writing – Page 42 – Hey, Look! A Writer Fellow!

September 29, 2012

Doh!

Sometimes we are defined by our obsessions.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about the inspiration behind my picture book manuscript, Momma No-Nose. The story is about as dissimilar from Sarah Gives Thanks as you can possibly get.

Here’s the gist of it: After a petting zoo burro goes rogue and gets a bit too nibbly, our narrator’s Momma suddenly finds herself noseless. This turns out to be quite a problem. She can no longer keep her glasses on her face or tell if the milk is sour. Worst of all, the once happy and outgoing Momma no longer wants to leave the house. Just in time for Mother’s Day, however, her artistic son makes Momma an ingenious PlayDoh proboscis that, in one fell swoop, restores her self-esteem and improves the family’s fortunes forever.

Oh, and, in case you need me to tell you, Momma No-Nose is supposed to be funny.

Now, I knew this story had long odds for publication before I finished the first draft. I kinda figured Momma No-Nose was gonna be one of those stories “just for me.” I was cool with that.

But I soooo loved the results of my early writing efforts. So I put in more effort. Then I put in even more effort. Then I presented it at my critique group – twice – and revised the story accordingly.

I admit, I went a little daft. I caught No-Nose Fever.

Sadly, No-Nose Fever is not contagious. Editors aren’t feelin’ the love for this story in a way editors have never not felt the love for a story of mine ever before. I actually got a rejection one hour after I submitted No-Nose – a personal record I have no desire to break, but one that kind of dazzles and impresses me, nonetheless.

But like the coyote’s obsession with his roadrunner, I couldn’t quite put this thing behind me. The more No-Nose was rejected, the more I refused to read the writing on the wall.

“I just haven’t found the right market,” I told myself.

So I kept at it, tweaking the cover letter and looking for ways to punch up the comedy and tighten the word count. Oh, and I kept submitting.

My son, Alex, is the only other person with No-Nose Fever; it must be genetic. He would sometimes ask me about Momma No-Nose’s progress – and was almost as amazed as I was that no editor on earth seemed to like it. So the other day I made him a solemn promise: “If Momma No-Nose doesn’t get picked up by the end of this year,” I said, “I will draw all the pictures and make the book just for you.”

“Mine will be the only one?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“The ONLY one?”

“The only one.”

“Wow. The only one.” He let that roll around his brain for a while. Then he smiled.

I smiled, too. Suddenly the idea that Alex would have the only copy of Momma No-Nose felt like a wonderful, wonderful thing. I decided right then and there to stop pitching this story. I didn’t want to do anything to mess up my promise.

Besides, in that little moment with my son, I had achieved my goal; I had found a market for Momma No-Nose. It wasn’t a large market, but it was big enough for me.

September 8, 2012September 8, 2012

Three Silly Little Things That Make Me Deliriously Happy

Sample Ladies

Shopping in one of those ginormous warehouse stores is exhausting. You’re pretty much hoofing half a mile every time you go down an aisle – and since they’re about 400 aisles in those places, you’re in for a very long walk.

So what a delight it is to turn a corner and encounter a smiling grandma-type ready – eager, really – to hand you a paper cup with a cookie or a wiener dog or a cheesy cracker inside. She knows you’re walking a marathon with a two-ton shopping cart in tow. She knows your blood sugar is low. She wants to help. She’s your support team.

“It’s good, hm?” she asks as you chew. And since she already knows your answer, she follows it up with a wink and an almost conspiratorial, “Have another.” And you comply, because you and your new grandma are sharing a special moment.

You also comply because, well, only one cup of whatever-it-was just doesn’t cut it. Go ahead and ask for a third one; she’ll give it to you.

The one and only. — Accept no substitutes!

Scotch Magic Tape

I take great pride in my ability to giftwrap unusually shaped objects. I chalk it up to my on-again/off-again obsessive compulsive disorder.

So it should come as little surprise that I find Magic Tape wonderful. You can make it nearly invisible by scratching it with a thumbnail; that, my friends, is the difference between a good wrapping job and a great one.

Once upon a time, my wife, Ellen, didn’t understand this. Once she bought a roll of cellophane tape. Her reason was “because it was on sale.”

That is a bad reason. The only acceptable reason is “because someone forced me at gunpoint.”

Not only was the cellophane tape absurdly, distractingly shiny, but also hard to rip off the roll and had this nasty habit of sticking to itself. I grumped about it constantly.

I don’t whine like this about most things. In my life I have (repeatedly) coped with getting fired; dealt with serious family illnesses; and helmed enormous, high priority, long-term projects without ever breaking a sweat. Subpar tape, however, is my kryptonite. That’s just the way I roll. Ellen has decided to love me anyway.

Ellen has also decided that cheap, crummy, evil tape is not worth the inevitable rift in our marriage and now buys the “correct” tape, regardless of price.

Yes, I know my wife is patient and wonderful. No need to tell me. I know.

Crunchy Leaves

I love to walk in the woods. I also love it when my footfalls make little noises. Fallen leaves make quiet, yet deeply satisfying “crish crish” sounds that gladden my heart. Don’t ask me why this affects me the way it does; I have no idea, but I’ll walk for miles to keep hearing that “crish crish.”

Now if someone ever decides to station a few sample ladies along those leafy, wooded paths, I would be a very happy man indeed.

What silly little thing makes you happy?

August 26, 2012August 27, 2012

The Writing Road

See? It's a play on words! Ha! — As Yogi Berra once said: “If you come to a fork in the road, wash it before you put it in your mouth.” Good advice if you ask me.

I can’t just sit down and write off the cuff. I need a plan. I need to know who the characters are, where I want to take them, and where they’re going to end up. Only after all that stuff is nailed down am I ready to write.

Almost all of that preliminary work takes place when I’m doing something else – showering, eating, or working at my day job. Much to my wife’s chagrin, it also happens late at night in bed. I scribble notes. I make doodles. I outline. Sometimes it takes a long time to do all this preparation, but luck favors the prepared, so I do it.

When I finally sit down to type, I have a tall-ish stack of notes and doodles and outlines by my side.

But then I type – and the plan I spent oh so much time crafting is pushed aside and ignored. My carefully constructed characters are no longer the characters I had once envisioned; they say things I never considered, they do things I had never imagined, they shove the story in directions I never contemplated, and I am transfixed and fascinated by it all.

It is at that moment I know that I am on a creative roll. I’m in explore mode. It’s a kind of heaven.

Since I am so eager to abandon my writing plan once I begin writing, one might assume that I don’t need a plan at all. But I do. I’ve tried working without one, and the results have been uniformly terrible.

I’m not exactly sure why this is, but if I was to guess, I think it is because I need something rigid to rebel against. I need something to thumb my nose at and say, “Pfft. I can do better than that.”

The only other time I have ever abandoned my plans with such reckless delight took place years ago when I embarked on a solo cross-country trip. I had my route, and my maps, and knew where I wanted to settle down each night. Once I got in the car and started driving, however, I was all “Oh. My. God. The world’s biggest rocking chair is just 100 miles north of here!” And, in a twinkling, I was off down a potholed two-lane blacktop passing an alarming number of stores that sold both fireworks and alcohol.

Don't get Big Amos angry! Eat the damn pie! — I discovered this big guy on one such unscheduled detour. His name is Big Amos and, if you push a button by his knee, he will beg you to try the shoofly pie.

Sure it might be a colossal waste of time to drive hours out of the way to someplace that might as well be called Lickspittle County just to see a ginormous chair, but none of that mattered to me. I was in explore mode. I found joy in the journey.