How's Margaret?

There's a funny thing starting to happen. Since I've been creeping out of the writing closet, friends and family who know about my book are starting to ask on occasion, "How's Margaret?" They ask me this as if she's a real person. This secretly thrills me.

I know they are just being kind and asking about something I'm interested in, but really, isn't that all it takes to generate interest in a story?

People read because they like the author. People read because they like the previous story from that author, or they like the cover, or something about it just grabs them. I'll take whatever I can get. Not picky right now at all.

Margaret has been behaving herself rather nicely, which means in Margaret's world that she's getting into all kinds of trouble. I'm actually having the problem of too many ideas and too many story lines at the moment. Trying to write some of them out and then do weeding to let the strong ones grow.

I think writing is a bit like gardening, or vice versa. In a garden, you make the conditions right, throw out the seeds, do a little bit of tending, weeding, watering, and viola, flowers. Or stink cabbage. I like to think of my writing this way because then I feel like my effort is never wasted. I still produced something, still learned what to do, or not to do for next time. Some of it smells, some of it is rather pretty to look at, but without much substance. Some, a very small bit, becomes the prize-winning entry at the County Fair. Hopefully. We'll see how the garden grows.

Peace,

Margaret's Mom

BiaM Day 1 -2246

Day 1 we are supposed to write a single sentence story summary - did that.

We set goals for the month: Write 2323 words per day to equal 80,000 for the month - did that.

We write: 2246 words today! Close enough to the goal. Ended a scene and didn't want to start the next and quit just for word counts, so a few more words tomorrow should be no big deal.

The summary sentence is this: A young girl desperately wants to communicate with her dead mother and tries all available means to do so, learning about trust and self-worth in the process.

So far, so good.

Peace,

Margaret's Mom

Starting Tomorrow

Starting tomorrow, I am going to write 2,000 words a day for 31 days. The entire month of August. I'm going to write Margaret's story so that I finally have a first draft. Complete. No excuses.

So 2,000 times 31 days (30 days hath September, April, June and November - drat! That means August has 31 days. Sigh.) equals - where is my calculator - 62,000 words. Most novels shoot for around eighty, but I've already written 7,979 (sheesh, is that all?), so that makes 69,979.

That's pretty close to done, but I really want 80,000 by the 31st. So, dividing the rest by 31, I get 323.26 more words per day necessary to reach my goal. I think I will round down the point 26, that will look funny to have 1/4 of a word, and by the next day, I might not remember which word I intended, and then everything will get a bit messy. So, 2323 words per day. Ahhhhh!

I can do it. You can too, if you want. Anyone care to join me? Write a novel in a month? Chicken!

I'll be posting word totals for the day, but perhaps not much else. Depends on if I get crazy frustrated or not. And then, of course, I actually have other things to do too. But like I said, I can do it.

Wish me luck and lots of inspiration.

Peace,

Margaret's Mom

Symbol

Today's post is about symbolism. Symbolism can be blatant like the American flag, or very subtle like, oh, a watch that a character keeps. The watch can come to symbolize many things because time is a large concept. Another large concept symbol would be a key. I love keys, I collect them and hang them on my wall at home (the old, cool ones with lots of character themselves).

Since I am a new writer, this is probably information an old writer would know all about. But nothing teaches you something like teaching someone else, so here goes. My advice about using symbol is twofold.

1. Use it (I really, really like it)

2. Be subtle (don't shove it down the reader's throat - here's your SYMBOL)

As an example, here is a brief excerpt from the book:

Daddy brought me a glass of milk while I sat on the ladder backed cane chair in the formal living room of our great big house on Legarde Street. He knelt down to talk to me for a minute, asking if I was alright and did I want to go outside and play in the backyard with the other children. I didn’t want to play just yet. I thought Mama would be proud of me if I sat nice and lady like in my Sunday dress with my white gloves and accepted the condolences of friends and family. I learned that word sometime later, condolences, but I knew they were sorry. Their eyes were all red and puffy, their noses were running and white hankies were everywhere, dabbing at eyes and covering up mouths when they spoke near me so I wouldn’t hear “suicide” or “accident”, or other words to hurt my eight-year-old feelings. Those white hankies were in such abundance that day, I never got over thinking they signaled “secret” instead of “surrender” like white flags were supposed to. For years I would watch war movies and wonder what the secret was.

That spring two people came into my life at almost the same time, one floating into my world like a pretty butterfly, magical and perfect. The other would get me into more trouble than one girl growing up in Louisiana should ever find.

I first met Honey Sinclair that terrible April afternoon. She had come to the house with her father, a new man in town who worked at the grocery store Daddy shopped in. They’d become friendly and when Honey’s father heard that Daddy and I were left alone, he thought Honey would be just the thing to cheer me up. “My name is Honey. You must be Margaret. I’m sorry about your mother.”

