You all know we moved to a new house not so very long ago.  Well, my “writer’s den” has an exterior wall, covered in books, that I sit beside or before, depending on whether I’m working at the keyboard or on hard copy.  This “exterior wall” has nothing but “outside” beyond it, “outside” being plants, a garden path, and then a fence.  Beyond the fence isn’t much of anything.  Got that picture?  Good.

So I sit in my writing den, oblivious to the world, listening to tunes, watching the fish in my display tank when I get stumped (or lazy-brained).  I’m all alone, without anyone else around, not even a cat…because those ladies and gentleman are more content lounging on plush carpets and chittering out windows at feathered flutters.  And, all alone, lost in “writer’s trance,” there comes a jolt!

It’s like a knock on the wall, but a quick peek out the window in the door that’s but three strides east shows no one is there…not that they could get through the side gate without the my watch-birds sounding Hell’s alarm.  Frowning, I return to my desk.  Again, I become lost in my work…only for two knocks to jolt me out of reverie just about the time I lose track of reality.

I look under the desk for some surreptitious presence of cat, mouse…something.  But nothing’s there.  There’s nothing outside, no one around, at all.  So I sit there dwelling in wonder.  And again it knocks, one sharp rap!

Bounding out of my chair, I launch myself out the door, intent on catching my mischievous other half up to no-good.  But, yet, there’s no one there.  

My frown is deeper now.  

The knocking stops…for the rest of the week.

Next week it isn’t knocking.  It’s squeaking…like an old desk chair, only it is IN the wall.  It keeps up even when I explore outside to find no cause.  It keeps up when I pull manuscript boxes out from their storage cubby under the desk.  It keeps up. For an hour. And there’s no one, nothing, there.

I call the telephone company.  They send someone out.  There’s nothing wrong with the wiring.

I call the gas and electric companies.  Same result.

I get the plumber.  I call a contractor.  They dig into the wall.  Nope. Nothing there.  No plumping in that wall.  No mice nested in there.  Nothing in the wall that could knock or squeak.

Am I going nuts? They certainly think so by the looks they give me (humoring).

And this week?  It’s a moan.  It’s making me grumble under my breath now.  I’ve actually video recorded it, loud, live audio, with the clock on, because I’m calling all of them back, scheduling them all–telephone man, gas man and electrician, plumber and contractor–to come at the same time of day it happened–around 2pm.  It has to be something to do with temperature changes or something.  There used to be a hot tub out and down the path a ways.  Gotta be pipes or something. …Right?

…And, yes, this is just the sort of thing that winds up tucked into one of my novels.  But not until I’ve chased down the cause.  Can’t write about something I don’t know the answer’s end to, now can I?

A small little while ago, an agent (who shall remain nameless) decided to have a first paragraph contest. Hundreds of authors posted paragraphs, and there were a lot of good ones in the bunch. I’d have read on, anyway, and I’m choosy when it comes to which novels I’ll read farther than the first paragraph when perusing a novel at my local bookstore.  

I, along with, I’m sure, all the other visitors to this agent’s blog, waited with keen anticipation to see whose first paragraphs would be selected. Lo and behold, when the picks came out, I sat back in my chair and just stared. Others were a bit more public when it came to their reactions, posting their disgust with the world as witness. (Good for them, I guess.)

Moral of this post and that contest: If an agent doesn’t pick your manuscript up as interesting, don’t be disheartened. It really could be that it’s not the right “fit.” Remember, there’s no accounting for taste. Some prefer vodka; some prefer wine; some find that vinegar works just fine. Move on, move on, because, as that contest’s results prove, sometimes it’s the agent who is just not the right fit for you and yours.

A shiver that runs up the back of the neck, chills along the back of the upper arms (both of them at once), that gut clenching breathless moment; then there’s that prickly, “aware” sensation all over the scalp — these are just a few of the sensations we all seem to experience when faced with the “possibility” that “something ‘ghost-y’ is happening.”  I love to tap into that.  I love to cause that “ZING” in my readers.  

I don’t overtly make any “hay” that it’s real.  I only suggest that it might be.  And that’s the only thing I can do, because there’s no way to prove something to the five empirical senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell that exists beyond the range of their pragmatic ability to experience.

What’s especially fun is to watch a complete skeptic turn white, eyes bulging, hair on the arms erect, lips quivering, when you take them to visit a friend’s house known to be “haunted.”

