Terri Wallace's Blog, page 10

Birthing a Novel

I am both pleased and humbled that my short story “The Collector,” has been well received.  And I am even more humbled that readers seem to want to read more about Junie Rae.  To be honest, I always wanted to write more about her…and about Granny Enid.  I wanted to tell more about what actually happened to Junie’s mother, about other people that helped Junie, and about those who wanted to exploit her and her abilities.

At first, I thought I would write some more short stories and offer a collection.  And I did write more short stories, and I will offer the collection very soon.  Only…the short stories weren’t about Junie, or about Granny, or even about Crankston’s Landing.  They were about other dark, twisty things.

Don’t get me wrong…I did write a lot more about Junie Rae.  But I realized that Junie really, really needed a novel of her own.  My readers seemed to think so, too.  So a novel is what Junie shall have.

The cover for the short story collection…it all of its glory!

Since I am not one to waste words, the collection of assorted short stories will be offered very soon, and it WILL include a slightly revised version of “The Collector” short story that is available on Amazon.  The version in the collection represents the beginning of the novelization of Junie.  The initial setup is trimmed down just a bit to get the reader into the action sooner, and several key scenes are fleshed out a bit more.  The collection also contains “Counting Crows,” as well as many shorter works.

For those of you who are clamoring for more Junie Rae, her novel will start out with the revised short story, and her story will continue from there.  You will get to find out what happened to Junie’s mother, why Junie was sent to Granny Enid, and how she is going to deal with her abilities and those who want to use them for their own, selfish purposes.  So, to all the readers and commenters who asked for MORE…you shall have it!  I am finishing the first draft now, and the summer will be spent editing.

When the leaves begin to turn and the air turns brisk, I want a cup of hot tea, a flickering fire, and a pile of book!   This autumn, you’ll be able to add the Junie Rae novel to your pile.  (Yes, it will be available as a paperback as well as on Kindle.)

Getting my Nerd On

The past few weeks have been busy, and the next few will be busier still.  I have been working hard on the novelization of The Collector, but when Samantha Liggett over at We the Nerdy asked to interview me I was really pleased.  Her thoughtful questions made me even happier that I had agreed to it.  We talked about the Southern Gothic genre, and Oklahoma, and some things I had written.  We even talked some about what is next for Junie Rae and Granny Enid.  (No spoilers!)

Samantha we very gracious and insightful, and she even posted some reviews of The Collector and Counting Crows.  You can read her reviews here.

The interview spanned about seven hours of our day.  Samantha was traveling, and I was writing, and we both took breaks from those things for her to ask me some thoughtful questions, and I would try to come up with an equally thoughtful reply, and a couple of times I think I may have pulled it off.  Most of the time, though, I prattled on and overshared.  Which is exactly what I do in Real Life, too, so it is an accurate profile of me.  You can read the full interview here.

I will keep this post short so I can get back to Junie Rae.  [She has just met Rutland Whitfire (who will play a big role in the novel), and Junie just stood up to Granny Enid--who did not much care for that--so I really need to get back to the story.]

 

 

Things Reclaimed

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn down deserted roads. Although long since travelled, and with more dirt and gravel than actual roadway, I can’t resist the urge to see where these nearly forgotten paths take me.

I have stumbled upon farmhouses (to call them barely standing would be generous), and old store fronts that once housed a bustling drygood store (the decomposing mannequins still stacked in the windows)…or a tack shop…or a feedstore.

Sometimes it looks like the inhabitants just stepped out for a moment–everything still in place. Perhaps they ran next door to borrow a cup of sugar…only whatever might have been next door is long gone. Other times, I wander into a ramshackle shop that clearly was picked clean years ago; rusty tin cans and long-yellowed paper litter the floor.

These abandoned places haunt me, but not nearly as much as the people. I have a habit of creating stories about the people who lived there, and these characters seem as real to me as the mice that scamper inside the water-stained walls of these places I visit. Some of these characters find their way onto the page; others still linger in my mind just waiting to be set free.

…it’s how you say it

Curses, foiled again!

Everyone who knows me at all knows that I have a potty mouth.  It’s true.  I can cuss a blue streak.  I’m not particularly proud of it, but I’m not ashamed of it either.  I realize that there are a plethora of words out there to choose (I am a writer, after all) from but, at times, I choose the dirty words–the ones that offer a cathartic release when shouted or growled.  And this served me well.

Recently, I wrote a bit of flash fiction for a Facebook writing group to which I belong.  The theme was “Imminent.”  A germ of an idea floated around in my head for a day or two, and then it started to grow.  I decided that the story needed to be told from the first person POV, because of the nature of the tale.  I started fleshing out my idea and as the character revealed himself to me, I realized that his language was even coarser than my own (if that is even possible).  I wasn’t sure of this group’s policy on profanity so, not wanting to offend anyone, I asked.  The general consensus was that, if it was honestly necessary for the story, it should be fine.

