More on Moms

I’ve spent a good deal of my life trying not to be my mother. It was a shame, because I could have learned a great deal from her in my adult years. But she was, as I am now, not one to open up and reveal her innermost thoughts. My insights, such as they are, have come after she left.

When I wrote about moms before, I had a saying and a visual image stuck in my mind. Both came from a collage I’d picked up at an arts & crafts show.

Senior Expo

I went to a senior expo last month to help out at the information table for the Midwest Writing Center. My first time at such an event.

When I got there, the table was set with the MWC’s banner, informational handouts, and sample books. We were ready to go.

The red banner had the motto, Fostering appreciation of the written word and supporting its creators, in big letters. However, having the banner draped over a table and partially obscured by piles of leaflets seemed to present some confusion for people passing by.

Some seniors saw only “the written word” and got sidetracked into the issue of teaching cursive handwriting in public schools. They lamented the loss of skills and a younger generation becoming ill equipped to handle anything but keyboarding.

Some seniors said they only read books—never wrote them.

Some even commented on the fact that they couldn’t read very well. One lady described how she had to read a sentence over and over before she got it.

Well…guess what…I do that all the time. Have done it forever. I have a longtime friend who also admits to having to read sentences more than once. She’s one of the most creative artists I’ve ever known. I guess distraction comes with creativity. It doesn’t mean you give up trying to read…or write.

For the great majority of passersby, we were a mild curiosity. The real pleasure came when we established a connection to someone interested in writing down family history or handing veterans info on a workshop tailored for their needs.

The MWC’s workshops and programs have fostered my appreciation of the written word by exposing me to the work of a wide range of writers and poets. It has supplied me with writing tools and direction. It provided the all important opportunity for feedback.

I did my best to spread the good word.

Financing College

You might think this is an odd post for a blog that’s about writing in general and writing my novel in particular. I hope to file this topic in the “Things I Got Right” department.

I have my 22-year-old protagonist as a recent college graduate who wants to go on for an advanced degree in museum studies. Money is an issue for her. My novel is set in early 2008, a time when money would become an issue for lots of folks, not just students.

I wanted my protagonist to think about and handle college financing in a realistic way. To that end I was fortunate to have some expert advice “in house.”

My husband, Mark Davidsaver, has produced a website of financial calculators for many years. His most favorite is one specifically designed for people, parents and students, to calculate future college debt.

He used his own experience with navigating federal, state, and college forms. He got feedback from actual college students and tried to make his calculator as streamlined and as easy to use as possible.

He’s quite disappointed that it never caught on. His paycheck withholding calculator remains his most popular.

So, why mention this now?

Because of a recent back-to-school column by Katy Williams, a St. Ambrose freshman, for The Dispatch. The title of her column: What I wish I knew before I went to college….

For point #3, she mentioned, “Money does not go as far as you think it will.”

Her suggestions:

·        Learn to budget

·        Find a part-time job

·        Avoid having a car

All solid ideas that have stood the test of time.

To that list I would suggest a visit to:

https://www.yourmoneypage.com/education/studentloan.php

The Fall Novel Workshop

I recently had a meeting with Aiden Landman of the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce. He met with me in his capacity as director of Young Professionals of the Quad Cities. I was representing the Midwest Writing Center. Our purpose: to see how our two organizations, each rich with resources, could work together and help each other.

As I ran through the list of MWC’s offerings of workshops and writing opportunities, Aiden indicated he knew quite a bit about YEW, Young Emerging Writers. This year’s group of teens recently put together the latest volume of The Atlas magazine.

I mentioned that I considered myself a product of the MWC’s workshops and conferences and therefore, while not a young emerging writer, I could be considered an old emerging writer. Not the best joke to make because OEW doesn’t make a good acronym, neither does MEW, mature emerging writer. Failing at humor, I moved on.

The MWC has so many irons in the fire (metaphor alert) it can be difficult to highlight just one.

