Writing the Lyric Essay

I found it time to enroll in a writing class at the local college. I've dabbled in fiction, trying to describe, plot, structure paragraphs, detail characters, all those points known authors push at writing conferences. However, I actually like to write about the history as it progressed from my 1930's birthday to the present. Little points, like the clothes I wore, music I enjoyed, fun I had in high school (there wasn't much but movies and listening to radios, in the home or with friends). All those memories will appear ancient to my grandson when he is a teen. For this reason I'm taking a non-fiction class to better spiff up my writing.

I've rarely explored the different kinds of non-fiction beyond the memoir, but Monday night I'm delving into my first attempt at writing a lyric essay. It's sort of poetic, much imagery (which is difficult for me), and seemingly disjointed paragraphs with the same theme.

As much as I dislike seeing snakes, I wrote my first lyric essay on that subject. I have a number of snake "snapshots", little bits of remembrances that I want to put into words. For example"

Mother once told me at age eight her older brothers had thrown a snake at her feet after they killed the creature. That, despite it being dead, coiled around her ankles. From then on she never wanted to see a photograph or drawing of snakes. Later with a family, she depended on us to hide the reptiles with a sheet of paper the photos.

 My sister and I spent most of our teen life at home perusing magazines and newspapers to find snakes and either cover them up or write on the cover: "Skip Page 12". No explanation was needed. Mother either didn't read that periodical or she skipped page 12.  We thought it funny (ha ha funny) for Mother to have such a phobia, despite her telling us the above story. Perhaps we thought by making light of the subject Mother would understand she'd never if rarely ever see another snake. She worked in the city and Dad worked the yard on weekends. Unless one hooked itself to the underside of the family car or slithered inside the house unannounced, Mother had nothing to worry about. 

She didn't mind my purchasing a pair of snakeskin shoes  with my first salary. The pair didn't remind her of snakes. It was the reptiles in sight that scared her. A  trip to the zoo didn't include a pass by the reptile exhibit. Somehow I caught that phobia and had difficult looking at a snake in my maturing life.

When our local newspaper printed the photos of the most common poisonous snakes in our state, I made myself look at them. We have a wooded area behind our house and I've always been leery of traipsing into the brush, or getting close to the edge of the yard. I need to know what to expect.

I want to remember the herpetologist's advice upon seeing a poisonous snake: "Ignore the snake, walk slowly back from it."  I imagine I'll stand in place with my eyes closed trying to remember what he said.

A Week of Cold, A Day of Pure Warmth

You all know that putting away seasonal clothing isn't today's method. With the weather playing hop-scotch across the map, we need a closet for warm clothing and a closet for heavy outerwear. No longer in the South can we expect our winters to be mild. We had our worst winter this year in a decade, yet by eastern standards it was a breeze. Today, Saturday the sun is shining and the air is a warm 78 degrees. Tomorrow is expected to be cold again with the usual thunderstorms and tornadoes we have around March and April. Nothing new, is it?

Regardless of the weather, warm or cold, I am tied to the computer. After spending $$$ for a desk-type, I now long for a laptop so I can sit outdoors and pen the words rushing though my head. It has been said that writers are loners. Like jugglers, we attempt to balance family life with our desire to pound on the keyboard, hating to leave our seat to satisfy a son or daughter who wants us to join the rest of the family for dinner. Then we become robots in conversation, while  holding a thought, a scene, an idea inside, and anxious to skip after-dinner coffee and dessert for a quick trip home. Or when I have to stop to hear my husband expound on  what he's read, I give the impression that I'm  not interested. Not so. With so little time in my life left to do what I've always wanted to accomplish, I feel rushed to write everything that comes to mind.

New words, new ideas flow like a thawing faucet and the fingers go into action. I'm not a many-published writer, but I write because I have stories to tell, created from my romantic instinct that runs constantly across my brain, becoming real in my whispered enactments -- someone would say I'm losing my mind. The openings of stories are just that -- openings. They sit in my Document file under "Unfinished Writings." Occasionally I pull up one and reread what has been typed, then add a few paragraphs. Are they worthwhile to keep? Maybe so,  maybe  not. But seeing the words flow across the screen gives me a personal satisfaction, like the feeling you receive from that first cup of coffee.  One day some of the ideas will jell into one good story.

When I reach the point of being screen-weary, I stop, turn to genealogy or fulfill a jewelry order. By the time I return to the computer, I'm fresh with new ideas, born during family research and the fulfillment of  creating something spiritual for an unknown customer. But I return to my stories and I'm happy, whether it is raining or sunny outdoors.

New Direction

I love to write. Most of my writing is for this blog or essays or short stories. I've even written a novel, 50,000 words! Whew! Took me three months to get to the end. Now it sits tucked away while I tend to the other writings in my flock. After all, I can't give preference to one and ignore the others.