Take the time an old friend of mine dropped in for a visit right as I was about to go exploring an old run-down house.  He came along, laughing and jibing me about gooey goblins and lumps that go bump in the silence.  Walking into the old place, he only hesitated and turned to look when, upon walking through the sprung gate hanging crooked on its old hinges, the thing decided then was the perfect time to release an excruciating metal chatter, though we’d not touched it.  

Ascending the house, the steps creaked.  Out loud, my friend wondered if they were sound.  

“They’re cement,” I said.  

Disbelieving me, he knelt down and ran his hands over them.  ”They are,” he said, a frown on his brow.  ”Then what creaked?”

“I don’t know.”

He gave me an odd look.

We went on to explore the old place, me taking pictures and notes.  Unlikely sounds and equally unlikely movements from various quarters made him absolutely jumpy, quelling any more scoffing and teasing.  He was very quiet on the return trip home.

Me?  I don’t know.  I just know that my experiences when I visit these old places make for good story elements. 

I suppose one of these days I should write up some of these episodes as a short story or two.  Maybe, better, a novel.  But, right now, I’ve got way too much on my plate to pursue new projects.  What’s fun, though, is the possibility that ghosties are watching and nodding as skeptics turn pale.

One of problems I suffer writing mainstream novels is creating them in such a way that, regardless of when they are published, they stay timely. Clothing styles and cars change, climate changes, technology evolves, and these changes happen faster and faster these days.  What was cutting edge just last year is now archaic.  Problem: novels usually take a minimum of two years to get onto the bookstore shelf.  That’s if  the novel already has a publisher and a production schedule.  So what’s an author to do?

I don’t know about other authors, but what I do is never have something so concrete that it can’t be changed — updated.  Whether it’s the climate (warming or status quo), the TV, the car and its fuel, the clothing and shoes, or the movie my characters might watch, these incidental, but temporal elements are written into the story in such a way that they can be changed to match when the book finally goes to print.

Think about what goes into a mainstream novel?  Your character stops to get a cup of coffee five years ago and pays .80 cents.  He stops today to get that same cuppa, and it costs $1.80.  ”So,” you say, “don’t price it.” Right?  Okay.  But sometimes you need to.  

How about the cell phone?  How about computers?  How about the car that runs on gasoline and suddenly we’re all driving hydrogen-fueled vehicles?  Or Ford went bankrupt in 2009 and, by 2010, doesn’t exist?  Your lead character can’t be driving a brand new Ford Mustang, now can s/he? How about the weather?  Yesterday’s temperate zone has, as of last year, become a desert.  Or polar bears went extinct last year and your story happens to have an incident in Alaska with an angry polar bear mom?  Oops!

The faster the world changes, the more problematic are the details an author includes in a story.  Trying to find some balance that allows the book to stay a good, undated, but modern read is proving unlikely in our fast-changing world.  So, now, when I write, I write with an eye to being able to change the details while holding the story so that, when an editor asks for an update to “present day two years from now,” I can attempt to do it (despite not having a crystal ball)  without having the story fall to pieces.  What doesn’t change are the characters or the plot.  Just the elements of the setting.

Of course, in my books, everything except the main characters, theme, and premise, are open to change, including plot elements.   …But that’s another story.

I wrote a quick short story this morning for The Deepening.  You can read it here: http://www.thedeepening.com/world-of-fiction/.  Later, I’m guessing you’ll find it by finding my author page or the short story list over on the same website.  I’ll be generating a few shorts here and there for that fine website, so do keep an eye out if you like pauses out of time for a moment of small wonder, joy, or pondering.

E.J.

Just a short post in the midst of my frenetic scheduel to say, Congratulations, DLKeur, on opening The Deepening again!  New and improved, too, it looks like, and good for us fiction writers.  A nice resource!

Writing fiction, to me, means writing life dressed up in camouflage equipped with a PA.  Just ramp up the colors and turn the volume to 10…or, sometimes, especially with people, do the opposite — turn down.

People, animals, and, yes, even plants, provide suitable fodder.  

“Plants?” you ask.  

Why, sure!  You think that tree branch you keep reminding yourself to dodge…and do, doesn’t purposely move to descend just the right amount to thwack you on the noggin even though you know you ducked low enough? You think that rambling rose branch you swore you tied up yesterday didn’t purposely grow another scion overnight, just as long, so it could catch you, once again, with its thorns?  How about that thistle in the grass you dug out with the weed puller just last week, getting its entire tap root.  So now your lawn is safe for walking barefoot, right?  Wrong.  You step, and — OW! — there it is…in the exact same spot!  What the–?!

