Faith A. Colburn's Blog, page 3

How Many Characters in a Book?

One of my editors told me I needed to kill off a bunch of characters. He said I had too many to follow. I thought about Eugene Sue’s 1889 novel, The Wandering Jew. It runs a couple thousand onion-skin pages and I do remember struggling to remember who was whom. But in the two novels I’ve been writing in tandem, the community—or lack of it—is the point. I intentionally left Bobbi Bowen in The Reluctant Canary Sings with hardly anyone to help and comfort her. On the other hand, Connor Conroy in my unnamed work-in-progress finds community and family everywhere.

Throughout the novel, Connor worries about his sister who is a secretary with the U.S. Foreign Service stationed in Paris. As the Nazi machine gets closer, he tries to prepare his parents’ farm for his prolonged absence. He plans to enlist in the hope that he can rescue his sister.

Here is Connor’s beloved sister Nora:

Basic Statistics

Name: Nora Conroy

Age: 19

Nationality: U.S. citizen, English, Irish, Scottish, German, Wyandotte, Shawnee

Socioeconomic Level as a child: upper middle class

Socioeconomic Level as an adult: poor

Hometown: Elk Creek, Nebraska

Current Residence: Elk Creek, Nebraska

Occupation: domestic

Income: intermittent as jobs available

Talents/Skills:  farm wife, cooking, cleaning, caring for livestock, milking cows, etc.

Salary: intermittent

Birth order: second and last

Siblings (describe relationship): Connor. Very close

Grandparents (describe relationship):  Will and Frank Conroy. A little intimidated

Relationship skills: shy, but caring. Empathetic, but aloof.

Physical Characteristics:

Height:  5’7”

Weight: 120

Race: White

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Color: Long, Blond

Glasses or contact lenses? No

Skin color: Freckled

Shape of Face: Narrow

Distinguishing features: slightly buck toothed

How does he/she dress? farm attire, sometimes overalls, mostly dresses, shirtwaists when off the farm

Mannerisms: hand over mouth; closed mouth smile

Habits: (smoking, drinking etc.) No smoking or drinking. Obsessive reading, at least at the beginning. Escape from boredom.

Health:  good

Hobbies:  dancing, learning new dances, listening to music, reading

Favorite Sayings:  I can’t see it. Show me.

Speech patterns: careful to avoid slang that creeps into other members of her family’s vocabulary.

Disabilities: Math anxiety. Struggles with abstractions. Needs concrete experience.

Style (Elegant, shabby etc.): elegant away from home, shabby when working on farm

Greatest flaw: vanity

Best quality: desire to help others

Intellectual/Mental/Personality Attributes and Attitudes

Educational Background: finished high school      

Intelligence Level: average

Any Mental Illnesses? a little obsessive

Learning Experiences:  Trip to California showed her a greater world than she’d ever seen; hearing Spanish spoken gives her a taste for languages, foreign places.  Dust storms teach her patience, endurance.

Character’s short-term goals in life: get away from the farm

Character’s long-term goals in life:  home and family, love

How does Character see himself/herself? Beautiful, caring soul unable to express herself.

How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others? Unattractive because of big teeth; dumb because she can’t grasp abstractions like her brother.

How self-confident is the character? lacks self confidence

Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?  emotion–a bleeding heart.

What would most embarrass this character?  Being seen in her work clothes by anyone outside family.  Even gathering rubber for the coming war effort, she had to change into a dress for the newspaper photographer.

Emotional Characteristics

Strengths/Weaknesses: Nora’s smarter than she thinks and more adaptable. Serious. Diligent; hard worker. Great comforting children sent to safety by parents. Does well with repetitive tasks required for secretarial work–filling out forms to get people out of Europe, but impatient with rules of diplomacy that keep her from saving more people. She’s too willing to take risks to help other people and sometimes puts the rest of the staff in jeopardy.

Introvert or Extrovert? introvert!

How does the character deal with anger? denies it, even to herself

With sadness? Beginning, wallows; Ending recognizes sorrow and adapts.

