How do you decide what to write? Are you investigating what the market needs by doing research and asking your followers, or do you write about what deeply warms your heart?
Photo by matthewthecoolguy
Publishing Is Commercial. What About Writing?
The publishing industry is tough. Getting a deal with one of the big publishing houses is as likely as getting a leading movie role in an upcoming Hollywood film. Writers know this; hence the boom of self-publishing.
They’re told that the market dictates the content and that you should follow this rule: work hard, and hope for the best. If fiction memoirs are unpopular, you’ll be told that it’s not up to you to change the fashion.
Yet, even though satisfying your readers is significant, you need to write what you, as a writer, find so worthy of writing.
The thought that itches and comes back to you every night, the idea that arrived as a revelation and keeps working its way for months, the inspiration that wakes you up at night and forces you to take notes, the impulse to read everything you can find about your idea, the vigor of surrendering to daydreaming and almost writing it in your head.
If the thought or idea gets this powerful, isn’t it a sign that you need to write it? Anything written passionately, from a place deep inside you, perhaps a place you didn’t even know it exists, will be compelling to read, if not to thousands, then maybe one – yourself. The others will follow eventually. Even if they don’t, you, as the writer, will be proud of your work and that is sometimes the hardest to achieve.
Writers’ choices
Remember that it didn’t use to be like this. Writers were free to write; obviously in the fashion of their time, but the choices were theirs. Some were dying for their choices. Writing is a privilege, and unless you have an order with straightforward guidelines, it’s good to treat it as such.
Staying true to yourself is important and noble, just as art is. If you write what is under your skin, breathes through your pores, occupies your mind, the writing will shine with purity and honesty.
Unless your ultimate dream is to climb the national list of best-sellers, give yourself permission to write what your heart and reason together scream for. What will happen next is always unknown. Who knows maybe you’ll be the one who will dictate the market trends one day.
PRACTICE
Write for fifteen minutes about your recent haunting idea. Pour your words onto paper (literally or metaphorically, as you wish) and release them from the chains. Close your mind dungeon and let it breathe fresh air. Then post your practice in the comments section and don’t forget to support your fellow practitioners.
I met Jerry on a Saturday on a blind date to my company
Christmas party. He’d been
drinking. A lot. But I was so naïve I didn’t realize it. Looking back now, knowing what I know, it’s
hard to believe I didn’t equate his high color, his words that swayed like the
wind, his driving the back roads sometimes in his lane and sometimes too close
to the bright white dividing line, with alcohol, although to my credit, I had
not been around drinkers. Not unless you
counted my Uncle Merrit who showed up on all the paid holidays, stumbled out of
a yellow cab, and spent the afternoons trying to saddle and then ride our
Quarter horse, Candy.
At the party, he was charming, touching the ladies, on the
forearm, on the hand, on the small of a back when he passed to reach the cheese
and crackers. He had a little gap
between his front teeth, and he was built like a football player: broad chest,
slim hips, bulging thighs. Green eyes
with gray flecks. Dimples. When he
touched, the women touched him back, even when their men were near.
He kept my wine glass filled, although it didn’t take much. I was not a drinker. At all.
I’d been brought up in a home where liquor was sin, like carnal
knowledge, like coveting your neighbor’s Mercedes, like flashing your breasts
during Mardi Gras.
“You’re a little dry land turtle,” he said to me on the drive
home. I didn’t know what it meant
exactly, although I knew it wasn’t good.
I was a skittish creature, although dressed in tight jeans that made it
hard to sit and a blouse that fell off one shoulder, and heels so high I was
nearly as tall as him, I’d become a dichotomy. I did not look like what I was. In my defense, I did not know who I was
then. I’d just divorced from a man who said no one would ever desire me. Ever. I was trying on lives. I was hoping that I could spark in someone
desire, something my ex-husband said I was incapable of.
By the time we were driving home, I’d become concerned about
Jerry’s drinking. We drove through
Shamrock Liquor and he bought a bottle of champagne, popped the cork and handed
it over to me.
“Why do you drink so much?” I asked, without taking a sip.
The slightest cloud crossed his face. “My wife left me,” he said, and I felt my
heart open to him.
“When?” I asked.
