Stephen’s Comments (group member since Aug 04, 2012)

Stephen’s comments from the Q&A with Stephen Matlock group.

Jerry wrote: "I believe having faith in Christ Jesus is the ultimate anchor management in Christianity, or do we have any anchor management as Christians?"

Sorry I missed this! My Goodreads settings were not set up to tell me I had unanswered questions!

The anchor management to me, as a Christian, is my faith in the saving power of Jesus of Nazareth, born King and servant. His love changes me and empowers me.

It's out two days early!

River of Dreams: Essays, Short Stories & Flash Fiction

I updated the book last night (it's still waiting for final edit approval, so I can still change it!) and added a section for the short story/flash fiction that was the inspiration for my novel.

I hadn't read that story for a few years, and when I reviewed it for this book, I found that I really did improve the story by changing it into a novel, and by re-arranging the way the story gets told. I also smoothed out the narrative and made it more approachable to the young adult audience.

The interesting thing is to see the changes in characters. The name of the town changed because I found that there was a real town with the name in the story. I changed Benjamin's last name. I changed the entire name of the congressman.

I also found that I was already hinting at subplots even in this first draft. The story of the congressman and the mayor's wife is hinted here. The collision between the churches is here.

Of course, as the author I think I did the right thing in changing the story to fit a novel-sized work, but I'd be interested to hear from readers who have read both.

This is a book of personal essays, short stories, and flash fiction.

What did you think? What stories would you like to see developed further?

Question 1: What inspired you to become an author?
I’ve been writing a long time—since the 4th grade, if you count my first work “A Dog and His Boy,” based on an illustration from a magazine. My teacher, Mrs. Mitchell, would post a picture every week and we’d write a short story. I wrote one that was about 200 words that ended with “Now they are warm,” and the class loved it—and I loved it because it expressed emotion as well as information. So maybe she’s my inspiration. I wrote short stories and plays and essays all through high school and college, wrote song parodies, newsletter articles, and then transitioned to a career in writing and editing for pay. In my spare time I dabbled in “creative” writing, ending up with seven novels that are completely unpublishable. Then through an interesting series of events, I found myself involved with a local writing group about 2 years ago, and while they were kind about the seventh novel, something clicked and I wrote novel #8, “Stars in the Texas Sky,” during NaNoWriMo 2010. I had 50,000 words by November 22, and 85,000 words by November 30th. I worked on editing and polishing that novel for the next 18th months, shopping it around to agents and editors, and now it’s published and available on Amazon.com.

Question 3: What do you consider your greatest strength as a writer?
Speed. I can pound out a scene or a chapter quickly, and given a time limit I can shape the scene/chapter/story so it has an intro, a build, a crisis, a climax, and a conclusion. Somehow as I type the first lines I already know how it ends. My flash fiction writing sessions have been a lot of fun because of this strength; I generally have something that can either stand as a short-short story, or can become the beginning of a novel. “Stars in the Texas Sky” started this way—a prompt in a flash fiction get-together where the first line, as it tumbled forth from the speaker’s mouth, turned into a vision of Henry with the STOP sign on the Texas prairie, and the entire story took shape far faster than I could write it. I _knew_ it would involve Henry going through the changes in his mind and heart as he considered the meaning of right and wrong; I _knew_ it would involve that great landmine field of American history, racism, and I _knew_ who would live and who would die. Writing the novel took 30 days; I wrote every spare moment but I never was stuck for a scene or an idea. (I’m not saying the novel is in any way perfect; it is the best I can do, but it sprang forth in the flash of a moment.)

Question 5: Why do you write?
In general I write because I see and feel things and I want to record them in a way that makes sense, both so I can make sense of it myself and so that I can explain to others. The stories somehow appear from prompts or ideas and then they take on a life of their own. I’ve written short stories that on one level are about things that on another level reveal deep things about myself and my experiences; often I don’t know what the deeper meaning is until later when I’m in editing mode or even reading them aloud to friends at a public event & then realize “Holy cow: that’s based upon what happened to me 40 years ago & I forgot all about it!”

Question 8: What do you consider your most core philosophy of life?
“We plant trees today so our children can enjoy them tomorrow.” We do things because they need to be done and they’re right, even though there is no immediate payoff. Writing a book is planting a tree. You simply do not get back what you put into it. You never do. But you put out there into the vast sea of human experience another gem, another painting, another sculpture, and the people with whom you share a history and a future will grow richer from it.

