous week to 1950 Halleck Street. It was a cold day. The PR reps who accompanied me stepped lightly on the hard grass, skirting garbage strewn across where a sidewalk should have been. But I felt home beneath my feet and stepped firmly. I walked where the house, the driveway, the fruit trees and grape arbor had been. They were walking on frozen ground. I was walking on my history.
The pull of the soil can be a powerful thing. I am grateful that I am still close and connected to the land of my birth.
November 22, 2008
“The Milky Green Stained Glass Window”
Yesterday I visited the lot where the house at 1950 Halleck Street once stood.
Background: When I was a very young child, I spent quite a bit of time at my grandparents’ home at 1950 Halleck Street in Detroit, Michigan. Before we were old enough to attend school, my cousins and I spent our days there while our parents advanced their careers at their respective jobs.
While there was no longer a wood yard on the property (see my latest book Who’s Jim Hines? for more on the wood yard), we youngsters found plenty to do in the back and side yards—running up and down the back porch steps, climbing the lowest boughs of the fruit trees, peering at the sky through the huge grape arbor.
I also was mesmerized by something next door to my grandparents’ side yard. It was a milky green stained glass window on the side of the neighbor’s house. I would just stand there in the side yard and stare at that window. There was no intricate leaded design to catch my attention. Just a sheet of glass colored with milky green swirls. But for some reason that colored glass fascinated me.
Fast forward some decades: I hadn’t thought of that window all of those years. I had visited the site only once since my youth and don’t remember even looking at the window. Now, on a cold fall day, I was taking my publisher’s PR team on a tour of the lot where the house at 1950 Halleck Street once stood. The house had been taken by the freeway. The grape arbor was long gone. The fruit trees were gone as well.
But this time I noticed the window.
The house next door was mostly boarded up. But quite surprising for me, the window was still intact. And maybe because it is the only tangible thing that remains from my memories of a time so many years ago—but I stood in the side yard on a bitterly cold fall afternoon and stared at that milky green stained glass window.
November 17, 2008
“A Writer’s Lines”
A few weeks ago I wrote about “lines of time”: those bits of remembrance that fire my muse.
I’ve also shared a couple of what I’ll now call “writer’s lines.” Look through the Write Word Journal archives and you’ll find the line from Jane Eyre, “Reader, I married him.” You’ll also see my mention of Robert Hayden’s final lines from his poem “Those Winter Sundays.”
This time I’ll share a writer’s line from Dandelion Wine. This was Ray Bradbury’s first novel. I read it in middle school and haven’t picked it up since. But one line has stuck with me through all of these years. It’s the line spoken by Helen Loomis to Bill Forrester—from a ninety-five year old woman to a thirty-one year old man—“…you were born either too early or too late.”
I have thought of this writer’s line sporadically throughout my life because it encapsulates the essence of what often seems to be the capriciousness of time. How one moment, seemingly misplaced, can change life forever: a devastating word from one spouse to another that cannot be retracted and will never be forgotten. Or a connection that could have been consummated had it occurred a day, or as in Bradbury’s novel perhaps several decades, earlier.
I remember this writer’s line spoken by Ms. Loomis when I think about time.
November 10, 2008
“I See What I See…”
So what are the eyes of a writer? I’ve mentioned in previous postings—
- Seeing the story
- Seeing my grandfather on a painter’s canvas
- Seeing the world differently.
What is it exactly that I see through these writer’s eyes?
First, my writer’s eyes see continuity. I try to create a bridge that connects the story I envision with the words that end up on paper. When it works well, the reader sees what I see and enters my world.
Next, and this may seem incongruous with continuity, but my writer’s eyes record distinct “scenes.” The world becomes a storyboard. I have files upon files of notes chronicling scenes witnessed in a hospital waiting room, or at a nearby table at a restaurant, or while walking through a public park. At some point, these snatches of time will be expanded to a chapter in a book, or a paragraph within a narrative. But for now, they are unconnected glimpses into the world I inhabit.
Finally, this writer’s eyes see the past as if it were the present. I felt just as comfortable writing about life surrounding my grandfather’s 1935 wood business as I did sitting in my cousin’s backyard during our Ford family reunion in 2008.
Enough explanation. I see what I see.
November 3, 2008
“Seeing the Story…”
I was a very young girl when I first heard the story of my grandfather’s driver Jim Hines. The story was told to me by my grandmother, my mother, and my aunts—they were the family griots. And as is the case with much family lore, I heard the story so often that it eventually ceased to carry any special relevance to me other than to elicit an “um hum” or an “oh yeah…”
When does the familiar transcend the ordinary and become the extraordinary? In this case, it happened via my cousin (whom I thank on the acknowledgement page of Who’s Jim Hines?). She is my youngest aunt’s stepdaughter. She came into the family as a teenager and first heard about Jim Hines as an adult. Something clicked inside her upon that first hearing and she “saw” the story immediately. She phoned me, giddy over the tale.
