ALMOST FAMOUS

I had a journalism professor who told us not to use the word “famous” in our stories. He reasoned that if someone is famous then the readers will know who he or she is. Certainly we know Bernie Sanders, Abe Lincoln and Johnny Depp are famous. No need to say so.

But famous is not all that easy to define when it comes to many other individuals.

I came from a small Northern Michigan town, and my family took our pets to a veterinarian, Dr. David Reath, who was indeed world famous. Visitors came from Australia and Japan to visit huge peony farm. Dr. Reath had even developed new strands of peonies which is why he was - famous.

Dr. Reath owned more property than Ben Cartwright the patriarch on “Bonanza,” the popular television program of that time. In fact, I used to call Reath’s farms the Ponderosa.

Now Dr. Reath was famous, but not everyone knew that. Maybe even some of his friends and clients didn’t know how famous he was. I went to college in a city distant from the Reath farms, but one classmate came from a family that owned a florist shop. She, of course, knew who Dr. Reath was.

Anyway I thought about Dr. Reath and that journalism professor as I was reading “Almost Famous Women.” It’s a collection of short stories about interesting women who were sort of famous.

Remember Butterly McQueen, one of the stars of “Gone With the Wind.” There’s a chapter about her. Allegra Byron, Lord Byron daughter, died while still a child, but the children of famous people have some claim to fame themselves. One story is a retelling of the “The Lottery,” a short story by another almost famous woman, Shirley Jackson, a writer, and maybe some of you have heard of her.

What does almost famous mean? It means we are known beyond our small communities. Fame has its degrees. As much as I loved my journalism professor. I do use the word “famous in my writing.

HOW TO START WRITING A BOOK

Question: I want to write a book, but I have too many ideas, and I can’t settle on one genre. What should I do?

Writers are interesting people. We love to read. We love ideas. We have many interests. It’s amazing that any of us can settle on one topic long enough to finish a whole book.

Think about personal experiences. Most of us have had many painful experiences in our lives. Start from there. Write about a time in your life when something happened that changed you. Write about how you are different. Personal experiences are a great place to start.

Keep a journal. Natalie Goldberg tells her students not to start writing a book until they have kept a personal journal for at least two years. Then she tells them to read the journal, pick out entries to be developed into longer pieces, and go from there. I didn’t think I could write a memoir because I had so much hurt. (I’m autistic. When I grew up in the 1950’s we were considered different and sometimes even delinquent. My mother and two grade school teachers tried to beat the autism out of me.) I found a beginning for writing about this in my journal entries.

As a college study skills teacher, I discovered many fun ways to learn. I’ve discovered in the notes I wrote for teaching college classes, a possible book. If I hadn’t put these ideas in study plans, they could have gone into my journal.

My advice is start writing in your journal about some of your ideas. Then after a year or two start rereading those journals. Pull out similar entries and start a manuscript.

While Natalie Goldberg and Julia Cameron suggest writing a journal longhand, I have a computer journal. I can cut and paste entries into new documents that become articles.

Keep journaling. I hope this helps it works for me, and i have a similar problem.

A JOURNAL ENTRY A DAY

Did you write every day in your freshman English journal? I did. I hadn’t kept a journal before, but I leaped into the assignment. The instructor said to buy a ruled notebook, and we would start our journals in class.

I didn’t wait. I had a few extra notebooks at home, and I started writing that very day. All these years later, I am still writing in my journal everyday.

I became a freshman English teacher and assigned journals. I know many students did not take to them as enthusiastically as I did. I would collect journals at the end of the semester and some students had just one of two pages. Few students took a liking to journals as quickly as I did. But there were a few who enjoyed the experience promised to keep writing journals.

Some had kept journals before the class started. One student told me she would keep a separate journal for the class because her personal journal was too private.

A few students made their own journals. One student was a kindergarten teacher’s helper and she used construction paper for covers and she added drawings. While I preferred students keep a cheap notebook, I did enjoy the special efforts. Those students who created their own notebooks seemed to have more fun.