Question 11: What do you consider to be your most ideal work environment?
I love having a computer with a full-sized keyboard to work with; I only have that in my office, so I like my office. But for writing itself (not the recording and editing), I like being alone in public; that is, I like being in a coffee shop or a fast-food restaurant by myself at a table with a gel pen and a ¾ size notebook to write and ponder. I just write and write and write. Most of what I write is _about_ the story—I seldom write actual scenes—but I write within the characters, exploring their thoughts and motives. I write backstories and create Q&As and do all sorts of stuff that helps me create the book. I have stacks of handwritten notebooks about my stories—just the thoughts and expressions I am going through as I consider what I will write about.

Question 12: What is your greatest pet peeve?
The dichotomy between belief and action. I don’t mind that people are apathetic and uninvolved, but I get quite upset when they pretend they are connected and committed. After all is said and done, more is said than done. People should talk less and do more, but that’s advice, so it’s not likely to be followed.

Question 13: How would you like to be remembered by people?
As a man who wasn’t afraid to be honest and yet tempered honesty with kindness.

Question 14: How has writing been different than what you’d imagined?
I didn’t imagine that writing the long form (the novel) would be as tedious. It’s a story that must hang together, and there were so many details to put together in the right way. I tried to be historically accurate to the time, so I had to create calendars and maps, chart stars and moon positions so that if Henry sees a constellation, it would have been in the sky in 1952 at that latitude and longitude. I had to account for holidays and travel times and entertainment choices—so many things to get just right so that they would feel as if they “fit” in the same way the naturally occurring events of 1952 fit.

I also struggled with the notion of truth versus bromides; that is, with what really goes on in the mind of a 13-year-old versus what we adults ¬_wish¬_ would go on. Kids get lots of instruction and information from adults who seem to forget what it’s like not _knowing_ what is right and true, so I tried to have Henry and Benjamin explore everything they were interested in without coming up against adult boundaries. There are about 120 scenes in the book, but I wrote nearly 500 scenes total, some of them just for background, and some of them to explore the nature of being and discovery at the 13-year-old level. There were many more discussions of sex and life and death, but I ended up cutting them because I felt they distracted from the main story; I wrote the scenes, however, to get as brutally frank as possible _for that age_. I didn’t want to write an adult’s memoir of being 13; I wanted the 13-year-olds to come alive in the book and _be_, as much as possible, 13.

Betsy Lerner (I believe) says “You can’t write until your mother dies,” meaning you can’t write—really _write the truth_—until that part of you that feels shamed by your thoughts and feelings loses its grip on you. I’m not saying that you can be crude and obscene—that isn’t necessary and crudity and obscenity are often lazy shortcuts: “See! Strong words and actions that should make you wince! My work is done.” Rather, you have to let go of the thing in you that tries to prevent the real _you_ from writing and tries to make you write what others will like and what will make your work acceptable.

Question 15: What was the happiest moment of your life?
Being with my close friends. Just being. That can involve doing stuff or doing nothing, but there is something about hanging out with people you love that is the most human thing we do.

Question 16: Do you have any regrets?
I regret that I did not make bolder choices earlier. I did not write for several decades because it was foolish and a waste; but it has become a means for me to explore myself and my world, define myself, understand myself, and communicate my values. But upon reflection—I regret nothing. I made all the choices I did because at the time they seemed right. I could not have _written_ what I wrote if I had tried to do it earlier.

Question 19: What or who inspired the characters of your book?
Hard question. There weren’t really any particular people I identified as being the main characters. Both the Henry and Benjamin were made up from idealized 13/14 year olds using my memories of that age along with the recent young teenage years of my sons as well as the young kids of my friends. The congressman is loosely based upon Lyndon Johnson in that he is a cunning, smart, and vicious man who does great things (I’m ambivalent about LBJ: love him and hate him).

Question 20: How do you come up with the names of characters?
The names are based upon their characters
Henry Valentine—manly, with a heart
Benjamin Clark—suffering servant
Tommy Jordan—descending doubter

The congressman—Perkins Lee Galloway III—comes from a book of “southern” names that I just combined together

The rest were just common names for the time & they sounded right.

Question 28: How did you come up with the title of your book?
The original title was strongly vetoed by my group. Then I saw the theme(s) of my book as the unchanging nature of humans against the wishes for change by the people. Stars and Windmills. It’s set in Texas, so it became “Stars in the Texas Sky.” I had suggestions to make it “Stars in the _Texan_ Sky,” but it didn’t feel right.

Question 34: Have you gotten emotional while writing? If so, what has been the most emotional part of your book to write?
For the novel, yes, several times. I tried to capture the feeling of wonder and terror at life and death and sex and love. And I tried to make the writing _feel_ that sense of up and down, crescendos of hope and love and plummeting despair. There are a few scenes I still have trouble reading aloud because of the gentle naïveté expressed by kids who don’t know yet just how terrible the world is and how much it is about to grind them up. It is great to be young, but it is always punished.


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Stars in the Texas Sky

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