I was relieved when the group confirmed my suspicion that this character simply would have a foul mouth.  Not in an angry, raging way…but as part of his everyday speech.  His choice of words meant something, it said something about his personality and his relationships.

I suppose that my potty mouth likewise says something about me…about my relationships.  I hope it means that I am surrounded by friends who don’t give a &%$*$(#*(*# if I talk a blue streak, and readers who care enough about my characters to look for the meaning behind the words.

Book Giveaway!

 

April 23rd is World Book Night and, to celebrate, I am giving away two copies of “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”

TO ENTER: simply comment below and tell me about a book that was so amazing that you wanted to share it with the world. The winners will be randomly chosen and announced a 12:00 p.m., CDT on April 23, 2014.  Winners will be announced on this blog and will have seven (7) days to provide me with a mailing address for the book.

As a reminder, all of my stories on Amazon will also be FREE for World Book Night. Feel free to grab one (or all). Comments, shares, and feedback of any kind is always welcome!

Stories without Strings

My World Book Night 2014 Giveaway!

April 23, 2014 is WORLD BOOK NIGHT!

This year is my third year as a Book Giver for World Book Night.  The purpose of World Book Night is to encourage non-readers, or “light” readers, to read more.  To help foster a love of reading, each Book Givers is given a big pile of books to give away (yes, as in FREE!) to those who have not yet developed a love of reading.

The first year, I gave away “The Things They Carried,” by Tim O’Brien.  Last year, I gave away “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood.  This year, I am giving away “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children,” by Ransom Riggs.  You can read more about my previous experience with World Book Night here and here.

 

This year, I will continue my tradition of giving away some of the books on my blog (more on that later), and I will also give some to the shelter.  I will also give some away to unsuspecting passers-by.  I have learned that when you try to give something away, people become suspicious.  Perhaps we don’t give enough—too often there are string attached or hidden motives.  But World Book Night isn’t like that.  It is all about taking a good book and sharing it in the hopes that it will mean as much to someone else as it did to me.

Neil Gaiman (who is a wonderful writer with wonderful hair and a wonderful way of saying the things that I am thinking–but didn’t think to say aloud myself) once said:

Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.

Like many things that Neil says, this is true.

For my eldest, Coraline never left her.  Neither did the Hunger Games trilogy, or the Divergent books.  Or just about anything written by John Green.

My middle child was first marked by several Roald Dahl books.  They left their print on her heart that will never fade.  Then she found a book called Small as an Elephant…then the Divergent books captured her imagination, too.

My youngest child found a kindred spirit in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, then there was a lull…a long lull…in which I feared that books had grown silent for him.  But eventually he, too, found the Divergent trilogy–and the books have been chattering to him ever since.  And I am relieved, because the idea of books being silent makes me sad.

And this is what I hope to pass on to others…this thirst for words, this hunger for stories, this obsession with a well-told tale.  So, each year, when I open my box of World Book Night books—their covers sleek and their spines uncreased—the books are positively brimming with possibility.  Maybe the person who receives this gift will find precisely the words they need to hear.  Maybe they, in turn, will pass the book on to someone else.  Perhaps the book will trade hands over and over, until the pages are dog-earred and the spine is cracked.  Because that, my friends, is the sign of a well-loved book…of a literary life well-lived.

In the spirit of World Book Night, I want to continue giving away the gift of words.  I want to pass on stories without strings.  Therefore, I will be offering all of my short stories on Amazon for FREE for 24 hours.

Perhaps, just perhaps, someone will find in my stories exactly the words they need to hear.

Size Matters

Now THAT’S a big book!

 

“No tea cup is big enough nor book long enough for me to be satisfied.”

― C.S. Lewis

Some people love short stories. For others, the longer the tome the better. So what about you? Do you like short stories? Grand epic tales? Novels or novelettes?

Take Our Poll

The Bits that Haunt Us

Yesterday, I saw that WordPress was having a writing challenge.  I like challenges.  This particular challenge was to write a story with exactly fifty words–no more, no less.

I tossed around a few ideas (some of which I might flesh out a bit and post here later in the week), but the one that spoke to me most was this one:

The autopsy noted sixteen stab wounds, a ruptured aorta, and multiple defense wounds. Amid the sterile notations, the report memorialized the purple panties that you chose that last morning—before you went to work and fought for a final breath, before you decided not to call in sick after all.

As with most stories, this one has some background to it.  The first autopsy report I ever saw was my aunts.  I had ordered a copy of the report not long after my aunt was .  A few of the details included in it seemed horrifically personal.  Not the detailed descriptions of the wounds–I had expected that.  But the fact that it detailed her underwear, her jewelry, those personal things that we pick out and choose to wear because we like them, because they reflect who we are.  These things seemed so out of place among the meticulously chronicled weight and dimensions of each bodily organ.

Life is uncertain, and bits of it will haunt you until its end.

For me, it is that blasted pair of purple panties that I never even knew existed until I read about them in an autopsy.