Jerry looked out the window.
He was frowning. I could see his
reflection from where I sat.
“Nine years ago,” he said.
I smiled and then reversed the smile, realizing he wasn’t
joking. He seemed boylike when he said
it, freshly wounded, needy. I should
have flown then. I should have had him
take me home. I should have changed from
the slinky blouse and teetering heels and lain on my bed to scoot out of the
jeans. Standing in the red lace bra and
panties, I should have looked myself over and decided I was not equal to a man
like him. That beneath it all, I was a
woman who craved conformity and balanced checkbooks and public TV.
Instead I said. “I’m so
sorry.”
He took me to his house, a rising house on the top of the hill
where only the truly rich, or those up to their ears in credit, lived.
The house was river rock, and rough cedar, and Viking
appliances, and soft carpets, and closets bigger than my living room. There were six fireplaces.
I wanted to move in.
He wanted to move in, but not in the same way.
We ended up in his bedroom.
He left to get more wine. I
looked in his closet. Cedar lined. Rows of cowboy boots, loafers, running shoes.
Starched shirts, white, blue, black, one pink. Each would swallow me, if I had
the nerve to take it down, unbutton it, and put it on.
He has a beige robe with his initials in loopy script, a gift, I
assumed, from a former – or present – girlfriend.
When he came back, he caught me there. He came up behind me, put his arms around me,
and I felt safe, though I wasn’t, and I realized I liked that he was twelve
years older than me.
He turned on the stereo.
Songs my parents listened to. The
Beatles. Hank Williams. I had a flashback
to my parents’ home, my pink and white bedroom, Bible study on Wednesday night,
and I squeezed my eyes shut to block it out.
Jerry carried me to his wide bed. He unbuttoned my blouse. He gasped when he saw my bra, a barely there
bra to be sure. He kissed my neck. He pulled me on top of him. I kissed his forehead. I traced his eyebrows with one finger. I felt my heart pounding so loud I thought he
must be hearing my desire.
He was like the sun to me.
He lit up every dark place. The
things he said. “My God,” he said. “You’re stunning,” he said. He lay me back on
the pillows and slipped my heels off, gently.
He tugged my jeans off. One
tug. Hard. He’d done this before, tight
jeans on willing women. He sat at my
feet for a minute and circled my ankle with his thumb and forefinger. “You’re so small,” he said.
I felt the sea. It’s a
strange thing to say, but I did. I felt
like the tide, rolling in, over and over, fluid and pushed by the moon that was
Jerry. The sheets smelled like lavender. He smelled like beer and wine and a mix of
oak and pine deep in the woods on an autumn day.
I wept afterward. I’d
lost something, although at that moment I couldn’t say what. Jerry seemed puzzled. He sat up on one elbow and stroked my
hair. Women his age didn’t cry, I
suppose. But I did. And I thought of my parents, married since
the beginning of time, only each other’s. And I thought of my ex-husband, who
couldn’t bear to be near me, and I couldn’t reconcile any of it.
What I did know was this.
Jerry and I were unfinished business.
I had no idea what he thought of me, a first date that fell into his bed
easily. I wanted to tell him I’d only
been with one other man in all my twenty-four years, but I had a feeling he’d
never believe me.
I don’t know what to say about this other than it reads like the truth and a truth that all women must know on some level. The writing, the details, “like coveting your neighbors Mercedes, like flashing your breasts at Mardi Gras”, “starched shirts, white, blue, black, one pink” with the pink shirt set off in the sentence by “one”. Wonderful.
Marla, this is marvelous. It reads so easily and truthfully. The girl’s perspective is captured greatly, and maybe you can add his later on in the story.
Marla brilliant as usual. There is a lot of wine in your stories!
This is wonderful! I especially like the scene where she’s seduced by the house and the contents of his closet. It is so TRUE given the circumstances you conveyed, that she was trying on lives…
When she moved she didn’t tell him she was leaving. On her last day at Henry’s Seafood she told the bartender, “Don’t tell Tommy that I moved, okay?”
“You go it sweetie. Mum’s the word. Can you take this to the kitchen?” The bartender handed her a scotch and milk for the cook. It was in an iced tea glass, half scotch half milk, which the cook, Marble Eye drank every day during the lunch hour. On busy days she might drink two. She would swell up and die of liver failure before she was fifty.