For instance, the upcoming Fall Novel Workshop with Larry Baker, an Iowa City writer, novelist, and educator.

I took part in the 2012 fall workshop and I found the six intensive sessions to be the best investment I could have made for my novel. It gave me a big dose of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop experience for a fraction of the price—and it was practically delivered to my doorstep.

I was prepared to work and to accept the constructive critiquing of my beginning 30 pages of manuscript.

Pretty much in line with how Larry Baker describes his workshop:

“Writing is not inspiration. Writing is a craft. Writing requires thought, preparation, perseverance, and a commitment to self-criticism; revision requires a writer to go through those same steps again.”

I came away with better work. I built on that work by going through those same steps many, many times. Each editing pass-through shaping and refining the whole.

Now, I am ready to get my novel out into the world, and it will reflect my best efforts.

After all, producing one’s best effort is an ageless goal.

The Fortunate Mistake

I was getting a belated start on my weekly blog post and stopped to look up the mission statement for the Midwest Writing Center, my favorite not-for-profit organization.

I expected to find the following the simple sentence:

Fostering the appreciation of the written word and supporting its creators.

Instead, I found a nice photo of a bunch of kids, probably some middle-schoolers from a recent summer-camp-style workshop, with this displayed underneath:

Fostering the appreciation of the writeen word and supporting its creators.

My first thought, “Ugh, typo alert. They should fix that.”

Then I took a minute, looked at it again, and began to appreciate the cleverness of that particular misspelling. Especially in the context of a group of young people.

By entering one T and two Es instead of two Ts and one E, the word transformed to something new and exciting. A few misplaced keystrokes produced a superior caption for that photo.

It put “teen” into the writing picture.

After all, getting young folks into writing was the whole focus of the Midwest Writing Center’s YEW Middle School Camp and Young Emerging Writers Summer Internship Program.

Sometimes typos and other artistic mistakes have to be appreciated and savored for the subconscious gifts they are.

“Totally cool,” in oldie speak.

In other words, “Awesome.”

What It Is NOT About

I tried for a very long time NOT to make my novel about mothers.

I failed.

There are subplots about mothers…and daughters…and growing up…and coming to terms with less than perfect parents.

I also tried to keep Erik Jansson’s presence to a bare minimum because there were things I didn’t want to discuss.

Failed at that, too.

But I managed to put off dealing with him until close to the end of the book.

I wasted a lot of time in the process of failing to deal with those issues.

The lesson I learned was not to avoid the difficult topics. Not to try for definitive answers. Just put in enough information and thought to be enticing.

I think it turned out to be a lot like one of my favorite Rhymes with Orange cartoons:

A woman tries to decide which piece of pizza to buy for lunch. She asks the guy behind the counter what’s on each.

He says, “One has pepperoni and one has little bits of truth.”

She chooses the slice of life.

Write To Read

They say to write what you want to read.

“They” being the experts we’re supposed to pay attention to because: a. They’ve been there, b. They’ve done that.

Well, I’ve spent the better part of the last five years adding layers of detail and nuance to my novel, because that’s what I wanted to read. I like books that are: smart, involved, and complex enough to be interesting.

To that end I’ve tried the following:

·        My novel doesn’t deal with one mysterious painting—it deals with three of them.

·        My protagonist has mommy issues with not one but two parental figures.

Also:

·        She has issues with a well-meaning uncle.

·        And guy issues.

·        And roommate issues.

·        And work issues.

·        And finally, she has to figure out that each of my villains has his own selfish agenda.

I’ve heard “them” say to write what you know.

After spending a large chunk of my adult life in one small place, I think I know Bishop Hill. It may not always present itself in an obvious manner, but the currents swirl around in my subconscious mind. They surface when I need them, allowing me to built fictitious characters and events out of bits and pieces of the stuff I remember.

The whole process has been an education in writing longer works of fiction. I hope the end product will be an enjoyable read.

A “good read” has been my goal all along.