Author of Great Books: Aching To Be There

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Aching To Be There

     I find it hard to work today. I feel boggy and stumped, in writing the Big Book, until I get to Memphis and walk the streets and smell the city. Someone told me that Memphis has taken a hard hit in these terrible times -- haven't we all, to some extent. Anyway, I am anxious to see for myself, to find a hotel downtown so I can walk Beale Street, ogle the Peabody and "lick windowsills" as my daughters use to call it.
     I need to be inside museums and learning new things, moving on with my understanding of Dr. King's assassination, feeling riots and fires and people frantic and disappointed to the core. I need to watch sanitation workers and study the Lorraine Motel. I want to take tours and watch films and breathe in and out and mostly in.
     Please pass quickly, time, so I can get in my car and point it toward Memphis.

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For Book Clubs

Among my blogs (scroll down the middle) readers will find two books posted for their book clubs: (February) Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt and (March) The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

If you or your book club like this "leading", let me know what books your group has lined up for the next few months, and I'll happily outline one for you.

Simply scroll to the "Comments" at the bottom of The Hunger Games, click on, and leave me a message.

Thanks for reading -- and you're welcome for the writing.

Proud to Sweep Up Around Here

Nobody is born with the silver spoon of writing in his mouth. It takes reading and absorbing writing information and discipline and hours upon hours of private time. Writers come with different agendas -- some dabbling to see if it fits, some playing with the craft for business purposes, or leaving words for posterity or --and this is me -- in order to sell, sell, sell. I always knew I would write and sell books. I knew people would read my words.
"Novelist" lends incredible meaning to the word "voice." -- Amen?

...and More Conversation

On a night when the same five-year-old slept over, we're bedding down, and he asked me, "How do you get girls to marry you?"
I said carefully, "First you grow up (pause), then you tell one you like her, then you tell her you love her (pause). You ask her to marry you, and you get married.
"They don't always want to," he says.
"No. Not always."
"Why did you marry Papa?"
"'Cause I loved him."
"I love the girl on Pocahontas. I want to marry her. Do you?"
"No," I say. "I'm already married."
"OK, then, can I have chocolate milk? I'll have to tell my wife I can't sleep without my chocolate milk."

WRITING TIP: Thirty clever ways to describe things

1. The cat oiled out through the cat door.

2. I found chocolate pudding and hoovered it up while I waited.
3. The bus snored along the street.

4. The car backfired and burped.

5. It was a nail-paring moon.

6. The quilt lifted with his breathing.

7. Afternoons that unfolded like bolts of cloth.

8. (When things keep coming:) This train has no brakes.

9. We ran like bats out of the basement.

10. We wept sweat for hours.

11. …men who look as though they had their hair cut in pencil sharpeners.

12. My mother was a fretful person.

13. I look back on that time and am limp with regret.

14. She left clatter and bang in her wake.

15. I palmed the tears from my face.

16. It sounded like someone playing the piano with his fists.

17. Street light fell into the room.

18. Color washed up and down behind his eyes.

19. His mouth unzipped and…

20. Silence soaked into the room.

21. The men said nothing, carrying silence between them.

22. The quiet was like swells of black water.

23. It was a round, white moon, tossed up from the east.

24. …a thicket of cloud.

25. His words spilled onto the stage.

26. The semester was three days old and already too long.

27. She had blonde curls like a scribble.

28. He was so skinny he was hard to look at.

29. In the sky was a pressed, white moon.

30. He smiled, showing teeth, not meaning it.

31. His thoughts puddled around his feet.

Favorite Writer

My all-time favorite writer may be Julia Ward Howe who, in 1861, penned the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Verse 3:

"Let the hero born of woman crush the serpent with his heel...."

This tune was written around 1856 by William Steffe. The lyrics were first titled Canaan's Happy Shore or Brothers, Will You Meet Me, both campfire spirituals.

In 1860, Vermonter Thomas Bishop joined the Massachusetts militia before the Civil War and wrote the lyrics John Brown's Body. It became the unit's marching song.

Author of Great Books

Carolyn Wall

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Aching To Be There

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