Her enthusiasm engulfed me and, for the first time, I embraced the tale.
What happened? Why did it take decades for me to “see the story” and write the book? Fresh eyes, mature eyes: both were necessary for me to revisit this old, old story. As well as a willingness to see something that I had internalized so long ago as a child—through the eyes of a writer.
October 26, 2008
“After So Many Years…”
“How long did it take you to write Who’s Jim Hines?”
That is a question that I am asked at every school presentation I make. What I find even more interesting is that my fellow writers have also asked me that same question as we chat during slow periods at book fairs and author events.
The students are always amazed when I answer, “Ten years.” I explain that the manuscript existed in various forms as a picture storybook for 5 years. Then through various rewrites as a middle grade chapter book per the suggestion of the Wayne State University Press Acquiring Editor. By the publication date in August 2008, ten years had passed.
The students are amazed, but the writers are not. It is a familiar timeline—eight, ten, fifteen years. Stories are hatched, editors intrigued, plots are tweaked, editors no longer interested...Not to mention the time during which a tale germinates in the author’s mind, taking twists and turns before finally emerging in that final form.
My cousin, a children’s book illustrator whom I thank in the acknowledgment page of Who’s Jim Hines?, also understands. After receiving the copy of the book I sent to her, she emailed a thank you that read in part, “Incredible to finally hold a copy in my hand after so many years…if people only knew what goes into a book…”
October 19, 2008
“Lines of Time”
I call them “lines of time.” They are the snippets of conversation that I gathered from my mother, her oldest sister, and my uncle. These bits of remembrance provided me with most of what I needed to conjure up the story of Who’s Jim Hines?.
Sitting in the yard of my cousin’s farmhouse outside of Pittsburgh, my uncle explained the importance of his job of starting the fire in the wood-burning stove in the kitchen. “Without that fire, there would be no hot oatmeal for breakfast,” he said. Hence the opening line of the first chapter of the book— No fire, no oatmeal. No fire, no oatmeal.
My mother described her Polish neighbors every Saturday night as “dancing the Polka all night long…” That was enough to guide me in creating chapter two with its introduction of the ethnic composition of the Ford family’s neighborhood.
Each chapter was propelled by similar “lines of time.” How can a few lines of time—a few words of remembrance—be enough to ignite a book’s narrative? Once again, I believe it’s connected with embracing the timeless zone I wrote about last week. Each line was an invitation to explore and research another time. I was then able to refine my own vision of that distant reality.
October 12, 2008
“The Timeless Zone”
I generally don’t easily follow films that explore the nature of time or go back in time or repeat a spot in time over and over. Films such as “Terminator,” “Ground Hog Day,” and “Twelve Monkeys”—with few exceptions—bore me and confuse me. I tend to fall asleep after the first few time-muddled scenes.
But then recently, in response to my announcement of the RSS feed on my website, I received an email from a friend with whom I haven’t had face to face contact in almost twenty years. She extolled the virtues of our remaining connected via the internet and referred to the internet as a convenient “timeless” zone.
That comment blew me away. As much as I reject the concept in films, I realized that I have, on my own, been exploring time as well as the nature of time through my writings. I have entered my own “timeless” zone.
Who’s Jim Hines? takes place almost seventy-five years ago. I had to inhabit that era, in my mind, in order to write about it. I, in turn, brought that time up to the twenty-first century when I created the story. Even my mother and two of her sisters remarked that they felt as if there were back in 1935 as they read the book.
Without even realizing it, I have been wandering freely within a timeless zone. The story demanded it. And, as the writer, I have embraced that space.
October 6, 2008
“Four Words from Jane Eyre”
“Reader, I married him.” Those four words—that seminal line—from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, encapsulate the essence of the writer/reader relationship at its best and most intimate. With that line, Bronte accomplishes three things:
- First, she acknowledges that there is a reader,
- Second, Bronte manages to pull that person—the reader—into the narrative of the book, and
- Third, she addresses the fact that oftentimes, and I believe primarily in the realm of fiction writing, a new and unique relationship evolves between the writer and each reader because someone has become immersed in what another has written.