Two weekends ago my sis and I attended a writing morning at University of South Alabam, Mobile. Reason 1: another viewpoint from authors; Reason 2: one author was Carolyn Haines, who writes the Bones series of mystery books. She is writer-in-residence at the college. Alas, she spoke about novel writing, a course which I'd had plenty of instruction. What actually peaked my interest was the poetry author, a Sue Brannon Walker (Poet Laureat of Alabama), an exhuberant lady who made writing poetry sooo easy. We did one exercise I've seen on many blogs: the "Where I'm from..." That was answering a series of questions about one's self and writing it in sentence form. She eliminated the sentences,used phrases and clauses. She reminded us how quickly we can write prose and drop lines and eliminate a lot of punctuation and voila! a poem is born. And sure enough it seems easy.

Sunday morning after returning I awoke with a poem in my head. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything we had been introduced to. A limrick. How that got caught in my brain I'll never know. Read on. . .

There once was a horse named Katrina
Who loved prancing in the arena,
But when a lady got on
with nothing but a thong
Katrina behaved like a hyena!

Isn't that disgraceful after an earlier morning of good poetry writing?
Time now to write a more graceful one. Next, writing a poem with only two words per line:

POWER OF SWEETS
I look
At you
And wonder
If I
Can afford
The pounds
I'll earn
From you
Chocolate, Vanilla
Strawberry, Nuts
Oh, gosh
Those bars
Are much
Too much
I know
It's hopeless
To feed
My tummy
I have
To leave
And find
My mommy.

Ok, I gotcha. Improvement. I will have to study Mrs. Walker's students' poetry. Let's see...what page do I want to start with?

Something New

Remember when your family moved to a newer house containing two bathrooms instead of the usual one? Remember the rising glee as each of you ran to one bathroom, then the other, admiring all the new fixtures, and realizing how each of you can shower or take a tub bath with more privacy? If you’ve had that experience, you'll understand about yesterday.

That same penetrating excitement washed over me when a member of the Geek squad hooked up my husband’s computer Tuesday afternoon. Now we each have our own. This isn’t a story found in most households. Nothing new about families owning several computers. For us it's different. R hasn't cared to use the computer until recently A rising apprehension began welling inside me in December as R learned on the desktop this black key moves the screen that way, this other key at the top does that, and then with two fingers and a bit of magic the printer turns on spitting out a wealth of information.


Now R is the proud owner of a netbook, a waif-like machine that shrinks even more in a large man’s hand. The screen is approximately 10” wide and closed, the machine fits into an 8 ½” x 11” envelope weighting three pounds. R behaves as if he’s bought a brand-new Bentley.

And I’m relieved that I can plop down in front of my desktop any time of the day to empty my head of ideas that rush into a short story or that still-to-be-published manuscript that keeps me forever young.

I Could Have Had the Best Mentor. . .

Now that I'm retired I have time to reflect on those with whom I've been in contact who could have changed my life had my decision at the time been opposite. I seem to have floated through life making a few bad ones. Here's one example.

Fresh out of college I took a summer job with a suburban newspaper. My goal was to teach a few years and then to enroll in journalism school. My new position was to work with the owner and his wife. Marlene covered the business side and dipped into the social scene with her reporting. When I was hired I reported just about every angle until Sam decided I could write features. I interviewed the kid who won a monkey, the award-winning rose grower, the prim antique collector, the college trekker. Then I began to cover the evening parties with a photographer, getting names of the posed. That was par for the course, I suspected. I had spent four years writing for a community college newspaper, covering every aspect of putting out a papers except printing.

One day an imposing lady wearing a hat whose brim was as wide as an umbrella and as springlike as daffodils entered the doorway. She wanted to see Sam. Later Sam exclaimed she was the owner of two small newspapers. Her name was Mrs. Smith. Uh, yea, Mrs. Smith in disguise I said to myself.

However, she came in often, always sporting a different wide-brimmed hat. I thought by then that she was interested in buying Sam's newspaper. In early August I received a letter from her asking me to join her staff in Lexington, just north of Jackson. That request sent me into the struggle of "Should I or Should I Not?" Already I was preparing to teach in a Delta school. I had learned in college -- YOU DON'T BREAK CONTRACTS. Here was my opportunity to work full time at what I truly loved. I leaned towards staying with my contract, regretfully. By the following year I was ready togive my body a hundred lashes for the mistake.

Little did I know Hazel Brannon Smith and her zeal for values. As a staff member of the Lexington Advertiser, I would have become embroiled in civil rights with Hazel. Her complete bio is found online at www.journal of Mississippi History written by Newman, Mark, “Hazel Brannon Smith and Holmes County, Mississippi, 1936-1964: The Making of a Pulitzer Prize Winner,” Journal of Mississippi History 54 (February 1992), pp. 59-87.