The cook’s name was Marble Eye and she was gregarious after she got her scotch. She would let Shelly sit in the room where they kept potatoes and onions and cases of beer in the afternoon when it was slow. She called for Shelly if any customers opened the door and rattled the cow bell that hung from the handle. Shelly did her statistics homework on the table where they peeled and chopped onions. Big flying roaches lived in the potato room. Some of them had red eyes.
“Some people call em Palmetto bugs,” said Marble Eye. “They run off the little roaches or ate em up, one or the other. I ain’t never seen the big ones eat the little ones but there ain’t no little roaches in the whole place. We used to keep an old cat back here but the roaches bit her up so bad that Joyce took her home. I never seen nothing like it.”
“Don’t tell Tommy I moved to Charlottesville okay?” Shelly said looking up from her calculations. Her face was young and light. She was out of place with her statistics books in the dim room full of fat yellow onions in their flaky skins and red eyed roaches. When Shelly turned on the light that hung over the big wooden table where she opened her book, the roaches fled to their hiding places under the pallets that held the beer, and potatoes. Nothing is worse than seeing something scurry away but not quite see what it is, to the see movement but not be able to identify the object.
Great story Marianne. I’ve always liked behind the scene kitchen scenes. I’d love to hear the rest of it.
Thanks Sophie.
I really enjoyed reading your writing, Marianne. Keep going!
Thanks Charmaine. It is going to be part of Nanowrimo I think. It’s part of that person’s story.
Great Marianne – where is she going and why does she not tell him?
She’s trying to start a new, and less seedy, life and doesn’t want him to be part of it. I didn’t have time to get that far.
Always a way with words, Marianne. Quality writing 🙂
Thank you Yvette! You are very kind.
Marianne… Shelly hates to see things scurrying away not quite… but she’s running away. And am I right to read that she does want Tommy to know she’s going to Charlottesville? She’s told 2 people already.
The characters are beautifully drawn.
This is confusing because it’s to be part of a larger piece. She is moving away for another job and the people who she works with at the restaurant know that. They are her friends in a way and they know what is going on with her. She is not going to tell Tommy because she wants to get away from him, to make a clean break, to start fresh. She is running away like the roaches, but she doesn’t want to do it half way, to be seen on the run like the roaches I guess. I didn’t think about that when I was talking about the roaches but it does fit.
Brian made the most of his glass eye, he’d stole a load of
them from some ophthalmic surgeon, just because he could. He was like that,
stealing was never about what he could get for the stuff it was the excitement
of not getting caught.
There was this one time we stole a grandfather clock from
the lobby of a shoe factory. We were running along a towpath when we heard the
cops so Brian said to ditch it in the canal. We could have been caught, it was
so funny.
When we got older and the thieving got more serious, Brian
still did it for kicks. If he needed cash for stuff he went on the rob in our
local nightclub. There’d be a few empty pockets but everyone was so drunk they
never knew.
Up the valley from us was a huge warehouse, we used to recce
while drinking vast quantities of vodka. It was my dream job, like winning the
lottery or something. The pinnacle of my thieving career. Brian didn’t care
about the money, just the fun.
We were nineteen when we teamed up with Pete and Roob, we worked
out that at twenty past ten the watchman settled down to watch a video and by
eleven he was zonko. I was so jittery Brian and I sluiced some H, it took the
edge off but it was nothing like a real high. I needed like meth as well those
days to get a hint of former glory of highs.
The job was going well till we got inside and the freaking
place was empty. Pete went beserk started slapping Brian around . Brian popped
his eye which freaked Pete and Roob. They went running the losers and the old
watchman got them. We went out the way we got in, laughing all the way cos we
nearly got caught.
Brian laughed whenever he thought of that night. Next year I
got cleaned up, I don’t know how and went to college and I got myself a proper
job with a wage and everything. I sometimes would see Brian, he moved out of
his flat and lived in the park and he got older looking and then I didn’t see
him no more.