With conflict? avoids it

With change? avoids it; then embraces it.

With loss? begins being crushed by small losses; ends able to grieve and go on effectively

What does the character want out of life? the love of a good man, children, to make a difference

What would the character like to change in his/her life? she doesn’t want to be a farm wife

What motivates this character? a desire for something different; helping people; love

What frightens this character?  the Hitler war machine, Daniel getting caught.

What makes this character happy? her family, her lover

Is the character judgmental of others?  no

Is the character generous or stingy?  generous

Is the character generally polite or rude?  polite

Spiritual Characteristics

Does the character believe in God?  Yes, although her belief is tested throughout novel

What are the character’s spiritual beliefs? like the rest of her family, very nature centered

Is religion or spirituality a part of this character’s life? Not a big part

If so, what role does it play? provides a sense of connection to the world

How the Character is Involved in the Story

Character’s role in the novel (main character? hero? heroine? Romantic interest? etc.): Main character’s sister. Provides a sense of his ability to be a catalyst for other’s change

Scene where character first appears: prologue–early in novel: flashback when Connor returns home from being a hobo during Depression

Relationships with other characters:

1. Connor Conroy: — little sister. Connor condescends a little, but by the end of the novel, he’s in awe of her work.

2. Claire Conroy: — Daughter. Only begins to understand mother.

3. Henry Conroy: — Daughter. Respect. Doesn’t change.

4. Daniel Jardin: — Lover. Co-conspirator in smuggling Jews out of Europe. Relationship fraught with danger.

How character is different at the end of the novel from when the novel began: Nora has outgrown her vanity and taste for adventure. Ready to settle down with Jardin, assuming he’s survived, even on a farm, if need be.

Additional Notes on This Character: Nora has a large part in this novel, but only as a supporting character to demonstrate the kind of family that has formed Connor. Her story is secondary (but I see I have to resolve it).

Big Band Music

I couldn’t resist just one post with only music. What follows is what Bobbi Bowen would have been singing and hearing. Please click through the ad(s) I tried to avoid them, but I linked to publicly available YouTube video/audios.

This one is a little late for Bobbi, but she’d have loved Glen Miller’s The Lady is a Tramp.

Jimmy Dorsey’s another artist whose title appears in The Reluctant Canary Sings. Here’s One O’Clock Jump recorded in 1942.

Tommy Dorsey’s Let’s Get Away From It All probably seemed like a good plan to Bobbi.

You get Bobbi humming and singing Artie Shaw throughout the novel. This one also appears in Canary. Begin the Beguine, please forgive the ad.

And now for the quintessential swing era tune. In the Mood.

This was fun, listening to all the old tunes and making my picks. What do you think? do you have other favorites?

 

Traveling to New Locations

A workshop and a couple of readings will keep me traveling quite a lot this month. No big commitments if it weren’t for the travel time. As many of you know, out here on the Great Plains we measure distance not in miles or kilometers but in hours–and it takes several to get from here to anywhere else. That applies to pretty much anywhere you start.

So here’s the schedule:

Tomorrow, November 4, at 9:30 a.m. at Cottonwood Ranch, Kansas, I will talk about the process of gathering family stories and writing memoirs. Entitled Family Histories; More Than Names, Dates, and Places, the talk focuses on research and what to do with what you find. I will use examples from my own books to talk about how those unusual details can bring a story to life. Six hours driving time both ways.

Got home late Saturday with many good feelings. What a great setting out on the open prairie, in the old ranch house made mostly by hand of native limestone. I had a wonderful, receptive audience and terrific hostess. What fun discussing memoirs, and research, and plains history. I hope the occasion to visit the ranch will arise again someday. On to Norfolk next weekend to meet more new readers I’ve never met.

November 12, at 1 p.m., the Main Street Book Store in Norfolk, Johnny Carson’s home town, will host Sarah Buhrman, Cort Fernald, and me in a reading and book signing. Should be an interesting time. Our work couldn’t be a whole lot different. Sarah writes fantasy. She says if it’s fantasy, she writes it. Cort specializes in gritty thrillers, and I do memoir and historical fiction. Visit Indie Bob’s Blogspot on the store.

