Something In The Stars

There must be something in the stars tonight. I'm vacationing with my wife and six children on Kiawah Island, South Carolina. Midnight tonight just so happens to be the best time all year to watch the annual Perseid meteor shower and what better place to watch a meteor shower than at the beach?

It brings to mind another Perseid shower thirteen Augusts ago when my then ten-year-old son Chris and I were spending the night on a lake in Maine. We were on a guided canoe trip with a handful of fellow alumni from my alma mater Williams College--mostly adults and a couple of teens. I'll never forget lying along the lakeshore beside the overturned canoes that night, the chill of the Maine August closing in around us like a cloak while we all stared skyward in wonderment.

That's not the memory that brings a smile to my face, however. What I remember more than anything else is the image of my precocious son, by far the youngest on the trip, regaling us adults with his extensive knowledge of the solar system and planets, and, of course, meteor showers. "Did you know," he nodded sage-like, "that on average ten people are killed or injured every year by falling meteors or meteor particles?" No, we didn't know that. "It's true," he assured us. We were duly impressed.

Therein began a serious discussion among the adults about the potential dangers posed by such falling objects and how most of the poor individuals who died must be off in Siberia or Africa or some other far-flung place. This was an educated group, mind you, although there were no actual scientists or astronomers among us. The discussion went on for a couple of minutes until my son finally leaned over and whispered in my ear. "Dad," he said, smiling. "I made that part up!"

Everyone laughed, of course, when Chris's ruse was revealed and no one thought the worse of him. In fact, we marveled at how easily we'd all been taken in by a bright ten-year-old. Since then, I've often thought about that night and what it means to tell a good story. Was it just our naivete, the right combination of circumstance and imagination?

There's magic in storytelling, I have no doubt. Or maybe it really is just something in the stars.

www.andystraka.com

Authentic Southernism

I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a Southern book authentic. I suppose that I can blame my job. I have the most wonderful job in the world. I really do. I'm the managing editor of a regional Southern magazine, Longleaf Style.

In our articles about life in our neck of the woods, Northeast Alabama, we try to not be cliché about the South and our selection of authors has to be grounded in authenticity. And, so in this quest for authentic Southernism, I’ve asked myself lately, “Theresa, what does it really mean to be authentic in Southern literature?”

Does it mean the dialect should break every grammar rule in the book? Does it mean there has to be at least one reference to plantations, white columns, cotton picking, fried chicken, okra, humidity and race relations? Does it mean that somebody has to be done wrong to be appreciated? Does it mean validity comes from dysfunction and survival?

I’ve written about my clear-cut infatuation with Kathryn Tucker Windham in previous posts, but I've also come to appreciate Daniel Wallace, Rick Bragg, Mark Childress, Fannie Flagg, Alex Haley, Willie Morris and Diane McWhorter after features in the magazine.

From them I learn of the people who influenced them and how they are able to capture the small details about Southern life in unexpected ways. In getting to know the authors and the stories behind their books, I’ve also discovered that authenticity is not forced. It just happens. Southern authors don’t just wake up one day and decide to be Southern.

For the most part they are writing about their life. In their books you will find pieces of them sprinkled throughout. They shine a light on our culture and world, sometimes on things we would rather keep hidden in the dark. The classic writing advice “Write what you know” might work for a lot of people, but it seems that most Southern authors “write who they are.” And, that is why as we read and re-read Southern books, we feel like the authors and characters are part of our family. We see ourselves in these books. That’s pretty darn authentic if you ask me.

So, I pose this question to you. What is it about Southern literature that makes it authentic to you? Surely I'm not the only one that has put down a book after rolling my eyes too much from reading the Southern cliche's, which caused me such strain that I had to make a pitcher of sweet tea to regain control of myself.

Additional Note added after I had a cup of coffee and looked at my calendar: Speaking of Southern authors, today is the release of Pat Conroy's latest book, "South of Broad." I'm sure I join many others in looking forward to reading it!

Q and A with Murray Tillman author of Meet Me On the Paisley Roof


Trussell Jones has a problem. He is crazy in love with a beautiful girl named Ellen. The problem? He has no car. His stepmother, who believes that she is spiritually connected to Queen Victoria, won t let him drive. Furthermore, she is afraid Trussell is trying to kill her. Not to be overlooked is the fact that Trussell is being pursued by a gang of armed redneck motorcycle hoods, while his neighbors are preoccupied with changing visions of St. Francis. Just another heartwarming tale of a boy in love with a girl? Hardly. This delightfully quixotic coming-of-age story, set in Columbus, Georgia in the 1950s, truly has something to shock and beguile even the most jaded reader. Its irreverent protagonist will take you on a road trip of hits, near misses, twists, and sudden turns that ll set you on your ear. You ll be unable to put the book down, until you reach its charming yet totally unpredictable conclusion.