A few years back, I wrote to a near stranger and told her about this.  At the time, I thought I told her the story because she needed to hear it.  In reading her blog, I thought I saw her spiraling out of control.  I wanted to reach out to her.  To steady her.  But, if I am being honest, it was really that I needed to tell the story.  I needed to be steadied.  She asked if she could share my private email on her blog, and I told her she could.

Once again, that autopsy and all of its secrets have risen up in my mind.  This time, it gave me these fifty words to share.  I don’t know if I am sharing them because someone else needs to hear it, or if I just needed to tell it again.  Maybe it doesn’t really matter.

Gay Carter
10/9/40 – 11/13/98
(This is why I hate Friday the 13ths)

Stepford Writers

I am in awe of writers who actually cross things off their “To Do” list. Things like, you know, “write.” Life has a funny way of getting in the way of writing. To be fair, I have been pretty consistent with my “Lunch Hour Writing” time, but as far as anything more than that…not so much.

I have heard there are writers who are able to hold down a day job, be homeroom mom (or dad), carpool, run errands, have a clean house, cook meals, and keep up with their personal grooming, while still pecking out a couple thousand words every day! To be clear: this is not me. In fact, I am a bit skeptical about whether writers really do exist. Perhaps these Stepford Writers are like a mythological creatures which once had some small basis in reality but, actually, were pulled and tugged and contorted until they no longer resembled anything like the mere mortal writers that I know.

Truth be told, I prefer my writers with a few flaws. Maybe they swear like a sailor, or are frugal to a fault, or suffer from sensory overload and can’t think when there is too much noise around, or maybe they can’t carry a tune to save their life, or “forget” to dust, or have an over-active guilt complex. Oh, wait. That’s all me…well, the point is that flaws should bring us closer.

Or maybe my point was that it is hard to write and have a life, too. Especially if your life involves little people who rely on you. And maybe, just maybe, we have to cut ourselves a little slack as we push forward on our journey…and we should cut other people a little slack, too. The journey is hard enough as it is.

(Or maybe there is no point, but at least I wrote something today, so at least I don’t feel quite so guilty.)

Confession:

In case you wondered what I did this weekend instead of writing, here are a few of the things that occupied my time:

Chased cat off the heating pad.

Finally got the hot tub ready to use–after a mere eight months of procrastination! (P. S. there is a red light in the hot tub, it is not filled with blood–although that would make for a better story.)

Reassured cat that the strange noise coming from the Keurig was not another cat hissing at him.

Gave up and let the cat have the heating pad.

 

Owning Up…

I read a lot.  A.  Lot.  Back before Goodreads, I used to have a list of every book I owned.  It was single spaced, and it was over 60 pages long.  The list was saved on my computer, and I updated it religiously.  The books were arranged by category: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, literary criticism, history, etc.  However, it was not categorized by genre.  Mostly because, at the time, I was in college, and I was an English major, and (if I am being totally honest) I was a total book snob.  I didn’t really own any books that didn’t fit into the literary canon (whatever that has come to mean).  Yep, I was one of those people.

Flash forward about twenty years, and everything has changed.  Well, most everything.  I no longer have my wonderful list (I miss it at times, but seriously–I have three kids.  Who has the time–or energy–to maintain it?!).  In the intervening years, my library has swelled and, faced with several moves over the years, then it was pruned.  (The horror!)

Speaking of horror.  Apparently I write it.  Well, that and Southern Gothic.  I didn’t really give up on the idea of the Great American Novel…I just grew to realize that I liked telling a good story.  It may never end up in the classics section at Barnes & Nobel, but the stories are mine; they are stories that speak to me and which will hopefully speak to others.

My collection of books reflect the changes I have undergone in the past twenty years.  I have made room for dystopian/YA (hello, Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth!), for fantasy (J.K. Rowling), and for some books that can’t be easily classified (Neil Gaiman and Ransom Riggs).  I have grown as a reader.

Don’t get me wrong–I still like poetry and the classics.  In fact, I was fortunate enough to read a wonderful submission by a writer named Eleanor Fogolin.  You might not have heard of her yet…but you will.  She submitted a poem to Drunken Muse Press, which I co-edit.  The poem is quiet and haunting and makes you sit up and take notice.

I had a writing professor once, Teresa Miller.  She once wrote at the top of a story of mine that it had passed her “Envy Test.”  Apparently she knew that writing was “good” when she read something and immediately wished she had written it.  Eleanor’s poem passes my Envy Test.  It is called Eve Eats an Apple in the Byward Market.  You should check it out.  Pass it on to a friend.  Print it for your “inspiration board.”

Stumbling across her poem made me happy.  I like it when I find writing that speaks to me.  It helps me want to write better, to find my own voice, to share my own stories.  It makes the genre shame sting a little less.  It makes me want to own up to what I write.

When someone asks me what I write, I should simply tell them, “Hopefully I write good stories that make people think” and leave it at that.  Because a story, no matter what category you try to squash it into, really just needs to be, well, good.