I remember what she said because of the way she said it. She really seemed sorry, for me, not for herself or because that’s what she was supposed to say. I liked her right away. “Thank you.” I looked down into my lap at my white gloves, maybe they held a secret too.

“Here, I brought you something.”

Honey had her hand out, holding something small, and I put out my gloved hand to receive whatever small present she had chosen, not in the mood to disagree. She dropped a sugar cube onto the palm of my hand, the glove too small and tight like a drum, and it almost bounced off before I closed my fist, snagging the treat in mid air. We giggled and Honey popped one in her mouth at the same time, her white gloves and mine hiding the evidence of our thievery.

Honey became my protector that day, in more ways than I could ever imagine. Sent by God or whoever did nice things to make me believe in goodness, kindness, and in the absolute balance of the universe, here to counteract evil and naughty neighbor boys.

My teacher kind of liked this, so I got brave enough to post it. Thank you for reading.

Peace,

Margaret's Mom

Catcher

So my mom had to read a book, The Catcher in the Rye, for her English class and then talk about how realistic a character the main guy was. It was written a long time ago, so when you aren't alive then, all you have to go on is what other people say. She thought he was pretty realistic.

Me? I don't know what I think. I'm just working out what I think about myself. He wears a goofy hat. I don't think I ever would, not even when people aren't looking. He swears a lot. I try not to swear at all: Mom hates it and my best friend Honey hates it even more. He's had someone he likes a lot die on him. Now that's something I know a little bit about.

The biggest difference between us has to be that he thinks everyone is bad, and I think, deep down, that everyone is good, and I'm just so shocked when they prove they aren't. But I get over it.

I've been making a list lately of all the things I like, because when Holden (that's the character's name) was asked by his sister to list all the things he liked, he had a hard time coming up with anything. I want to be able to spit out about forty things in a row if anyone ever asks me.

So here's a list:

Green, strawberries, fresh-cut grass, the way sand looks when it's falling through your fingers, yellow paint, hamburgers, Chuck Taylor's, jeans, PB&J sandwiches, history, purple, a baby's laugh, skipping, fireflies, the smell of old books, storms with lightning and thunder, the feel of window glass on a cold winter day, popcorn, the moon.

That makes nineteen so far, I need to think of more later. Going over to Honey's house now, we are going to help her mom bake some cookies for her little brother's class field trip to the city. I hope we get to taste the batter. I like that too.

Peace,

Margaret

Reading

I like to read and most of the time it's ghost stories or something about ancient times, like the 1900's. Ghost stories inspire me the most though because I've had a few things happen to me that might even be ghosts trying to talk to me. Sometimes I hear things but Honey can be standing right there with me and she doesn't hear it. She's my best friend though, so she doesn't think I'm crazy.

I wish that books would be a little less formal, let the characters speak for themselves. I don't really like reading all about how the street looks or what the weather is like. I want to know what they are thinking and how they are going to get out of whatever mess they are in, cause that's my situation half the time.

I get to stay up late on Friday nights and watch TV with Daddy. He usually watches some dumb show, but I like eating popcorn and getting to drink a Coke. For some reason, it's always hard to fall asleep afterwards, but I read my book or write something in my journal that I throw out the next day. Someday I'll write something that doesn't make me want to barf when I read it again.

Peace,

Margaret

Numero Dos

The sophmore post. I don't think I'll be able to stay in character for very long.

In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran says to "let your best be for your friends." I always think that is a very nice idea, but what if I need to keep the best parts of me? What if I need to use them myself later? Is that being too selfish?

I like the idea of always blogging in character. But, like many good ideas, their execution requires a bit of tweaking for the real world. I mostly started this because, like Margaret said, I want to learn about blogging, but am afraid to be bad at it. Very bad. Exceedingly bad. An alter ego seems like the perfect device, but I know I will quietly slip into blogging about things "I" do and think about, and leave poor Margaret in the dust.

She'll forgive me. I'm her mother. Actually, what do you call a writer's relationship to their character? Are we parents? "My author" sounds pretentious. Well, until I can find a definitive answer from someone further along the path than I, I will continue to be Margaret's mother.

Peace,

Margaret's Mom

Hi There!

Hi, my name is Margaret. I'm a character in a book that isn't quite finished yet. My mom is having trouble controlling me, so she thought maybe if she let me loose on here, some of my antics would get in line with how she wants my story to go.

I think she's wrong. But, she made a deal with me. She said I could write whatever I wanted on here and she would get to learn how to do the blog thing - 'cause she's a big fat chicken and won't do it under her own name just yet.

My friend Honey will show up sometimes too. Oh, and by the way, it's 1974 and I'm fourteen.

Peace,

Margaret