People, families, and their various foibles are, of course, much more fertile resources to mine for interesting and even hardly believable fiction fodder.  That’s why the story writer has to lie, telling a more believable story than the reality presents.  

Take someone we’ll call “Sonya” and her daughter.  They get away with causing someone’s death, not once, but over five times in just under ten years, and they have yet to be caught. Yet everyone who knows them knows “they did it”…except the cops.  

How?

Sheer audacity, on one hand, and sheer stupidity upon another…but let’s not get too deeply into the hows and whys because I might want to write the story someday.  Suffice it to say, I’m going to have to adjust the “facts, Ma’am” because the truth is just too unbelievable.  I’ll have to hedge and mute and even amputate some of the most salient reasons why they keep “getting away with murder.”  To do it truthfully would just be too unbelievable and suspect.  People would guffaw and snicker, “Not possible!” So, if I write it, I’ll modify — lie — to make it more rationally feasible.  The reality, though, is, don’t get on these ladies bad side, not if you live around here…and even if you don’t…cuz they’re like a dog chewing a bone when it comes to avenging a perceived “wrong” against them.  And they never forget.  One of their victims was someone who slighted the mom way back in elementary school, some forty-five years previous.  How’s that for carrying a grudge?

Animals are some of my favorites, though.  Like the goldfish who swat their tails at their owner’s husband every time the poor guy walks past the fish tank.  Why?  ”Cause Jerry never feeds the fish, never cleans the tank, and never turns the light on,” says the owner.  ”If I go on a trip, the fish fend for themselves the whole time, even though Jerry’s in and out all day.  After I took my first two week trip, they started doing this.  I think they know he’s not their friend, so they splash him anytime he comes near. And it works, too.  He rarely goes past the fish tank, anymore.  When he does, he makes a really wide berth.” She chuckles.  ”Doesn’t matter, though.  They get him, anyway.  They’ve got a great aim.”  Noticeably, they don’t do this to strangers.  Only Jerry.  :D

Cows are great for similar tactics.  If they want to get back at you, they do it with a well-placed foot grinding yours into the ground underneath or the swat of a super-saturated tail-full of very rank and sludgy manure.

Humorous, sad, terrifying, or poignant, writing fiction becomes less that of invention and more of an exercise in skillfully adjusting truth so it’s palatable as fiction — writing lies from truth.

I take a lot of my story and novel ideas from real life.  For example: a woman — thirty-something — who is the daughter of a someone I know….

She’s divorced, destitute, has lost custody of her children, sucks booze down like its water, and is an all-round “problem child” — willful, petulant, throws raging tantrums. She holds no degree in anything, much less a high school diploma. Not even a GED.

Two years later, she’s pregnant by a guy who has just been released from the pen after serving time for embezzlement.  After a hard gestation, a baby girl is born.  The woman decides to go to school, gets her GED, goes on to study school administration, secures a degree, is hired as a counselor, continues her education until she qualifies and secures a job as a principal at a school for low achievers — mostly populated by the children of migrant workers.

Throughout this time, the woman returns home for visits, bringing the child with her each year. By ten months, the child is beginning to scream…a LOT. By two, the child is willful and resists guidance — pretty typical for a two-year-old.  By three and four, this resistance has turned into defiance.  By five and six, the child lies, sneaks, and steals…and, if corrected by someone other than her mother, strikes out with physical violence, lambasting Grandma and Auntie, too. By eight, the child is leading other children into trouble — climbing onto roofs, breaking windows…. I witness this child push her younger cousin off the roof after luring him up there. (He survives.)

Mom and daughter, plus husband move back with Grandms laying claim to grandma’s property…or trying to.  Securing another counselling job with the local school district, the lady wants to be a principal again. Her choice of school? The juvenile delinquent’s “alternative” high school. “They need a strong hand to get them on the right path,” she says.  (She’s still sucking down booze like it’s water.)

Now the neighborhood gets to witness the woman’s handling of her child, who is as willful and out of control as the lady was herself as a teen, Grandma tells us. One hears screaming. Child runs out the door, mother hot on her tail.  When mom catches up, child crouches down and covers her head with her hands, begging, “Please, please. Don’t hit me. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” and so on. Mom has her fist raised, screaming at the child, but stops suddenly when she sees the neighbors watching. She bends over, grabs the kid by the hair, and drags her back inside.