One day this girl came by and had a box for me, said it was
from Brian. I sat looking at it for a long time. I knew he was gone, proper
gone, and this was his stuff for me. I laughed when I opened it, in the middle
was the mock lizard eye and around – all the eyes he stole from the doctor. I
raised a glass of Vimto to him.
This sounds very real Suzie! Great job.
This is a great story. I would like to see it expanded into something more detailed, perhaps a deeper exploration of the characters. What brings two people living the same lifestyle to opposite conclusions?
Wonderful practice, Suzie 🙂
nanowrimo
What a story. That shows an incredible amount of imagination. Who would even think of stealing glass eyes. The writing is good and clear and tells the story in a good way.
Fun story Suzie, a little sad, a little whimsical. I love the glass eyeballs, so weird and interesting. Whenever I read your stuff I think you either have a really great imagination or a really interesting life (or at least past)!
And I will keep y’all guessing till – forever!
Glass eyes. I especially love that detail about Vimto and the lizard eye. It just shows the distance the narrator and Brian have travelled. And yet, there’s still the connection.
He steps out of the bookstore onto Capitol Hill. Thank God for lunch breaks. If he had a full hour, he might make for Pike’s Place, get some clam chowder, but a slice at Piecora’s would have to do. East to Pike and up the hill, past 14th.
Halfway up, he met Pudge, a homeless-by-choice kid with a wicked talent for guitar. “What’s up, Brady?” Pudge said.
“On the prowl for some pizza, you in?” he asked.
“I’ll tag along.”
Brady had met Pudge years earlier when he first moved to Seattle. The two hit it off immediately. Pudge was something of a musical phenomenon, the kind of kid who can pick up any instrument and be playing the makings of a tune within minutes. Despite all that, tourists only saw him as an attraction and the locals ignored him. Brady saw an artist.
They grabbed a booth inside, away from the dull gray of the cloud layer. Pudge didn’t order anything, and Brady didn’t insult him by offering to cover his meal.
“You look dead, man,” Pudge said.
He was right. Work left Brady drained. The monotonous scanning of books and DVDs, the endless complaints of customers, having to fill in the gaps left by incompetent managers, it was an energy sink. So close to books, and yet no closer to writing one.
Brady shrugged, “Yeah, I suppose I am.”
“So why go?” It was an obvious bait. Pudge wanted to preach the gospel of homeless life. Drop the day job, pursue your passion, sleep on the street. Fuck it. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but Brady wasn’t gonna bite.
“Because I need the comforts provided by my capitalist addictions,” Brady said and they both laughed. It was an old joke.
like this Jeff, two peeps who shouldn’t get on but do with humour
Thanks Suzie, I’m glad you enjoyed it 🙂
I like this example of what really is an old conundrum if not actually an old joke freedom vs. security. You told this so simply and with such realistic examples that it kind of hits home again.
That’s a very good way of looking at it Marianne, thank you 🙂
Simply love this Jeff. Beautifully presented moral story about the world we’re in and the well-crafted dialogue makes the characters very realistic.
Thanks Sophie! I am a dialogue fiend. Probably because it’s the quickest way to tell a story. I just don’t have it in me to write giant literary paragraphs, haha!
I’m so glad you like this piece and thank you for the compliments 🙂
Well you don’t need giant literary paragraphs anyway. Push your strengths – Jeff the dialogue master. 🙂
Jeff, nice mix of dialogue–real people–and info. The old show & tell trade-off. Like!
Thanks Yvette! I find my greatest joy in writing is the balance of show and tell. It’s tough to get just right, but when you do, nothing is more rewarding 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed this!
Very nice Jeff. I love the balance between show and tell. And the end is a stinger,w wonderful “addiction to my capitalist comforts.”
I’d have gone for a punchier first line to link up with the last line. Something more then stepping out from the bookstore. Perhaps something to show he’s stepping out of confinement and into the light … a stretch in the clear clean air from the airconditioning … Surprised how hot it is, but it makes him feel good after that artificial comfort.
Zhenya was tired of fighting. Fighting for his life, for his brother, Kolya, and for the secrets that were sure to kill the younger brother.
For the first time since Kolya got infected, it seemed that everything was going to work out.
For the first time Zhenya could look around and say that he did everything right.