November 18 from 10-12 and 1-3, Chapters Bookstore in Seward plans a book fair. Carla Ketner, the owner, has a great lineup of readers for your literary delight. I will read in the afternoon. Visit Odyssey Through Nebraska to learn more.

I hope to see some of you at one or the other of these locations.

Traveling

A workshop and a couple of readings will keep me traveling quite a lot this month. No big commitments if it weren’t for the travel time. As many of you know, out here on the Great Plains we measure distance not in miles or kilometers but in hours–and it takes several to get from here to anywhere else. That applies to pretty much anywhere you start.

So here’s the schedule:

Tomorrow, November 4, at 9:30 a.m. at Cottonwood Ranch, Kansas, I will talk about the process of gathering family stories and writing memoirs. Entitled Family Histories; More Than Names, Dates, and Places, the talk focuses on research and what to do with what you find. I will use examples from my own books to talk about how those unusual details can bring a story to life. Six hours driving time both ways.

November 12, at 1 p.m., the Main Street Book Store in Norfolk will host Sarah Buhrman, Cort Fernald, and me in a reading. Should be an interesting time. Our work couldn’t be a whole lot different. Sarah writes fantasy. She says if it’s fantasy, she writes it. Cort specializes in gritty thrillers, and I do memoir and historical fiction. Nine to ten hours both ways.

November 18 from 10-12 and 1-3, Chapters Bookstore in Seward plans a book fair. Carla Ketner, the owner, has a great lineup of readers for your literary delight. I will read in the afternoon. Seven hours round trip.

I hope to see some of you at one or the other of these locations.

Conspiracy Theory?

The prompt for next week’s writing group meeting comes from a photo, not a line.  It’s a photo of a photographer with a professional camera up to his eye. In the sepia-toned photo, he wears a hat. He could be a private detective trying to get proof of wrong-doing. I was thinking about him as I drove home from the Nebraska Writers Guild conference last weekend.

Coincidence

I stopped in a rest area, annoyed at the driver who blocked most of the parking spaces in front of the building with his pickup and horse trailer. I parked where I could find a space and entered the structure. I noticed an old guy with his face nearly touching the Nebraska map on the wall. I asked if I could help him and he said he wanted to get onto U.S. 54. Coincidentally, I used to drive a semi-tractor/trailer cross-country and knew a bit about how to get from one place to another.  We discussed routes to get him where he wanted to go and I got my trucker’s book of maps from the car to show him.

Conspiracy

As I left the building, I saw the guy I’d been talking to getting into the offending pickup. An old white guy with a bald spot on the crown of his head, he got into an old white pickup pulling an old white trailer with a bunch of bales racked on the top. On the back of that picturesque rig I saw a number of bumper stickers that led me to believe he might be a conspiracy theorist. He pulled out ahead of me and I followed.

Photographer

I had the writing prompt in mind as I drove down interstate 80 and I started to wonder how I could put that photographer together with the horse hauler to make a short story. We have about five minutes in our meetings to read our stories. So how could I put the guy and his long trip together with another old guy with a camera to make a five-minute story?

More Story Elements

I wondered how my meeting with the horse-hauler could lead him to believe he’s the victim of a conspiracy. What could I have done that he might misunderstand–frightening him into believing the photographer and I conspired against him? I am a woman who drives a Prius–not a car anyone would choose to engage in a high-speed chase, but what if he looked into his side mirrors and noticed my car behind him? What if we were going at about the same speed? What if he stopped at a truck stop and the photographer thinks he and his rig are picturesque enough to get some photos?

What about you? Does this give you the start of a story? How about sharing the outline of your idea? I’ll be reading mine at the next writer’s group meeting.