I explore those words of Bronte, particularly that third point, because of an email I received a few days ago. Someone I only recently met purchased a copy of Who’s Jim Hines? at a conference of children’s book writers that we both attended. She wrote to me after reading the book. And she shared something that for some reason shook me. She said the book “…became a reality that I was able to be part of.”
I have to admit that at first I felt violated. I felt that she had entered a part of my space where she had no right to be. Silly me. Because as I said in my May 1, 2008 Write Word posting, I want my readers to join me in my virtual world. It’s that new relationship Bronte paid homage to when she wrote, “Reader, I married him.” And it is indeed why I write.
October 1, 2008
“Remembering Robert Hayden”
Robert Hayden is my favorite poet. Yet I had not thought of him—or his work— for quite some time. Until, that is, I was writing the September 1, 2008 Write Word entry for this website. Then, as I was writing the opening sentence of the third and final paragraph, I wrote, “How can we know—how can we know—when events in our life…”
As I wrote, “How can we know,” I knew immediately what words had to follow. I was suddenly filled with the thought of Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” and those powerful final lines—“What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”
And there was no question but that I had to repeat that line of mine. Not so much because my entry demanded it. No, rather because suddenly I was filled with the realization that Hayden’s poetry is a part of me, is within me, and is welcome to remind me of its place in my creative existence even as I write.
September 1, 2008
“A Slice of Life”
Recently, I received a call from Colleen Kammer, owner of The Book Beat (which I believe is one of the finest independent bookstores in metropolitan Detroit, www.thebookbeat.com). She had just read Who’s Jim Hines? and wanted to congratulate me on the book’s publication. During our conversation, one of her comments that I most appreciate was that the storyline represents a “slice of life.”
I generally think of a “slice of life” as referring to a shorter span of time and the plot of Who’s Jim Hines? covers a span of a few months. So I was intrigued by Colleen’s comment. But after some thought, what I now understand is that a “slice of life” refers to those blocks of time, be they short or long, that converge and do two things—first, they bring meaning to so many seemingly random moments from our past. Second, they propel us onto our future.
How can we know—how can we know—when events in our life will find us in the midst of a “slice of life?” I’m not going to try to answer that one right now. I just want you to think about it.
August 1, 2008
“The Child Within Me”
I sat for an interview a few days ago with a program host for our local Detroit public radio station. The subject of the interview was my recently released middle grade book Who’s Jim Hines?. The host was a very astute interviewer, which I appreciate very much.
While he was interested in the local Detroit history focus of the book, what seemed to intrigue him more was the fact that as an adult I was able to see and write the twelve-year-old protagonist’s story. I was able to express that world through the eyes of a child. I had the feeling that he had been waiting to ask a writer what he asked of me—how does an adult write from the viewpoint of a child?
While this was a taped and not a live interview, I still could not ponder this question too deeply. But what I answered, and upon closer reflection what I still believe to be true, is this. My mother and her siblings were children when the book’s events occurred. These stories were a part of them. I heard the stories of the Douglas Ford Wood Company and Jim Hines from them when I was a child. These stories became a part of my connective history with my relatives.
So it was very natural—if not always easy—for me to write this book from the eyes of a twelve-year-old child. The story that I saw and translated in the form of a book was the world that was told to me, grew up with me, and became my own.
July 1, 2008
“Seeing My Grandfather”
I’ve always had an affinity for visual art. I love the immediacy. One glance at a well-executed painting on a wall or sculpture in a courtyard is enough to grab my attention and shake my senses to the core. That kind of visual power attracts me.
So when Detroit-based figure/portrait artist John Hegarty asked me to sit as one of his models, I immediately agreed—I would be able to witness a master at work and up close. More to the point, I was curious to find out what part of me would end up on the paper. What exactly would he see when he searched my soul looking for me?
I never would have guessed. After the first session, I took a quick peek at what John had done and couldn’t believe who I saw. Those first few lines produced a sketch of my maternal grandfather, Douglas Ford Sr. When John Hegarty explored the depths of my existence, he pulled out my grandfather’s face as it rested in mine.
Small wonder that I was compelled to write Who’s Jim Hines? This middle-grade novel is rooted in the story of my grandfather’s business, the Douglas Ford Wood Company. But I now know—after seeing that man where I expected to find my own face—that as much as it is his story, it is also mine. |
June 1, 2008
“More About Those Pictures”
There is a Chicago-based artist—Deirdre Fox—who was one of my colleagues during my 2005 residency at the Ragdale Foundation in Lake Forest, Illinois. To describe her mesmerizing work, I have to paraphrase from the text on her website and say it falls somewhere between 2-D and 3-D. (See some of her work on www.artbydado.com.) Given the unusual nature of her art, I asked her one evening after our communal dinner with the other residents, “What do you see when you view the world?”