What’s the backstory, i.e., reason for writing, behind MEET ME ON THE PAISLEY ROOF?

When I was in the seventh grade and later as a teenager, I was madly in love with a beautiful girl in my school who, I thought, viewed me as a pest. Civilized contact with her (as in a conversation), I reasoned, would lead to rejection so I did, as the sixteen-year-old Trussell did with Ellen in the book, "kicked up a lot of dust around her."

Also during those years, I had wonderful friends with whom I shared many nocturnal adventures, problems in our family lives, and dreams about the future.

I studied piano very seriously for a while and adored listening to the Classical and Romantic repertoire, if not on a record player, then in my head. Trussell tries to explain this strange habit to Ellen.

So the story comes from a well of feelings about my teenage years: a seemingly impossible love, friends who love, support, and test one another, music that would send your soul soaring, and the utter frustration of having to deal with challenging events without having any experiences to fall back upon, emotions so intense, so alive, that I can feel them today, a half-century later. I wrote the book to share those feelings, expressed humorously, in a fast moving story.

Although you've written textbooks, you've come to novel writing rather late in life. What prompted you to finally write a novel?

I would prefer to change the phrase "rather late in life" to "later in life". That done, let me say that being a professor at a major university today requires one to be a writer in your areas of specialization. My fields were educational psychology and instructional technology, areas in which I did research, taught, and wrote -- research articles as well as books.

So, I was quite busy with a fulltime academic career as well as raising a family. The issue is time, but not just time alone. It is in having enough blocks of time to concentrate on the scene at hand and in keeping all elements of the story in mind as the story develops. In short, my muse is
fickle, and she requires large chunks of time before she will appear. No weekend gigs for her. I had to wait for retirement.

What was the most challenging part of writing MEET ME ON THE PAISLEY ROOF?

That's easy. All of it.

Just look at the Acknowledgements section of the book. I mentioned six individuals, each of whom made major contributions to the book and who also encouraged me to continue. You may infer that I needed lots of help, and you would be absolutely right. (As you can see, even my children were involved.)

Why? It may be that my previous writing experience had prepared me to present information in a logical, orderly way. But, how do you, as novelists do, help the reader find a satisfying emotional experience as they read the text? Now that's a big one.

To be more specific, I initially focused on character development and attention to details (be specific, the writing gurus say), the result being that I overwrote the scenes and neglected plot. At one point the manuscript soared to 127,000 words. Howard Berk, a former Hollywood scriptwriter and novelist at UGA, brought me back to earth.

Not only did I trim 27,000 words, I had to write new chapters as required by my increased attention to the storyline. Later on, my wonderful editor, Gus Gedatus, helped me put the finishing touches on the entire story.

Who is your favorite character and why?

My favorite character is Ellen. The reason is simple: my wife would kill me if I said anyone else.

But hoping that she will not read this (Ha! She reads and edits every word I have ever written), let me tell you about Mr. Childs, a construction foreman. He is the father of Cassidy and Ronnie, teenage friends of the story's narrator, Trussell.

Mr. Childs has the potential to be, as one of my friends said, a hero or a villain. Here is one quick example. Mr. Childs wants to show Trussell how it feels to fire a shotgun. So they go to the back of the house where Mr. Childs produces a loaded shotgun, then demonstrates how to hold the weapon properly, and then fires a blast out the back door into a large mound of dirt. And why was the large dirt pile there? Mr. Childs had, on his own initiative, recently bulldozed his wife's vegetable garden in order to build a fallout shelter.

On one hand, Mr. Childs wants Trussell to learn about shotguns and acts immediately to "help" him learn. On the other hand, Mr. Childs is firing a deadly weapon within the city limits, easily alarming neighbors who hear the cannon-like noise that shotguns make. On one hand, Mr. Childs wants to protect his family from the devastation of nuclear war, but on the other he didn't discuss the matter first with his wife, who lost her garden.

And so it goes with Mr. Childs, trying to be helpful to his family and Trussell, yet often skirting the limits of reason, if not the law, to do so.

