What Genres Besides Novels Do I Write In?

 This is an interesting topic Rhobin gave us this month. 

We are writers, ergo we write.  Novels?  Yes.  I'm working on my eigth novel, but I written a few short stories that have been published.  Most are in anthologies. 

"The Rich Are Different" was set on a classic yacht in New England (where I live and have sailed) waters.  As with much a my writing, I borrowed a few things from real life and made up the rest.  A story about beavers was my first published short story.  I used some of my family and it rubbed my cousin the wrong way, so I never did that again.  Another short story was a young man's middle of the night adventure when he ventured out to buy diapers.  Made it to an anthology.  I've had many poems published, but I don't write poetry any more.  No special reason.  A whole series sprang out of trips to the Southwest and its animal life.  Here is one: 

 

                                                The Diamond Back 

My view is of the low things: 

The leaf-cutting ant bearing a spear of green,

The faint imprint of fearful feet,

Red jasper in a dry stream.  

The Navajo weaves a harmony of diamond shapes,

But none so striking as my patterned back. 

Coiling on my rock I prize my symmetry.

The savage sun of summer drives me

To wary sleep under the mesquite. 

The gritty caliche earth against my belly

Is the feel of here. 

The sharp aroma of the creosote bush,

The scent of sun on yucca blossoms

Is the smell of here. 

I wait for the taste of here: 

The timid skittering mouse,

The nervous cottontail,

The old lizard dragging her tail.

Respect is mine. 

The shying panicked horse bucks and screams.

I observe the one in leather boots

Hiking carefully with his stick. 

The humble horned toad,

The bold scorpion avoids me. 

I get respect. 

Sleek, I slither down the gulch

In a rush of silence. 

Above the hum of bees and insects,

A snaky sound,

The gourd rhythm of my rattles disturbs the air.

 

* * *

A couple of my short stories, "The Trade Show"  and "The PowWow"  are waiting for publication.  In the future, I plan to write vignettes of memoir.  Not a book, just some sharp memories that stick in my mind.  If I ever finish my novel.  

The writers below will be happy to tell you about their adventures into different 

genres.  

Marci Baun http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/

Victoria Chatham http://www.victoriachatham.com

Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea

Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-2qf 

Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobincourtright.com

 

Wealthy Town Vs. Average Town

Thanks to Maricopa College for the great image.

For twenty years we lived in Wealthy Town, with chic shopping, good doctors, dentists, hairdressers, nice neighbors, super schools, a great library, a duck pond, and a fabulous RDF (Recycling Disposal Facility) where one could see captains of industry unloading the recyclables from their Mercedes'. Everything was recyclable in Wealthy Town, right down to old batteries and eyeglasses.  There was a book drop. Someone once found a thousand dollars in a left book.  No owner ever came forward.  It was that kind of place.  On another occasion, a new sink and bathtub were dumped.  When an onlooker asked the owner why he was getting rid of new stuff, he said, "It was the wrong color."  Wealthy. Town, oh, Wealthy Town! 

So, although everything was wonderful in Wealthy Town, housing had become very expensive, only for the truly wealthy. We were ready to retire and sold the too-big house, paid off the mortgage, and said, "Now what?"  Condos in wealthy town cost as much as houses, maybe more.  Not much to downsize into. Alas, Wealthy town. Adieu, Wealthy town.

We looked at condos in Other Towns, and nothing was quite right until and one day our realtor found our dream condo, fabulous and affordable in . . . Average Town! We had nothing against Average Town. It had no shopping to speak of, but suburbia is full of stores and malls and so we would have to drive somewhere to shop.  No good restaurants, either, but hey, the city and the burbs are also full of restaurants.

But Average Town, unfortunately, had no recycling, being, well, Average Town.  For four guilt-ridden years we put everything into the trash for pick up.  Feeling like despoilers of the earth, we looked around for alternatives.  There was a place to take newspapers and junk mail.  But all the plastic, the bottles, the cans, the cardboard, and box board and went into the trash. We found a small herd of Highland Scottish Cattle who relished our vegan scraps, mostly fruits and vegetables with the occasional slice of stale bread. 

One day, we had a discussion and decided it would be all right to return to the RDF in Wealthy Town.  We had our own trash pickup, so we would not be "dumping" an iota of garbage; we would be recycling, and making their graph of how much was recycled this year climb even higher.
So, we began to recycle everything again.  Cans, bottles, green glass, brown class, plastics, eyeglasses, cell phone, old batteries, crutches, and books to the book drop.

 In our absence, something had been added:  the Take and Leave where useful stuff that one did not want anymore, or leftovers from a garage sale could be deposited.  And acquired.  Kitchen ware, old flowerpots, children's books, fabrics, picture frames, furniture, you name it.  Now, the Take and Leave had a cadre of takers who hung around all day like vultures, always taking, never leaving.  Despite signs saying, "one-half hour limit for browsing, the vultures, were, after all, vultures.

 For ten (10) years we left our recyclables at the Wealthy Town RDF.  Sometimes I tried to imagine the size of the pile of our stuff that did not clog up a  landfill, and I had a warm feeling, just like when I fed the cows banana peels, old lettuce and broccoli stems.