He had to move to another country as life in Yugoslavia was becoming unbearable. He had to start his own business here, in the US, to make sure no employer questioned about those nights he absolutely couldn’t work. He had to lock his brother up in the basement of the car shop he now owned to make sure the infection doesn’t win.
He did everything he could.
And yet, even now, the danger was there.
“It’s just a movie playing,” told Zhenya to the police officer that came to question.
The police seemed to believe, but there were those who didn’t. There were those who whispered of a savage animal locked up in the building, eager to break free.
So far no one guessed that the animal Kolya, infected by a werewolf and unable to find a cure for his ailment.
I have a personal interest for this story, since I’m coming from the Yugoslavia region. Is it a fantasy story with werewolves or you’re using a metaphor about something else?
Beneath the sinuous hills of south central Minnesota, wedged against the meandering string of the Zumbro River is the village of Monty.
It’s not a big place by any account. Not large enough for a downtown, locals took to calling the center of Monty “Uptown” once cars made their way into the area.
Today, at the heart of Uptown Is the three block Central Street running north and south across the main highway, just west of the river itself. One side of Central backs up to the riffles when the water’s running at or below normal. The buildings on that west side of the street all reach a full story higher, some two, than their counterparts across the street. A few take advantage of the views, but most, well they’re simply waiting, many to no avail, for an infusion from the Twin Cities up north to make their transformation from wearing down to showing off once again.
Buildings on the east side of the street, set lower on their profile, have retained their luster and house many of Monty’s long-standing businesses, as well as those that have simply changed names but not function – merchants such as Taft’s, formerly Dowell’s Mercantile, where several generations of locals have boasted, “you can find everything you want, but they may have to order it for you;” or Dugan’s Family Restaurant, and Vang’s, formerly The Duchess.
Three main arteries, capillaries if we’re being truthful, branch off Central – Erie, Michigan, and Superior. As in most Minnesota towns, Monty’s founders were proud of it’s proximity to the Great Lakes. That, or they were entirely lacking creativity. Given the nearest of the Great Lakes is over 4 hours away, it was probably the latter. Each street delivered residents into the neatly patterned town grid and, ultimately to Blake Avenue a few miles to the east of Uptown.
Follow Blake avenue south, in the direction of the highway, and you’ll find the one curve in a Monty street. It’s just beyond the intersection of Blake and Erie, where the river begins a pattern of meanders north and south, crisscrossing the highway beneath a series of bridges before dodging south and to the east en route to the Mississippi. There, to the east of the old “A Bridge,” the river makes it’s first dodge toward the city grid and runs adjacent to the road’s namesake property.
The Blake name stretches back to the founding of Monty. As Bankers and shopkeepers, Blakes helped build the town. And since then, a Blake has resided here, close enough to the river to call it theirs. Blake boys have not only “owned” the shores and waters of the Zumbro in these parts, they have found adventure prowling the hills an plats around an throughout Monty, since its incorporation.
Today Jeffrey Blake carries forward the Blake name and tradition as he and his friends, Howard Manor, Archie Gilliam, KaYeng Vang, and Kayla Martin, make music, win games with Mustang Pride, and navigate their way toward adulthood.
This sounds like a carefully crafted setup of a setting of the story. I got emerged in the place and now interested to hear more about Blake and the the rest.
I can’t even pick out pieces of this post to comment on because everything was so perfect and spot on. You have such a way with words that your posts aren’t a chore to read like many others. As far as the topic goes, I believe that the market is a concern for people who want to make money or people who crave attention an praise for their work. A true artist can make their masterpiece and leave it sitting covered in their basement to be enjoyed by no one but themselves. It’s about the process of creating, not selling.
Thanks for your kindness Kevin. The consumerism is taking hold of everything and its penetration in the art is sad to witness. Publishing has always been commercial and needs to be in order to survive, but writing is another story. Staying courageous and true to oneself looks like a challenge nowadays.
Very true, Sophie!
I wish I was wrong.
I was reading the comments below a blog recently, in which the consensus was, most of our fave books from childhood probably wouldn’t be accepted for publication today. That struck me as so sad!
It’s so so sad Yvette. The only thing we can do is to keep doing what we love I guess.