What is your writing routine like?

I write at a computer keyboard. Since I play the piano, moving my fingers across the keys is second nature to me.

I prefer to write during the morning but am on call from my muse at any time. Once I sit down and start writing, I don't know when I'll get up. If I have written two or three decent pages by noon, that's great. If not, I'll take a break, and come back until by the end of the day, I have those two to three pages. My goal, then, is to produce two to three pages a day.

But sitting down to write is not the only aspect of my routine. Visualizing before writing is also part of what I do. I usually try to visualize a place, a scene where the action occurs. In addition, I like to take a large sheet of paper and sketch out various actions of the characters. I draw lines, make circles, whatever it takes to focus my attention on what the characters might do and identify the nature of the conflict or connections being made.

This is not quite an outline of the scene. It's just a rough map or sign posts for me. I don't know everything that's going to happen, and I don't want to. It happens when I write. Then, I find out.

What are your top five favorite books?

I have several different areas of interest in which I read, ranging from the air and naval campaigns in the South Pacific during World War II to early Christian history and, more broadly, the quest for spirituality. Let me stay within the fields of Southern literature and writing, however, to address this question.

I grew up in Columbus, Georgia, in the shadow of Carson McCullers. She attended the same high school I did, although many years earlier. One of her English teachers was still teaching while I was there.

I place McCullers three works The Member of the Wedding, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, and The Ballad of the Sad Cafe at the core of my favorite novels. And yes, they epitomize to me what Southern writing is all about: all roads lead to the human heart. That journey involves trying to understand beauty in ourselves and in others and learning what truth this beauty, or its absence, conveys.

On a more technical note about writing, I must cite the book by Brenda Ueland titled If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. Her thoughts were really more about the nature of consciousness and creativity than the "act of writing." I could not have made the transition from a technical/scientific writer to a novelist without her.

So how did I reduce a 127,000-word manuscript to 100,000 words? I tried to follow what longtime editor and author Sol Stein says in Stein on Writing, a book whose ideas can cut like a knife through the fudge of excess verbiage. His companion book How to Grow a Novel is equally informative.

That last book, number six, I provide at no extra charge.

Murray Tillman is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Georgia and formerly Chair of the Department of Instructional Technology in the College of Education. He has authored several texts that assist teachers in using instructional design tools and has developed training manuals and courses for businesses and human service agents. Murray is a graduate of Birmingham-Southern College and the University of Georgia. Visit him at his web site.

If I Become A Famous Author

by Karen Harrington

After viewing this video, I had to wonder: What would I do if become a famous author?



1. For starters, it's very vogue to have someone pretend to be you on your Twitter account. A famous author can't be bothered with telling you what she had for breakfast or that the dog just yacked on the carpet. So I'd hire someone to do that for me.

2. I would build a dream library with green carpet, lots of over-stuffed leather chairs and a latte machine. The room would have huge windows looking out over some body of water.

3. It would be fun to have bobble heads of my book's characters made. Then, everytime I doubted my writing ability, I could ask one of them if I was great and they would nod YES in unison.

4. I would get other famous authors to autograph their works on individual Kindles. Yes, right there on the screen.

5. I would host a dinner that other famous authors would attend annually. Stephen King would sit next to Nicholas Sparks. Anne Rice next to Elizabeth Berg. Elmore Leonard would sit at one end of the table and give everyone cool names like Mr. Pink and Velma Treadway. John Irving would be at the other end of the table and he'd lead the discussion about the plot holes of lesser books.

So if you become a famous author, what will you do?

--

Karen Harrington is the not-so-famous author of Janeology. Read an excerpt at http://www.karenharringtonbooks/.

Details, Details (or What Sno-Cones Have Taught Me About Writing)

By Augusta Scattergood

Photo credit: Scott Keeler, St. Petersburg Times


This season’s blog theme is What Writing Has Taught Me About Life. No, we don’t have to do the assignment. We can blog about anything that catches our fancy. After all, it’s not 8th grade math class. But I was always a bit of a teachers’ pet, even did the extra credit stuff. So I take these “voluntary” assignments seriously.

But not too seriously. So in honor of summer, I’ve turned my assignment around.

By the time I took to writing professionally, giving up another career to write, I had already learned a lot about life—and not from writing. So today I’m thinking instead about what life has taught me about writing.

Specifically, what eating Sno-cones teaches me about writing fiction.