This is not a woman who needs to be principal of any school, nor a counselor, either. Ultimately, though, the lady does get a job as principal, not at the alternative high school, but at the regular middle school.

Now, remember, the above is a true account, not fiction. …So this is the kind of stuff that feeds my books — real life happenings I’ve witnessed, or which I’ve seen part of the scenario and get filled in on the rest by the neighbors and relatives talking about the family’s history.

Suffering bad writing and patently predictable stories is something I don’t do well. Now, I admit, what is bad writing and “same ol’ story” to me might be something that others find laudable. I also admit that I don’t read everything that’s published, not by half (not even a quarter of it), so I can’t really tell when something is, in fact, another clone of someone else’s latest rage. I’m too busy writing my own stories to read most of what is released these days, except for those authors I already know and love. This isn’t because I’m lazy. It’s because I’m writing. Only when I stop writing, for whatever reason, do I then commit myself to devouring a book a day. Lately, though, I’ve been critiquing works for others. Two exceptionally talented authors are my major focus, but, occasionally, I’ll look at what’s in need of a read and review in more open waters. And what do I find? My eyes rolling.

First we have the persistent “I” narrative. If the story needs the “I” POV, I’m all for it, but, mostly, it’s just sadly rendered, poorly masked author angst and auto-biographical fantasizing. Next comes the too obvious podium/pulpit pounding. Then there’s the “I love elves,” the “I love guns and heroes/heroines” and the “I wanna be loved” lot. Predictably, all these grand and glorious tales are laden with telling me their story instead of showing me by making me live it. Predictably, the leading characters are the usual archetypes and phenotypes (skinny and weedy; lithe and lissome; overly buxom; ripped and shredded…as in body builder — you get the picture). Predictably, the narratives are saturated with really sucky writing, filled to the rim with badly constructed sentences, misplaced modifiers, and adverbial flatulence. (And, by the way, I’m not one of those “kill all adverbs” readers. Adverbs are effective when judiciously placed and properly used.) But.

The word that most arises when I start scanning the critique slush is: insipid, sadly insipid. Oddly, most children’s story authors do not qualify for my despair. I’m finding, more and more, that children’s authors know their stuff, even if the stories aren’t quite my cup of recreational tea. The rest? Well, maybe one offering a month is worth my efforts to read and offer up opinion. Otherwise, I just silently bow out. No sense puncturing anyone’s balloon, especially since so many others can and do blithely offer the writer sodden, even artfully succulent praise for work I consider just litter.

“Different” — that’s a word that stood out in my “private and confidential” school records.  Private and confidential?  Not when they tell you…and everybody else what’s in there when pointing out the whys and wherefores of being passed over for something you very much want to do.  I’ve been stuck with that label my whole life.  It used to hurt.  Now it’s an honor, since “everyday Joe” and “everyday Sally” seems to mean no common sense, no rational judgement, no logic, no cognitive excellence, and no propensity for deductive, never mind inductive reasoning, and certainly no synthesis.

So, yes, I’m different — well-adjusted, happy, independent-minded.  Different in that I like people, one on one anyway, though mobs throw me off completely.  (Avoid mobs like the plague, I do.)  Different in that I’m not afraid of spiders, mice, or snakes.  Different in that I don’t mind what religion you embrace, so long as you don’t expect or demand me to embrace it, too.  Different in that I could care less what race you are, how old you are, what gender you are, what your sexual preferences are, or what medications you down on a frequent (or infrequent) basis…until and unless your impairment endangers, not yourself, but others.

Different, they said and still say.  Why?  I’m not sure.  I think I’m not so different…or shouldn’t be.  And I expect that how I am is much similar to how you…or anyone is — good on the inside through and through, always striving with the best intentions, not the worst.

–

Here’s another one used on me a lot: Over-achiever.

That one just really makes my mind stir.  Huh?  Over-achieve?  How is that possible?  You either achieve or you don’t achieve.  How in the world does one over-achieve?

Someone sighs and explains.

Oh. You mean I try very sincerely and to the best of my ability to actually do something.  …Ah…well, yes.  I do that.  One thing I don’t do is “half-baked, half-assed, half-hearted.”  I’m never lazy…well, almost never.  I admit that I’ll plop down in a chair and sip a cool drink on a broiling hot day instead of ensure that my lawn is manicured, but manicured lawns just aren’t my thing.  Grass is good; green carpets that look like putting greens are for…putting greens, not a useful ground cover where I can play badminton or work through my daily martial art regimen. 

–

There.  Enough about me for one day.