The question I was asked most often was: What do I write in my journal?

I would ask them what made them angry. If you are mad about something, then you have lots to say about it.

Oprah Winfrey tells her audiences to keep gratitude lists. That’s a much better idea, but for many people finding the joy in life is harder than finding the faults. We often concentrate more on things we don’t like that on the blessings life is giving us. I gave the students writing prompts from various books and websites. I suggested unsent letters, altered points of view and descriptions.

One of my favorite assignments from my own freshman English class was to go someplace on campus and make a list of 126 sense sensations. We had to list things we tasted, smelled, felt or heard.

The assignment didn’t work very well when I assigned it. It became a journal suggestion instead.

Now that I am retired I still keep a journal. I consider it practice writing. Sometimes I experiment with chapters and scenes for one of my own writings. Sometimes I write about my pets; sometimes; I just write down memories. There always seems to be something to write about.

If I have a day when few words are coming, I start a silly story. After a few nonsense words, I find the words I was meant to share for the day.

What are your experiences in keeping journals?

FALL

The ground is a spider web of twigs and leaves.

Wild rhubarb stalks stretch out their arms like crucified bandits.

LIST OF CHARACTERS WITH BRIEF DESCRIPTIONS

Meet the characters in my novel.

Yvonne Brianka was orphaned at age seven and shipped off to a Catholic orphanage, where she is treated as a third rate citizen because of her Jewish father. Her dad has disappeared. Her younger sister Lisa insists he was lynched.

Somewhere along the way Yvonne picks up the nickname of Vonnie. When she left the orphanage at age 16, she went to work for the Rinaldis, the wealthiest family in town. One night she is gang raped by two violent young men, and soon she discovers she is pregnant. Knowing her predicament, Ezekiel Cheney offers to marry her. He is a Civil War veteran seventy years her senior, who expects nothing but housekeeping from her. He fulfills the father role for her and her son.

Vonnie eventually takes over as manager of Almasy House, a historic old hotel. But her problems are far from over. Her son’s death was ruled accidental, but she knows he was murdered. And whoever killed her baby is still out there.

When her sister is accused of murdering her son. Vonnie gets the town snoop, a hippy girl named Penny Payton, involved in proving her sister’s innocence.

Lisa Brianka talks about hanged men and drowned babies. People say she’s crazy. She’s witnessed violent death, and now a serial killer targets her.

Jack Brianka spent a year in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Now people say he’s mobbed up. It could be true.

Dylan Mynter’s first wife cheated on him; his second wife, Lisa Brianka, is crazy and his daughter is a freak.

Lucinda Rinaldi takes in strays. She’ll help anyone in need. But then the Klan discovers she’s a black woman passing as white.

Penny Payton is the town snoop. She’s discovered several of the town’s secrets. But a serial killer needs to shut her up.

WRITING PROMPT: USE STORY SONGS TO MAKE SHORT STORIES

As I was doing my exercises this morning, I noticed “El Paso” by Marty Robbins in the mix. That was a big hit around 1960, but most people have probably forgotten the tune.

I named one of my cats Felina, after the girl the cowboy falls in love with in the song. He sings, “Nighttime would find me in Rosa’s Cantina. Music would play and Felina would whirl… My love was deep for the Mexican maiden.”

I love story songs, and I thought about the cowboy, Felina, the handsome young stranger, and Rosa.

Writing prompt: Take a story song, and write a short story about one of the characters?

For instance: What was Felina like as a girl? After the cowboy died, who did she marry? Did she tell her husband about these men? Did she have children? How many?

Get crazy. What if my calico cat Felina, is the Felina from the song reincarnated. Perhaps two of my other cats, Lancelot and Dodger were the cowboys who in another lifetime loved her. Now they all live together as a spayed and two neutered cats in a household.

How would each of these cats tell their “El Paso” story?


 Too silly? That is okay because when we are writing we can get silly. Make up incredible stories. Have fun.