Dragon’s Eggs

I will be at the Nebraska Writers Guild Greater Nebraska Conference this weekend, but I’d like to leave you with something to consider. What follows is an excerpt from my book, The Reluctant Canary Sings. I will be reading this bit at the conference, but what I hope it does is gets people thinking about how what happens in one generation affects the generations to come. See what you think. Would the difficulties described here make any difference to the children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren of these people? 

Without the watch, he’d have thought he hatched from a dragon’s egg.

Bobbi’s parents have had a fight. her dad has stormed out into the rain and, since Bobbi sleeps on a Murphy bed in the living room, she’s wide awake too.

Dad glanced at me, and I caught his gaze for a moment and held it, giving him a nasty look. Then he turned and slammed out of the apartment, thumping along on his crutches. I wondered briefly where he’d go that time of night in the rain, but at that moment I really didn’t care.

When Mom came out a few minutes later, her normally olive skin gleamed white in the gleam from the street light around the corner from our tiny window. She had a wild look in her eyes.

“You’re not crazy, Mom.”

Mom sat in the chair by the window, gazing out at the blank wall across the alley.

“I don’t think I am,” she said, “but sometimes, when we can’t make enough money, I feel like I’ve lost it.”

Hugging my knees to my chest, I tried to give her some reassurance.

“You’re just scared, Mom, not crazy.”

“Isn’t it the same thing? Paranoid, they called her. Isn’t that being scared of everything?”

“But you don’t see things that aren’t.”

“I’m not sure she did, either.” Mom fidgeted with the folds of her nightgown.

“What do you mean you’re not sure she did?”

“I was never sure if she imagined things or if Father just wanted to get rid of her.”

I stared, noticing a cold draft running up my spine. “What are you talking about?”

“Bobbi, they fought and they fought and they fought. My mother was not one to let him have his way just because he was a man.” She got quiet then, but in a moment she seemed to rouse herself. “Guess I got that from her.” She glanced at me and back out the window, “but I never remember her talking about anything that wasn’t real.”

“But wouldn’t the doctors know?”

“Bobbi, it seems to me that they all figure any woman who doesn’t agree with her husband—or any man—must be crazy.” Mom continued to stare at the bricks, her voice expressionless.

“You don’t think she was crazy?”

“I don’t know, Bobbi. Sometimes she,” Mom glanced at me, “she’d just blow up, yelling and screaming.” Mom fidgeted with her nightgown again. “The little kids would run and hide and just shiver in fear.”

“What did you do?”

“Kind of ducked my head and did whatever she wanted—if I could figure it out—and wait for her to wear herself out.”

“Was she always like that?”

Mom frowned. “Seems like it started when I was about, I don’t know. Maybe ten—eleven—after she had Mildred. We all worried she’d hurt Millie, so I’d try to grab the baby and keep her quiet.”

“What about your dad? Couldn’t he keep her calm?”

“Like I said, they just fought and fought.” Mom glanced over her shoulder at me and back out the window. “He’d tell her to calm down. He might try to get hold of her hands, ‘cause she’d be striking at him—and she’d scream at him about some other woman. She’d get wild sometimes with anger, always about his women—kickin’ and spittin’.”

“Were there other women?”

“I don’t know, Bobbi. I was just a kid. He was gone a lot.”

“Is that when they put her in the asylum?”

“No. Not then. She had three more babies and the blow-ups happened more and more often and father couldn’t control her at all—nobody could.” Mom’s fidgeting in her lap got more agitated. “And then we were all scattered out everywhere.” She turned to me. “You don’t need to hear this, Bobbi.”

“No, Mom, no wonder you get scared sometimes. I’m glad you told me.”

We both stared out the window at the wet bricks across the way, listening to the thunder. “What about your dad then, what did he do after?”

“After he had her locked up?”

“Yeah.”

“Well he farmed all us kids out with relatives. And he was there all by himself.” She shook her head, clucking her tongue. “I don’t know—did she just wear him out? Did he drive her crazy? He just gave up on everything; didn’t even try to get the kids back.” She sighed. “I stayed with my friend, Evelyn. I was sixteen and her parents let me stay until I married your father.”

“What about your brothers and sisters?”