That was my clumsy way of acknowledging that she had to view the world differently in order to create the kind of visual art she makes.
Fast forward to a time a few months ago. I made a comment to a friend of mine who responded, “You would notice something like that—you’re a writer.” That was her way of acknowledging that I, too, view the world differently. I hear the sounds of life differently. Certain things interest me that perhaps others pass right by. Someone makes a comment and I cannot let go of it. I hear a bit of family history and it becomes a book.
Blessing or curse? Not sure yet, but it’s what I do and it’s another reason why I write.
May 1, 2008
“Pictures in My Head”
At the end of my school presentations, I try to leave a good amount of time for questions from the audience. Even the most restless listeners manage to sit still during a “no-holds-barred” Q & A session.
At a recent elementary school reading, one very astute youngster asked me, “Do you see pictures in your head when you write?” I was pleasantly surprised at this question. In my many years of giving school readings, no child had ever asked me that question. Now, they have sometimes asked me how do I write, and I have given the answer that will soon follow. But this was the first time a student had phrased the query in that particular way.
In essence, she was asking—How do the stories you see in your head make it to the printed page?
By asking that question, the young girl had pretty much figured it out. She understood that the writing process involves a curious connection between the mind and the printed word. She understood that a writer doesn’t just write what s/he knows—a writer also writes what s/he “sees.”
When I write, I step into a realm of virtual reality. I am living in the world my characters inhabit, and I vigorously transcribe what I see and hear. It’s a game that can confound me. Why? Because my goal—which sometimes seems elusive at best—is to present the words in such a way that my readers join me in that virtual world. My writing becomes an invitation to step into another place to witness and even possess joy, passion, happiness, agony, fear, triumph and defeat outside of their own.
Yes I see pictures in my head. And because of those pictures, I write.
April 1, 2008
“The Inkwell”
There have been many authors who have inspired me in my choice to pursue a career as a writer. But the first, and possibly strongest, influence in that decision was my grandmother. You see, my maternal grandmother, Maber Jackson Ford, was a writer. To the best of my knowledge she never wrote a book or published an article, but she was a writer still.
She wrote letters.
I remember so well as a young child watching her sit at the kitchen table and dip her fountain pen into the inkwell that held a glass jar full of midnight blue ink. She was left-handed, as I am. She repeatedly and methodically dipped her pen into the ink, put pen to paper, and wrote pages upon pages of lengthy letters to friends and relatives across the country.
The look of concentration in her face revealed her devotion to her correspondence. She thanked hostesses who were gracious to her during trips out East to visit my uncle and his family. She took care in sharing the details of her life in Detroit and that of her children and grandchildren to relatives in Tennessee. She maintained relationships with students from her days as a teacher down South in a one-room schoolhouse.
While she enjoyed reading the letters she received in reply, her real joy was in the writing. This one fact was obvious, even to me as a child: She was committed to her writing. She was serious about her work.
As a writer, I continually try to mirror her commitment to keep one word coming after the other, to finish the thought, to create the connection with the reader. Just as she dipped her pen in the ink and then put words to paper, I try to make the motions of hand to keyboard create words that mean as much to those who read my writings as the people who received her letters. That is no small task. But the memory of my grandmother helps me believe that I can do it.
February 16, 2008
“A Six Year Old with a Notebook”
I honestly believe that writers are born and not made. I don’t think there is any other way to justify the compulsion some of us feel to use the written word in such a way that readers are brought not only into our heads but into our consciousness.
My earliest recollection of viewing myself a writer is as a six year old. I was just learning to write and I sat at my desk at home, forming letters with a pencil in a little red notebook. I strung together letter after letter to form the words that I knew how to spell. I remember proudly showing my mother what I had written and commenting, “I’ll even be able to write whole stories some day.”
Why the memory of that pronouncement has stuck with me to this day I cannot explain. Could a six year old possibly foresee that writing “whole stories” would become a way of life? A way of looking at and absorbing the world so that it can be recreated on a printed page? Maybe so, maybe not.
But I do know that from that point on, writing was and has remained the way that I define both myself and my world. I see stories when I walk the dog and pass the same jogger each day wearing the same strained, determined look on her face. I imagine stories when I sit in a hospital waiting room and hear a doctor ask a family, “Would you like to speak to a priest?” More importantly, I create stories from my own family history. I pull memories from reminiscences heard as a young child, seared into my memory as family lore, such as the story behind the man in my most recent book Who’s Jim Hines?
As a six year old, somehow I knew that this is what I was called to do. And I have never doubted that word.
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