CONFESSIONS OF A MESSY HOUSEKEEPER

Our grandmothers had a system for getting things done. Each day had a chore. Monday was washday. Today we should have Tuesday and Wednesday off. There’s little or no ironing or mending that needs doing. Thursday was cleaning day in those olden times, and unfortunately there’s lots of that that still needs doing.

Friday was shopping day. I live within walking distance of stores, and order many items on Amazon or eBay so I don’t need a shopping day.

Saturday was a cooking day. The little cooking I do is usually making a pasta salad or heating up a veggie burger.

Then comes Sunday, and don’t we all need a day of rest. Except there are always chores that need doing even on a Sunday.

Nowadays most women have workdays. Several days out of each week, we must be busy doing someone else’s work. I admit that when I worked outside the home, lots of housework didn’t get done.

I would leave my classroom with piles of essays to correct, and wishes that I had become a math instructor instead of a writing teacher. Math tests can be corrected in minutes using a Scantron. I had to read each essay, sometimes more than once and make comments. I had to get grades in. I ignored the dirty floor, messy litter pans and the dirty dishes. Housework got done eventually, but it had little priority.

I retired at the end of 2013, and cleaned house. I went through all the rooms, sweeping, mopping, dusting and rearranging. It left me so exhausted, I didn’t do anymore housework for awhile unless it was necessary like cleaning litter pans.

Things quickly got dirty again.

I wanted to learn American Sign language, write a blog about learning better, and write a novel. I began writing the novel, and volunteering at an animal rescue group. Occasionally I would go to Youtube for an ASL lesson. I decided I would not be a slave to the household.

Now that I was home more, housework seemed to nag me. The dirty floors stared at me. Even my computer screen had smudges I hadn’t noticed before.

The months went by. The house didn’t look any cleaner, and I hadn’t learned much ASL. My novel was coming together, but the blog was a drain of my energy. I volunteered sometimes as many as five days a week for the animal rescue group, but that was just two hours in the morning.

It was also an excuse. Why wasn’t housework getting done. I was too busy.

This is really about time management, not chores.

The old Monday is washday schedule doesn’t work any more and not because I don’t iron, mend or cook. So many things like litter pans need to be done everyday need. Daily shores take up chunks of time, that I want to invest elsewhere.

I read everyday, write everyday, eat and sleep everyday. These are core activities for me. Eating and sleeping already had times carved out for them. Litter pans, another core activity, were done first thing every morning. I read in the evenings, after I am too tired to clean or even write.

Over the first year of my retirement a schedule evolved.

I put in time everyday for writing. I finished the novel, and now I can’t stop revising it. I started a second novel and a memoir. Occasionally I have a day where the best I can do is squeeze in fifteen minutes writing time, but it is an important fifteen minutes.

Housework is like that. I plan a chore, but something else comes up. My husband and I and Cinco, one of the cats have all had emergency room visits this year. We just contracted to have a steel roof put on our house. Solar panels will follow. These will mean interruptions, and I can’t always plan the day or time when the interruption will occur.

I have divided cleaning chores up. I clean the kitchen on Monday; utility room on Tuesday, office/living room on Wednesday. I have a room for each day. Sometimes I double up and do two rooms in one day.

What I need is reading time. I get depressed if I don’t read 70-100 pages a day. I am a reading addict. And the reading feeds the writing. I learn from good writers. So around five each evening I curl up with a book. This is my reward for cleaning, writing, shopping and volunteering.

Learning hack of the day: Keep A Journal

Keep a journal. Journals are writing practice, and writing is a skill needed for so many of today's courses and career paths. A diary is about what you did today. A journal can focus on today, a memory or on future hopes. It is more about feelings and reflections than about today's day. There are dozens of ways a journal can help us in our schooling and in our careers. I'll describe some of those in upcoming blogs. For now, let's get in the practice of writing every day. Think of it as being like piano practice or daily exercise. Build those writing muscles.