The summer I received the invitation was 1954 and during the following year as I struggled with 150 students Hazel Brannon Smith struggled with the Supreme Court's decision to desegregate public schools. She stood alone while white merchants and citizens boycotted her newspaper.

By 1964, ten years after my invitation to join her staff, Hazel Brannon Smith became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for her editorials expressing her strong opinions. The last edition of the Lexington Advertiser was printed in 1983. She won the Fannie Lou Hamer award in 1993 and died May 1994.

I often think of the exciting and dangerous ride I would have had with Hazel Brannon Smith. Would I have stayed and fought alongside her? Could I have coped with the burning cross in her yard? The anger and meanness of the citizens? I had no strong political opinions but I agreed with many of her beliefs. I would have witnessed zeal and heartbreak and courage in one woman. I would have had the best mentor anyone could have wished for.

Now the Mississippi Legislature has honored Hazel Brannon Smith with Resolution 83 for her courage in the heat of adversity. Look online at the Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, MS, March 31, 2009 for an article by Emily Wagster Pettus reporting the honor and giving some background. I can see Hazel now, standing on a cloud wearing one of her wide-brimmed hats, smiling down on all of us.

NaNoWriMo

RESEARCH ALONG THE WAY AIDED IMAGINATION

Can't read my title? If you have always wanted to write a novel, NaNoWriMo may be your ticket.

In my Mississippi writing group several years ago a successful writer suggested 50,000 words in one month--ONE MONTH???!! Impossible, I thought. But in further conversation with this fine lady, she reported that you sit at your computer and WRITE. She states that you can't stop and edit, you just write, anything that comes to mind, whether it makes sense or not. The point of the exercise is to empty your brain of all the words stored there. In this way the writer begins to truly write. Winners are those who complete 50,000 within the 30 days Hidden within these millions of words will be a seed of a novel. My writer friend did this and produced her first novel.

Well, I started my own NaNoWriMo novel in September to see how successful I could be without a time constraint. I wrote daily from 4 to 8 hours the entire month ignoring housekeeping, meals for R, appointments, fitness--all for the sake of this novel. By the end of the month I had totaled 25,000 words. I wasn't disappointed, because I had begun with a story in mind, based on a blog entry of my daughter's of something that occurred in the 1950's when I was a teen.

As October waned I finished the novel with 50,700 words. Unbelievable! I found myself --as I left 25,000 words behind-- typing as fast as the words came. My mind had opened up to give me support. I now know that I didn't need NaNoWriMO at all, just a good story line and...imagination. Next, edit, and prevail on friends to read and give me their reaction, and who knows...?

NOTE: NaNoWriMo=National Novel Writing Month

Book Signings Reward for Authors and Readers

Recently I attended a book signing for a fellow writer. John Floyd of Brandon, MS, has compiled and published his second book of short stories. He is the master of shorts, mysteries that anyone can be read when there’s little time, like on a short bus ride, a bathroom trip, or waiting for the gas tank to fill up.

He once told me, after I had read my version of a short story to a writing group, that magazines and readers were crying for stories that were “short and sweet.” I had labored over one story because I thought it was “too” short. I should have taken his advice ten years ago. He did. And he’s been publishing ever since.

Floyd is a prolific writer. He enjoys spinning yarns that have an unexpected ending. I can see him at his computer wearing a sly grin and chuckling, outwitting his readers as the words flow faster than he can type. His plots are as varied as plants in a nursery. He teaches night classes in creative writing and has a large following. That was evident in the two-hour long line that waited patiently for his signature. But Floyd doesn’t scribble his name; he writes a personal note to each purchaser. That endears him more to us.

This is an unassuming man who is most grateful to those of us who attempt to follow in his footsteps. He’s our cheerleader. With his urging he’s seen several fellow writers go from zero to publishing. He has mastered the technique of writing and fills the mailbox of magazines with an overload of stories. He can be found mostly in “The Strand Magazine” and “Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine“, although he‘s had stories in more than 200 publications. In 2007 he received the Derringer Award.

Floyd walked swiftly into a small auditorium after the signing period to speak to a waiting audience. He told us one story about sitting next to a lady reading the “Ellery Queen Magazine” on an airplane. In that issue was one of his contributions. He watched her out of the corner of his eye to see if she would read his story. She did. After she closed the magazine, he leaned over and said, “I’ve a copy of that magazine. Did you enjoy the stories?” She answered “Yes”. He then asked if she liked the last story she read, and again she said she did. Then he announced “I wrote that story.” She looked at him incredulously and begged to differ with him. He insisted, but only until he identified himself through his driver’s license did she believe him.

John Floyd isn’t a big name--yet. However, his books have been found as far away as Toronto. Nevada Barr and Steve Hamilton, both famous in their own right, have a few words to say on the jacket. If you happen upon Midnight or his first book Rainbow’s End and Other Stories be sure to purchase a copy.