Great thoughts Sophie. I’m sure there are those who work hard to set trends and climb to the top of lists, and succeed. But I wonder how many writers, while working hard at their craft, remain true to writing what they love, what inspires them, and find unexpected success. I’ve gotten tired of trying to learn what works and what doesn’t, what sells and what doesn’t. I just want to write what moves me, what I can’t help writing. I think in the long run what we ourselves are passionate about is what others want to read about. We all want a story that reminds us we’re alive.
Thanks Beck. I agree – it’s distracting to focus on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to sale and success. And doing what you’re passionate about is always visible and attractive to others. Passion is contagious. 🙂
Okay, this seems to be a subject that people do not like reading about it, but it is still one that is close to my heart . So I guess it really qualifies for this topic. Here’s another excerpt from my WIP:
They were wakened in the morning by the loud mooing of the
cows as Jacek came in to feed and milk them.
Marta quickly got dressed and washed herself with the water from a
bucket in the barn.
“Can I help with the cows?” she asked.
“You know cows?”
“My parents kept a cow.
I used to help take care of it.”
“I only have the three, now. Every time the soldiers come through, I lose
cows. The Polish army comes, they take a
cow. The German army comes they take a
cow. Sometimes two. The partisans come, they take. The Russians come…” Jacek spit. “So now I only have the three.”
“Even three is work.”
Jacek stared at Marta.
Marta stared back. Ruchie could
see her stretching out to her full height, taking her tough stance, sticking
out her chin. Jacek considered her, then
gave a reluctant nod. They worked
quietly, while Libu and Ruchie got themselves organized and straightened out
the bedding. They folded all the sheets
and quilts and headed back to the house to see if they could help with anything
there.
They found Babcia Danuta in the kitchen, working on the
morning meal. “How can we help?”
The old woman hesitated.
“There are potatoes to be peeled.
And maybe the little one can feed the rabbits out in the
back.” Ruchie nodded, and Babcia
Danuta pointed to a pail full of vegetable parings. Ruchie picked it up and headed out to the
backyard, where she found a rabbit hutch.
She had always thought of rabbits as cute and fluffy, but they seemed to
eye her malevolently as she approached.
The nearer she got, the worse they smelled. She decided to get it over with as quickly as
possible. She quickly dumped the
contents of the bucket and headed back to the house.
Once inside, she picked up a knife and helped Libu with the
potatoes. They worked quietly till Jacek
and Libu returned from the barn with buckets of warm, fresh milk.
“Breakfast should be ready soon. Little one, maybe you can go wake up the
girls and help them dress.”
Ruchie walked into the back room and saw the girls still
asleep, deep in the soft feather beds.
Once she’d been young like that and able to sleep past sunrise. She felt old looking at them. She nudged them gently, and the girls sat up
yawning and stretching awake. Ruchie turned to the younger one “Come Ola,
let me help you get dressed.”
“I’m Ewka,” the little girl pointed to her sister.
“She’s Ola.” Once again the
girls giggled. “How come you talk funny?”
“I don’t know Polish very well. I only learned it recently.”
As the room filled with the smells of breakfast, the girls
began to move faster. “There are
people who don’t talk Polish?” Ola asked.
Ruchie smiled and brushed her hair. “Yes.”
“So what they talk?” asked Ewka.
“There are lots of different languages.”
“Ola! Ewka!
Breakfast!”
The girls scampered off to the kitchen, with Ruchie
following them.
“Babcia, Babcia!
You know? There are people who
don’t talk Polish!” Ewka announced round-eyed.
Her father looked at her and smiled. Her grandmother snorted. “And there are people who talk too
much. Eat now, eat.”
They ate quietly, with Ruchie, Marta and Libu enjoying the
good food. Babcia Danuta looked at them
sternly. “Don’t forget, not too
much. A little bit at a time till you
build yourselves up. Your stomach gets used to food again, you eat more.”
When they finished the meal, Jacek rose quietly and left to
his chores. Babcia Danuta handed the
girls a basket and sent them out to look for eggs.
Then she looked at Marta, Libu and Ruchie. “You rest, you eat, now we talk. Little one, maybe you go with the
girls.”
Ruchie faced Babcia Danuta.
