Shadows on the Roses - A New Twist

It's Thursday morning and I'm in my office writing a murder mystery, Shadows on the Roses (working title)that I started last summer. It's the first Thursday I've had free to pursue my own writing this year.

January and February I taught Writing Your Life Story classes every Thursday from 10 am -12 noon. I'll be back teaching the first week in April but for now I'm going to spend every Wednesday and Thursday writing on my novel.

This morning I watched a red squirrel climb the Hawthorn tree outside my window, saw big fat white clouds gradually give way to off and on blue. The limbs of the fir trees waved to me with the help of a cold wind which hasn't yet made way for spring. I'm cold but my fingers still move; my goal for today; finish the first scene in chapter 13.

I'm experimenting with an idea that came in the night. It fed right into a new twist I think I can use to bring my heroine, Clarissa, and hero, Blake, together and at the same time tell a story within a story, I hope it works so here goes.

Chapter 12 ends with these words:

His {Blake's} answer was to cover her {Clarissa's} hand and the unusual ring with his own. For the first time since she looked into the angry eyes of the woman she had thought was her friend, she felt an unexpected comfort spread through her being. Blake had untangled the chain which now hung around her neck. Together they would untangle the mystery of Dirk's death. Maybe even solve the mystery surrounding the amber ring. But first she would listen to Blake's story.

She smiled up at him and held her cupped hand with the ring, close to her ear. “My mother always said, 'Everybody loves a story' and that's me 'to the T'as she used to say. I'm listening, Blake. Carry on.”


CHAPTER 13:

“Are you sure you want to hear a family story that for all I know might not be totally correct?” Blake asked. “Family history always get sort of jumbled, it seems to me.”

“That's probably true.” Clarissa settled her tea cup on the table in front of her and leaned back against the settee. “Why even people that are in the same family remember things differently. But that doesn't make it wrong in my way of thinking. It's only that they're human, prone to err. Besides, nobody ever sees everything the same way, that's for sure.”

She straightened her back. “Why just look at Joe and me. We don't even come up with the same year sometimes. He exaggerate sometimes too, but then there's me. I have an overactive imagination so I've been told. Lots of time I remember something someone told me and made the mistake of thinking I was there.”

Blake nodded. "Our family might have embellished our story about our great grandfather and the amber ring, too. But basically I do think the facts are right on.” He took a swallow of coffee and began his story:

“It all began with my grandfather who was born in 1894. Shortly after he was born his father and mother, their newborn son and one year old daughter moved from Portland to a small farm upriver that they'd purchased alongside the Willamette River. I think it was actually in your area, Clarissa, except it was probably on the other side of I-5.

“My mother said they owned almost 50 acres of virtually untouched timber. But there was no house on the property, not even a cabin so they spent their first couple of years in a tent that they erected as soon as they arrived. After that my great grandfather cleared out a grove of old growth timber where they planned to build a house. But great grandfather wasn't much of a manager when it came to money. Every penny he got from doing odd jobs for other farmers went toward buying horses. Horses, horses, horses; he was crazy about them.

“By the time the Klondike gold rush hit in 1897 they were still living in the tent. Whether or not the harsh living conditions influenced him to follow the gold I don't know but . . . .

To Be Continued....

The Power of Story

Winter term for my Writing Your Life Story students is almost over but Spring is coming and we'll start in for another term before summer hits. Looking back over these weeks I have to say that the one session I taught this winter which ended up as the most helpful, for the most students, had to do with the power of story.

Our goal this winter has been to write one story about each of the following: our birth, earliest memories, elementary school memories and our high school years. That last area had to be my biggest hang up: Every time when it came time to write about my own high school years, I'd stall then quickly go on to a different segment of my life.

This year I wanted to begin in earnest. Where should I start? At the beginning of course. Wasn't that what I told my students?

I sat down at my computer and wrote out two factual paragraphs. I was telling very well but showing? And suddenly I remembered THE POWER OF STORY. Okay, where's the story?

The result: My High School Years Begin.

West Linn High 1954-1956

My world changed dramatically the fall I started high school at West Linn. Wilsonville was at the end of the district, a small town which pretty much consisted of a grade school, a tavern, Aden’s General Store and Post office, and a feed store. Most of the people who lived in the town commuted to Portland by car, a few rode the bus. Others worked in Lake Oswego, Tigard and other small towns that offered more job opportunity.