“They all went—no two together.” Mom looked around at me, her eyes indistinct. “We never saw each other again. I’ve tried to find them.”

“That’s why . . . .”

“That’s why we never see my family—except Moreen. She’s the only one I ever found.”

“And she never found the others?”

“The family disowned us, Moreen and me.”

“Why?”

“We were Irish Catholics.”

“So?”

“She and I married Protestants.”

“They disowned you?!”

“That’s what they did back then.”

I couldn’t say anything.

“And your dad was an orphan.”

I stared at my mom, mind locked. Why hadn’t I known this? How could I not know this? I remembered all the yelling about the watch.

“Wait a minute. What about the watch?”

“The sisters gave it to him when he left. Said they found it in the box with him.”

“Box?”

“Yeah. An apple box. On the steps.”

“That’s awful. What happened to his parents?”

“Nobody knows. There was a big diphtheria epidemic about that time. Maybe his parents died and some neighbor took him. Or maybe his mama died having him. I don’t know.”

“Wouldn’t somebody keep track?”

“Apparently not. He says that watch is the only proof he has that he came from real people. Otherwise, he says, he’d have to think he hatched out of a dragon’s egg—I think they treated him pretty rough.”

I sat, stunned, trying to imagine not having parents. Mine could frustrate the hell out of me and, during the times they could afford to live separately, they passed me around like a baseball with two men on base, but I always knew one or the other of them would take care of me. It seemed like neither of my parents even had that comfort.

“So there was just the two of you then,” I said finally.

“And then you came along.”

Mom turned back to the window. “Just the two of us,” Her voice trailed off and she stared at the bricks across the alley. “just tryin’ to be normal. An’ we don’t know what that’s like or how to make a family. How would we know?”

She seemed to be talking to herself, so I just listened.

“An’ so mad. Him just a little baby boy an’ no parents. Nobody to love him. Just tellin’ him to keep his mouth shut an’ do what he’s told. An’ me listenin’ to ‘em fight. An’ her screaming and clawin’ at him an’ him hittin’ her and tryin’ to shut her up. No wonder she went crazy—or maybe it was him went crazy.”

“I always swore I’d never be like them—your dad and I made a kind of pact—but sometimes I feel like I’m gonna explode, like my skin’s stretching and stretching—and I’m gonna blow up and splatter all over.” Mom looked back at me again. “I try to be calm. I get so scared I’m like her.”

“You’re not, Mom. I’m scared too. It’s hard to be poor.”

A flash of lightning illuminated the bricks across the way and nearly blinded both of us. Blinking, we waited for the thunder. When it came, it was a low, guttering growl. We sat watching lightning flashes on the wall as the storm retreated, rolling and growling away like a dragon seeking its egg.

 

Work in Progress–Characters

I’m using my character profile worksheet again. This character plays the lead in a book I’m calling See Willy See for now–because of his initials and middle name. So here he is, Connor William Conroy, brother, son, farmer, hobo, soldier, just trying to get along.

Connor Conroy Profile Worksheet

Basic Statistics

Name: Connor William Conroy

Age: 21

Nationality: U.S. Citizen, Irish, Scottish, English, German, Wyandotte. Shawnee

Socioeconomic Level as a child: upper middle class

Socioeconomic Level as an adult: destitute at the beginning of the story.

Hometown:  Elk Creek, Nebraska

Current Residence: None

Occupation: Hobo

Income: Catch as catch can

Talents/Skills: living off the land; can do most manual tasks; interested in and good at making things grow; good at making friends; good at organizing groups of people to accomplish specific tasks.

Salary: None

Birth order: First Born

Siblings (describe relationship): One, Nora. Very close.

Grandparents (describe relationship): William and Frank Carpenter. Close, informal relationship. Often worked together with dad growing up.

Significant Others (describe relationship): Parents, sister, friends. All at a distance for most of narrative.  We’ll get to that.

Relationship skills: Really good. Parents’ example partnership-in-life, openness-and-helpfulness-to-others telling.

Physical Characteristics:

Height: 6’2”  Tall for his generation.