Stay with me here. By studying Sno-cones carefully, I understand the importance of detail, the use of emotion, the seriousness of research, and the tricks to finding the perfect image in every word. And getting it right.

First off, is it Sno-cones or Snow Cones or Sno-balls? (Or some might make a case for Italian Ice, but if we are setting the story in the South, they would be dead wrong.)

In Mississippi, where I grew up, kids ate Sno-cones, spelled like that. And I didn’t think much about it. Then a couple from New Orleans opened a Sno-ball (spelled like that) stand a short drive from my Florida neighborhood. My transplanted Louisiana relatives were ecstatic. I was confused.

These Sno-balls looked like the summer treats of my childhood—the paper cups, squished to overflowing, that turned to soupy liquid when most of the ice is munched away. But then the proprietor of the Sno-ball stand asked if I wanted cream on top. Cream? On a Sno-cone? No, here they’re selling Sno-balls and sure, I’ll try the cream.

So right off the bat, Sno-cones have taught me the importance of research and fact checking, even in fiction. Not to mention spelling. Most of the time, you can’t fool your readers with mistaken details. Especially if the details are part of their history.

Now I’m working on a kids’ novel set in Florida, in the summer. Small-town Florida, a place where kids ride their bikes to the Sno-cone stand. Where they drip orange and purple all over their white shorts, just like my friend Eileen remembered when I asked around for Sno-cone stories.

Life— in the form of a frozen treat-- teaches me that memories are an important component of fiction.

Remembering in all five senses makes a scene come alive. The cold sticky colors dripping down an arm as we squeezed the paper cup. And white shorts, the worst thing to wear while slurping a Sno-cone. Watermelon and cherry and banana— whether the Sno-cone flavorings actually smell like the fruit they are named for, they taste that way and they evoke a scent. So I’m having my character eating a cherry Sno-cone, always my favorite.

Hot nights under the summer sky, Little League games at the park, the sound of the bell on the truck, the worry over the quarters—saved to pay for a lemon Sno-cone— that slipped through the pocket and are gone forever. Memories seep into stories and emerge as something else, another thing life has taught me about writing.

So I’m including a cold summer treat in my story, and I’ll get the details right. I’ll have to think about what to call it—a Sno-cone or a Sno-ball— but a few more trips to my new Sno-ball place, and I should have it all figured out.

Augusta Scattergood blogs about writing, book reviewing, and the occasional Southern food item over at http://ascattergood.blogspot.com. Her childhood Sno-cones were enjoyed in Cleveland, Mississippi. She now reads and writes from St. Petersburg, Florida, and Madison, N.J.

A Recipe for Writing

by Nicole Seitz

The other night, I dreamed I was standing in front of a classroom of teens, telling them about everything I've learned about writing. About being a writer. I've just finished the first draft of my next novel, and I find that I always learn new things while writing a book, or else my old beliefs are reaffirmed. It's all a great learning experience--the struggles, the joys, the pressing forward. After writing my fifth book, I've learned quite a bit more than I knew when I was going into this career. So if I had to give some advice to a writer just starting out, what would it be?

I tried to remember what I was going on and on about in my hazy dream the other night, to no avail. And then last night I was rereading my manuscript, exhausted, and couldn't muster any other thoughts but sleep. Sadly, this morning, I'm all about the coffee and we're out of it. So I was thanking Heaven when I flipped open the food section of the newspaper today and saw that there's a movie coming out about Julia Child and a woman who decides to go through all 524 of her cookbook recipes. There, on the second page of the article, were the words I've been looking for...and Julia was a chef, not a writer. But you see, writing is just like anything else in life...cooking, loving...I think you'll see.

In Julia's words:

"Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it."
I will second that. If you are not passionate about writing...if it does not fill that deep pit that continually needs filling within you, you might want to look elsewhere. If you think you're going into writing for any of these reasons: money, status, sex (hee hee, sexy authors), or doing something easy -- you will most likely burn out at some point.

"I was 32 when I started cooking; up until then, I just ate."

I was 32 and pregnant when I got the first inkling to write. I thought writing a novel would be an impossible undertaking. My first basically wrote itself. Up till then, I just read a little and admired writers from afar. Sometimes people fall into that thing they were made to do after they've already done so many other things that just didn't satisfy.

"The secret to a happy marriage is finding the right person. You know they're right if you love to be with them all the time."