The eight grade elementary school had less than a hundred students altogether, my graduating class had only eight. Now we were in high school and we were told there were more than 120 freshman alone, perhaps more. Instead of being in the same classroom all day students were responsible to attend six different classes. My best friend, Barbara Workman, and I signed up for General Math, English, P.E., Science, Social Studies and Study Hall and chose to have identical schedules. We even shared the same locker and that’s where the trouble began.

No matter how hard we tried, we two freshman girls from the back roads of Wilsonville, couldn’t quite master the combination. We tried it: 37 R, 19 L, two twirls all the way around twice. The door was supposed to open at 39, wasn't it? Except it didn't. That first week we must have been late for every class although we did eventually make it to most of them. Neither of us could quite figure out what we did right when that gray metal door would finally decide to pop open. Sometimes kicking the door seemed to help, at least occasionally it did. But we could could never quite figure out the combination, not really.

One night my brother Lawrence got mad at me about the whole situation. “I could hear you and Barbara kicking and banging that door when I was at the other end of the hall today. I was so embarrassed.”

I felt heat rise up in my face. “It doesn’t want to open,” I said. “Sometimes it does but most of the time—“

“It’s stupid of you to hit it like that, too,” he said. “I can’t believe you’d do such a thing. What will people think? Everybody knows you’re my sister.”

That was just the problem; nobody knew who I was. I was invisible.

I stuck my nose in the air and glared at him. I didn’t tell him how much I hated that locker or that I felt a whole lot more embarrassed then he did about the whole thing. Nor did I tell him how sick to my stomach I felt every morning when we went down and then up the little hill after the bus made the last turn towards the high school. And what about the sea of strange faces as they surged past us in the hall and the elbows that pushed and crowded? To me, a quiet country girl, the noise they made as they clattered down the hall was unbearable.

Barbara and I finally went to the office. That very afternoon the maintenance man put in a brand new combination lock and wonder of wonders, it worked perfectly. First Right, then Left, two twirls all the way around twice and “bravo” the door popped open right at 39. What a lock! After that we never missed a class, at least not intentionally! We’d proved we could conquer the locker. Now we could settle down to life as Freshman in an alien world.

What new challenge would tomorrow bring?

Can you tell when I stopped telling and began showing? Notice I used fiction techniques to write what is actually known in the writing world as an anecdote and it is anecdotes which put power into writing. Personally I like to think of them as short stories which make pictures in the reader's mine, grab the heart and make them eager to read more. My anecdote/story actually begins in the fourth paragraph.

I hope you learn as much from this entry as I did writing it. There'll be more too, I want to tell about Miss Foote, my English teacher, who told me the good looking guy with the dark hair and big shoulders who sat across the aisle from me thought I was cool. I want to tell about writing my first thousand word essay and earning an A+. And what about that cold winter day Barbara and I hiked across the West Linn Oregon City bridge to find a used couch for an upcoming play?

Those memories are still there just waiting to be captured on paper. It's like I tell my students: the more you write, the more you remember. And everybody loves a story!

Everybody Loves a Story

Everybody loves a story and telling stories is what I do best. It’s the heart of what I love most, conversing with my family, writing, speaking--even teaching writing which comes naturally, because I don’t teach mathematics or physics.

Twenty-four weeks out of the year you can find me teaching Writing Your Life Story classes for the continuing education department of Portland Community College. The classes meet at the Tigard Senior Center two days a week on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and I love teaching them.

The stories my students write have taken me around the world and back again. I’ve tasted a bit of what it’s like to be a prisoner of War during World II, to travel as a stowaway from Turkey on a ship to Canada in the early 1900’s. I’ve even flown to Pakistan to hunt snakes. I’ve lived in Washington D.C--watched our president and first lady in a parade waving as they were escorted through the streets, experienced a dust storm on a farm in the Midwest and discovered what rationing was like in the great depression. I’ve done these things all in one morning because the students in my classes read their stories out loud.

My students get to help each other make one another’s stories better too, and I get to help. Our Writing Your Life Story class is a highlight for all of us. Everybody loves a story and everyone can write one. And I’ll tell you a secret. You’re the only one who can write your life story because only you know what happened, because you lived it. Because you did, you help others experience it too. Isn’t that the neatest paradox?

Everybody loves a story and now you know why I’m writing this blog. This winter and spring when I teach my classes, I’ll take you with me and you’ll be encouraged to tell your stories to others. Maybe even write them the way the students in my classes do. So welcome aboard to Everybody Loves a Story. If you’re interested come along.

I’d even like to invite those who have no desire to write their story but want to write fiction and non-fiction. I’ve done both of those and although I write mostly in the Christian arena, good writing is still good writing. And Everybody Loves a Story.