“I’m not so little. I want
to stay.”
“In my days, little ones listened to their
elders.” Ruchie flushed. Babcia Danuta stared at her intently then
nodded. “You stay.”
“It is a bad time for women on the road. You are still weak.”
“We are strong, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”
“Hmph,” Babcia snorted. “Very strong. I blow, you fall over.”
Libu smiled and stretched out her hand to Babcia
Danuta. She stroked the old woman’s
arm. “You are a good woman, Babcia,
and smart. Tell us what you think.”
“You stay here, get strong. You can help here. In a few days, Jacek goes to town to sell
eggs and cheese. He will find out what
is happening. Then when we know more, we
talk more.”
“We can’t stay here.
We have to leave! We have to find
our families!”
“How long you don’t see your family?”
“More than a year,” said Marta.
“So you will wait a few more days. It is not safe.”
“She’s right, Marta.
We’ve waited so long, what’s a few more days? We can use the time to gather our strength
and figure out what to do, make plans. ”
The babcia nodded her head.
“Listen to this one. And if
the soldiers come, you run and hide.
Take the girls. The Germans, they
are animals. But the Russians, the
Russians they are pigs.” The old
woman’s eyes harden. “Man can be
good, he can be bad. Put man in a
uniform with other men in uniform, and he’s no more man, just
animal.” The old woman closed her
eyes for a minute, and all her strength seemed to ebb out of her all at once,
leaving only an empty shell. Then she
opened her eyes and shook herself, and once again seemed the indomitable woman
she’d been but a moment ago.
Marta nodded.
“You’re right. The roads
aren’t safe yet. I know. It’s just…” Marta got up and paced
restlessly. She walked to the window and
looked out at the yard. “It’s just
that the waiting is so hard.”She absently tucked a short curl under her
head covering.
“So you keep busy.
Work. Always plenty to do. You women, more vegetables to peel for
lunch. Little one, see the buckets
there? Take them to the stream out back
and fill them up.”
Ruchie grabbed the bucket and went outside. The women stayed inside.
Babcia Danuta looked at the women intently. “There is talk. The soldiers, anything in skirts, they
attack. If the girl is lucky, at least
she lives.”
“I know.”
Libu stared at Marta. “What do you mean, you
know?”
It’s a good way to have told it Mirelba, the violence just hinted at. But, sometimes, letting it out also makes the writing more powerful. You might want to write it that way too. After all, shit happens! Especially in wars.
Are you writing for Nanowrimo. I’d love to see more of the WIP.
Actually, there was some violence in the first chapter, and at the end of this one. However, when I posted the first chapter here with some of the violence, it didn’t get a single response. So I decided to avoid it here and see what happens. 🙂
Great portrayal Mirelba. I did get confused in the dialogue a little because there are many characters, but I really like the story.
Thanks! This is part of the second chapter (unless I later decide to start the story at an earlier point). All the characters were introduced in the previous chapter and have pretty unfamiliar names, so I guess that’s why it’s a bit confusing. (At least I hope that’s the only reason…)
Thanks! This is part of the second chapter (unless I later decide to start the story at an earlier point). All the characters were introduced in the previous chapter and have pretty unfamiliar names, so I guess that’s why it’s a bit confusing. (At least I hope that’s the only reason…)
Great. I’m sure it is.
You are right on point Sophie. Publishing is a business. Agents are business people. But as writers, we must write what prompts us. That’s not to say we write without regard to our readers- after all reading is one half of that tango that is a book – but there is no work without the muse and without passion. Thank you so much for this post.
I signed up on Nanowrimo to write that thing that’s been nagging at m. I’m looking for some of you guys on there, but I don’t know how. Please help!!!!
I’m glad you liked the post. Thanks! As for Nanowrimo, I haven’t signed up on the site yet, but I’m sure you can make a search and look for people. There’ll be a support group for the Write Practice practitioners too – to be announced very soon. First of November is on tomorrow, so let’s start the work and bleed on the pages.
look for Sukey Mackie
done! Great. lookign forward.
Writing about something you don’t like just to fit the market is the perfect way to fail. It leads to discouragement and frustration. Eventually, you just give up after having wasted time you could have used on a project you enjoyed.