Weight:  155 pounds.  Very slender

Race: WASP

Eye Color: Blue

Hair Color: Connor has a shock of black hair that’s always falling over his forehead.

Glasses or contact lenses? No

Skin color: Deeply tanned.

Shape of Face:  squarish, broad grin, big teeth

Distinguishing features: One gold filling in front.

How does he/she dress? Informally. Mostly jeans and work shirts.

Mannerisms:  whistles–while he works, walks, does most anything. Sings sometimes–off key. Runs fingers through hair when frustrated. Rakes it back off his face when he’s trying to concentrate, or work on something.

Habits: No smoking or drinking at beginning of novel–learns both in Pacific. Spends as much time as possible outdoors, looking at wildflowers, checking out birds’ nests, waiting quietly for wild critters.  READING. He reads and writes so many letters and takes so many notes about what he sees in the jungle, he’s earned the nickname Professor.

Health:  Robust good health.  Broad shoulders, narrow hips, well muscled.

Hobbies:  Photography, bird watching, reading, writing

Favorite Sayings: Don’t judge until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins.

Speech patterns: Occasionally falls into folk slang.

Disabilities: Mechanically inept

Style (Elegant, shabby etc.):  Down-to-earth, not given to keeping up with the Joneses. A little vain about dress–wants to be clean, pressed. Wants to look like he cares what he looks like.

Greatest flaw:  Too willing to take risks, to jump into new situations without thinking about the consequences. Often insubordinate, to do things his way.

Best quality: Ability to empathize with others

Intellectual/Mental/Personality Attributes and Attitudes

Educational Background: Finished high school, unable to attend college due to Depression

Intelligence Level: above average

Any Mental Illnesses?  None

Learning Experiences: As a kid, when he starts working with his dad, he finds he’s mechanically inept. When his dad loses all the savings he had in three banks, he learns even your most commonsense precautions sometimes don’t work. Inability to attend college teaches him to adapt to different expectations.

Character’s short-term goals in life:  Stay alive and see some country–contribute to ending the war.

Character’s long-term goals in life:  Connor’s goals change as the story progresses, although somewhere in the background is always the assumption that he will eventually settle down and have a family—take care of living things.

How does Character see himself/herself?  As a fun-loving, friendly guy who’s always willing to help out in an emergency. He knows he’s smarter than some of his friends, but doesn’t set a premium on that. He expects to be an asset to the community if the economy ever settles down so he can do something more than just survive.

How does Character believe he/she is perceived by others?  As a fun-loving, friendly guy who’s always willing to help out in an emergency.

How self-confident is the character? Very self-confident without being arrogant.

Does the character seem ruled by emotion or logic or some combination thereof?  Connor’s a bit of a dreamer, with high hopes that he’ll get to go to college someday and become a plant geneticist. He’s blown away by Luther Burbank’s cross of plums and peaches to get nectarines and he’d like to do something like that. His inability to attend college is a real blow to his emotional universe, but he takes on his father’s attitudes about caring for his own bit of the planet to quell his disappointment.

What would most embarrass this character?  Being unable to complete a task he’s committed to doing.

Emotional Characteristics

Strengths/Weaknesses:  Physical strength, good health, able to see other’s point of view, intelligence, tolerance for differences of all kinds. Not very assertive, naive, going off half cocked, risk-taking.

Introvert or Extrovert?  Extroverted Introvert. Able to take leadership role, able to easily mix with others, as long as he has plenty of time to himself. Too many people, too much of the time exhausts him.

How does the character deal with anger?  Not easy to roused to anger during first part of novel. Stress of combat gives him hair trigger which he often vents verbally.

With sadness?  Ignores it and it goes away–mostly. After combat scenes, falls into deep depression.

With conflict?  Willing to go with the flow, sometimes to his own detriment.

With change? Embraces it with enthusiasm.  War changes that.

With loss? Philosophically.  Until losses pile up in New Guinea.

What does the character want out of life? A stable home and family life; intellectual stimulation; to make a difference.