Just yesterday I was thinking how writing is like a marriage. You find a man you love, you get skinny, you plan for the wedding, dream about it at night, then you have the big glorious event...and then...and then, you're married. For the rest of your life. No more weddings, just the ups and downs of day to day. So much like writing. I thought when I got that first book published and in hand that I would have "made it" wherever THAT was. Little did I know that it was only the beginning. I had to live day to day with the writing now, the pressing for words, having them flood me at inappropriate times, being frustrated when I didn't know what in the heck they were doing, being scared the writing was taking me away from other important things like exercise, sunshine...and then, every now and again, I get a tiny little wedding moment. Much like marriage. You must love this person you're with forever. Same goes for writing. Find ways to keep the love alive even when it's hard. If you're truly passionate about it, you won't let the small things turn into burnout.

"Being tall is an advantage, especially in business. People will always remember you. And if you're in a crowd, you'll always have some clean air to breathe."

This is inspired, Julia. I am not tall by any means. I'm 5'3" and three-quarters, thank you. But this quote refers to writing as well. Do you want to be tall, original, and stand out? Or do you want to write the same thing someone else is writing? Sure, you can make a living, writing to formula and putting out things you know will sell, stuff just like everything else. Hey, I'm not against money, we all need to make a living. But to feed the SOUL, that deep pit that needs filling over and over, I say rise above. Do something different, original, be true to yourself. It's the only way to have fresh air wherever you're standing. Otherwise, there's hot air and back draft all around. After a while, you'll need to take a bow, step out of the room and breathe again.

For new writers out there, God bless your journey. For others who have been around a while and feel the pounds and wrinkles of a long writing marriage, I wish for you fresh wind in your sails. Always try to remember why you fell in love in the first place.

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Nicole Seitz is the author/cover artist of three novels and lives in Charleston, SC with her husband and two kids. Her latest book, A Hundred Years of Happiness, was inspired by her stepfather's service in Vietnam and the Vietnamese seafood restaurant she once worked in. Her next book, Saving Cicadas, is narrated by an 8-year-old girl whose single mother finds herself pregnant again, and in her dilemma, hauls the whole family into the car for the last family vacation they'll ever have. Through the eyes of innocence, Janie must learn the truth about the people she loves the most and the difficult choices grown-ups make. The book is available for pre-order and hits stores December 1.

Find other Seitz books including The Spirit of Sweetgrass and Trouble the Water (Library Journal's Best Books of 2008) plus her artwork online at http://www.nicoleseitz.com/.

Guest Blog: Sang Pak author of Wait Until Twilight

Before I begin, my thanks to Karen for lending me some time on her turf. She’s creating some good karma. Having said that…my first novel is coming out this summer and maybe out by the time you read this. It’s entitled Wait Until Twilight. It’s a southern gothic/coming of age tale but it was the southern aspect that seemed prominent while I wrote it. All the elements are there. The country roads, hot humid summers, the kind of rundown beauty one might imagine of a small southern town. But the one thing I shifted into an alternate reality was the language. I instinctively kept the drawl scaled down even though from an experiential reality, and if anyone has spent time in the rural deep south they know the drawl is thick and it’s real. I think it reflects the “Southerness” in me. Being Korean American, I don’t think that would register immediately. Even the drawl I used to have growing up has faded after many years of living overseas and far away from the American south. But if one listens closely it’s there. After a few beers it becomes even more prominent.

To be honest with you, if one writes southern dialog with a true drawl, it can read like Faulknerian or Mcarthian hieroglyphics for the uninitiated. Something to be occasionally deciphered. Yet, even the dialogue in the most inveterate southern writer belies the drawl that’s found in the rural south. They are all toned down. This of course is because novels are reflections not of the actual world but the inner world of the writer that has been cultivated from the totality of their experiences and their desire to express this. This includes everything they’ve read, whether the bible or the works of Shakespeare. It all influences the writer. And this can be seen in the dialogue of the southern writer. I think if I’d stayed in the south instead of leaving after high school, the dialogue I wrote would have probably contained a much stronger drawl. Again it would have most likely been instinctual.

Being raised in the south is a very specific experience. No doubt even more specific for someone of Asian descent. But the interesting thing about the south is that for all the complexities many of which are dark, at its heart it is welcoming. And for anyone spending their formative years in those welcoming arms it’s impossible not to walk away with an implicit understanding of the southern heart and mind….and tongue.

Visit Sang at http://www.sangpak.com/ Wait Until Twilight releases tomorrow.