What would the character like to change in his/her life?  More money!!

What motivates this character?  New experiences. Taking care of people.

What frightens this character?  Hurting someone else; loss of friends/family.

What makes this character happy? Unspoiled nature, friendship, new ideas

Is the character judgmental of others? No

Is the character generous or stingy?  Generous

Is the character generally polite or rude? Polite.

Spiritual Characteristics

Does the character believe in God? Yes

What are the character’s spiritual beliefs?  Very nature centered

Is religion or spirituality a part of this character’s life? Not a big part.

If so, what role does it play?  For Connor religion/spirituality is a background sense of connection to the cosmos–though he’s not very aware of the cosmos, just his little piece of it. Seeing other parts of the world enlarges that concept for him, but what’s beyond the earth’s atmosphere little concerns him.

How the Character is Involved in the Story

Character’s role in the novel: main character

Scene where character first appears: First scene

Relationships with other characters:



1. Nora Conroy: — Close sibling relationship, teasing but would do anything to make sister’s life work for her, an attitude that’s reciprocated. Sometimes takes her for granted, but defends her in any conflict situation. Respect verging on awe as sister takes on foreign service–helping Jews immigrate.

2. Claire Conroy: — Respectful son; grateful for mother’s understanding of his less-than-commonsense/practical attitude; very protective.

3. Henry Conroy: — A little rebellious; respects father’s climb out of poverty, but wants to be on his own; not aware of how much he depends on dad’s good sense.

4. Three Hoboes: — Just a passing acquaintance, except for Charlie, who treks the mountain states with him for a season. Serves as Charlie’s teacher about surviving in the wilderness with almost nothing; strong camaraderie between two men; amused tolerance for each other.

6. The men of is squad: — Protective, sometimes amused, often frustrated—like a father trying to deal with sons’ misbehavior, often in awe.

How character is different at the end of the novel from when the novel began:  Connor has been on a roller coaster from the get-go, but he remains optimistic throughout most of the set-backs–until he loses his squad at Wakde Sarme. At the end of the novel, he’s just beginning to crawl out of the depression caused by that loss; he’s much less naive–much less trusting of blind luck to get him out of trouble–more realistic about what to expect in his future, but still trying to believe in a home and family.

Additional Notes on This Character: Connor starts out a naive farm kid out to see the world. His experiences in New Guinea turn him inward where he tries to find meaning for all the death and destruction. His friendship with Big Eagle will be critical to his search.

 

Trampling in Eggshells

I met Karen Stork at a book festival. I’d just given a presentation on researching memoirs and she wanted to tell me about hers, Screw the Eggshells. She said she’d written about verbal abuse in her marriage and always feeling like she had to walk on eggshells. Since I’d experienced some of the same misery, I agreed to review her book and I soon had an advance review copy on my Kindle.

The prologue surprised me a little, since it promised a lot more than just a memoir about surviving constant diminishing commentary. In a remembered conversation with her mother, Stork describes her new way of thinking about growing older. she writes that she has to goals in her memoir: 1. to help women in abusive relationships to get out, and 2. to help aging women (and men?) to realize it’s never too late to dream, set goals, and meet them, while having new adventures along the way.

Although Stork begins with the difficult relationship, she follows up with a bit about her early years and then gives us a lot about her adventures as she’s aged. She’s inspired me to figure out a way to afford the travel I’ve always wanted to do.

Anita O’Day — My Research

Since my mom didn’t talk about her career as a singer, I decided, when I decided to write The Reluctant Canary Sings, to find out what her life may have been like.

I hoped to learn something about her experience from other female vocalists who started during the late thirties and early forties. When I found Anita O’Day’s autobiography, I found a treasure. High Times, Hard Times describes a life’s beginning much like my mother’s with a divorce and remarriage—Mom’s parents repeatedly separated and came together. I hoped for similarities.

Early in the book when Anita wrote about the Walkathons, the exhaustion, the sore feet, the uncertainty, she wrote, “. . . we signed our photos, ‘For no good reason . . .’ But we were putting fans on. We did it for money, for shelter and food.”

Anita O’Day began her career with those Walkathons at about the same age as Mom began hers, which gave me the idea of starting Bobbi Bowen’s career with a talent contest. I invented a summer orchestra at an amusement park dance pavilion. Park management wanted a female vocalist, so Bobbi entered.

As her career progressed, O’Day moved from orchestra to orchestra, working her way up to better paying positions and finally went on the road. Her talk about the difficulties of being the only woman cooped up on a bus with a bunch of men resonated and gave me some insight.

She talked about the hassle of keeping her gowns fresh, about getting better as a singer and entertainer, about the gimmicks, and about the drugs and booze.

High Times, Hard Times provides a detailed picture of the life of a female vocalist who started in the 1930s and served as a good research source for The Reluctant Canary Sings.

What Do You Do When You Finish a Book?

Yay! As you know, if you’ve followed this blog, The Reluctant Canary Sings is now live on Amazon.

So what do you do when you’ve finally finished a book, it’s published, and out there for people to read? I guess you take a deep breath and go on to the next one.

This second book, and a third, all started out as one book, but my characters wouldn’t cooperate. Two of them kept trying to take over, and the story kept growing. I stripped out Bobbi’s story and sent it to a writer friend with a lot more experience than me. Is there a novel in here, I asked. She said yes and that was the germ of The Reluctant Canary Sings.

Now I’m dealing with Connor William Conroy—C. Willy C. as his friends call him. Connor lives on a farm near Elk Creek, Nebraska, as World War II spreads in Europe. He spent several years wandering around the west during the Great Depression—just staying alive. He loved his gig in the Civilian Conservation Corps, but it ended in the middle of the second dip of that depression, so he became a hobo for a time.

Connor and Nora write piles of letters from their various postings.

In the beginning of this story he worries about his sister. He has goaded and encouraged her to get into the Foreign Service and now she’s in the U.S. Consulate in Paris. They stay in touch with letters, as much as they can, as the war heats up and Connor tries to decide when, not if, to enlist. Nora writes to her parents about how safe she is in Paris, but her letters to her friend (Connor’s sweetheart Pauline) provide a more honest assessment. Here’s the letter Connor read before he went to chop weeds out of the fencerow:

Dear Pauline (and Connor),

The skies are bright and clear. Spring in Paris is gorgeous, but the trickle of refugees I told you about has turned into a torrent. There are Belgians and Dutch, people from Luxemburg. Thousands of them come into the city and fill every train car available, happy to stand if they can just get away. Cars jam the streets, slowed by the farm families with their wagons, maybe a cow tied on behind, and some chickens in crates on the top.

Remember the Mormons and their handcarts? I think I know what that looked like. There’ll be a hand cart, mattresses and furniture piled on the top, maybe a couple of buckets tied on the sides, a man between the shafts, and the whole family pushing behind.

The Parisians show enormous sympathy for these poor souls, helping any way they can—a little money, some provisions, water, advice on routes. Then they go back to their day-to-day routines and talk about how glad they are that they’re safe. They’re still sitting in the cafés, sipping espresso and watching the human flood pass, like the man by the side of the road. When they talk about the war at all, they just say the French Army will hold the Germans at the Maginot Line like they did during the First World War. But I look at the map. The Germans are in Belgium. Why wouldn’t they just go around the Maginot Line and come in from the north? I have to wonder, too, if these people have ever heard of the Luftwaffe.

Meanwhile, just to make this even more surreal, the newspapers go on and on about rapes and atrocities committed by the Germans during World War I. The contradictions take my breath away.

Well, I’ve got to get some sleep. We’re overwhelmed here, preparing exit visas and letters of transit, not to mention all the dispatches and the actual negotiations with French authorities who all seem to be absent without leave.

Nora

A good share of this book uses letters to reveal the relationships in the Conroy family, as well as describe events my point-of-view character can’t see for himself. What do you think about this device? Is it one that you’ve encountered in other books, or that you might use?