And then, a bit late for April Fool, but surely in keeping, we got a letter from Wealthy Town, a No Trespass Notice!  Our humble vehicle "was observed in the RDF." And we did not have a permit to use the RDF.  If we entered the RDF again, the police would be notified.   Charges  could be filed in district court.  Copy of letter sent to police. The police were already notified.  We were recycling criminals!!

 If was like Alice's Restaurant in reverse.  We were threatened with fines for recycling, not dumping. And since late fall I had been collecting nice stuff. to drop off at the Take and Leave.  Toys, books, electronics. Good flower pots.

Now, let's face it: the Take and Leave did not have status Wealthy Town women with Louie Vuitton handbags perusing the merchandise.  Ordinary people "shopped" there: old folks, students, and probably other illegals with a yen for "picking."  I saw quite a few people who looked like immigrants. Maybe the needy came, even in Wealthy Town.  I can just see the merchandise piling higher and higher as the locals leave and there's nobody left to take.  The vultures, of course, will also be out of luck. We are all out of luck.

And I am also sad, losing the ability to recycle everything on one of those visits to Wealthy Town's dentists and hairdressers and nice little stores not found in Average Town. I will miss the familiar ambiance of the RDF. But I have found a recycler who picks up weekly and takes the recyclables (all together with no separation of paper, etc., from glass and cans) to a "sub-station" where machines separate everything and the recyclables are then shipped off to whatever fate is in store for them.  We figure the cost of this service is about the same as the cost of the gas to get to and from Wealthy Town.  So Average Town has come through for us.

But I mourn the Book Drop and the Take and Leave and the physical act of separating the brown and green and the clear glass.  I will never think of Wealthy Town in the same way again. Farewell, Wealthy Town RDF.  Hope you don't keep the local police too busy pursuing criminal recyclers to tend to whatever crimes the denizens of Wealthy Town commit.  Probably white-collar crimes, or (pedigreed) dogs running lose.  I don't know.  I don't care. Farewell.

Point of View: Getting Inside Your Character's Heads

Point of View Made Simple In This Link!

When I began to write, the first person (the "I" narrator) felt most comfortable.  When you are in a character's head, "I" helps you relate to that character.  I wrote 5 novels ( 3 published) using the "I" (first person voice) to help me understand the character of my narrators. 
I  wrote short stories from various points of view, including even some beavers, but I was still most comfortable in "I' mode.  Here is an example from "The Rich Are Different" in the anthology Coast to Coast: Murder From Sea to Shining Sea. Here us Molly introducing herself. 

I got off the plane in Fort Lauderdale in early June hoping to find a cooking gig. What turned up was a chance to sling hash for the hired crew sailing the Marie Galante, a sixty-three foot yawl, to New England for the summer. Except for a husband who wants to kill me, I’d still live in my old Chicago neighborhood. Said husband is just your normal Neanderthal who went bat shit crazy when served with divorce papers and a restraining order. 

Bud, the skipper, took me under his wing, and gave me a small advance. I bought some warm second-hand clothes that I hadn’t thought to bring along and a cheap cell with pre-paid minutes. I had much to be thankful for, and I didn’t want to screw up.  

Then I began a new book with a character, Maxine. It was weird. Maxine sat on my shoulder and practically dictated the first quarter of the book to me.  But Maxine was never "I."  She was always "she."  And then I needed to get into the head of Lotto, the drug lord who wanted Maxine to disappear. It was fun to be Lotto.  He had a weird sense of humor and he fainted at the sight of blood. He thought everyone he dealt with was stupid. Lotto was not the main character, but his point of view was necessary. Maxine had a sister she was searching for. If only she could find the sister. But the sister had gone off track many years back, and wasn't anyone Maxine wanted to find, but she didn't know that. When Maxine finally found her, I was in the sister's head. She was terrible, but it was fun. She had great survival instincts, and a yen for money.  I enjoyed writing in the sister's head as much as in Lotto's.  

I wrote a women's novel and also used she, not I. It's actually the story you are writing that dictates the point of view, which writers abbreviate POV.  In that novel, I only used one point of view. Now I have started a novel set in two time periods, 1953 and the present, and of course I have two narrators. One is "I" and the other is "she." We'll see how this works out. So far so good. 

I have never written in second person, the "you" voice, but a few writers have had success with it. Here is a passage by Annie Dillard in the second person "You." 
"You are a sculptor. You climb a great ladder; you pour grease all over a growing longleaf pine. Next, you build a hollow cylinder like a cofferdam around the entire pine, and grease its inside walls. You climb your ladder and spend the next week pouring wet plaster into the cofferdam, over and inside the pine. You wait; the plaster hardens. Now open the walls of the dam, split the plaster, saw down the tree, remove it, discard, and your intricate sculpture is ready: this is the shape of part of the air." (Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. Harper, 1974)
 There is also the omniscient POV,  in which the author is in everybody's head.  This was more common in prior periods, although some authors (especially in Britain) are very adept at it. It's called "head hopping." In the hands of an inexperienced writer, it can be deadly.  

When we learn to write, we learn that there is such a thing as a point of view violation, which comes from not understanding the rules. It can be blatant or so subtle no one is likely to notice.But it's best to learn and apply the rules.

Writing is a part art and part craft. The craft can be learned. My college English teacher told the class, "I can teach you to write not badly, but not well."

Ah, the subtle difference.     

These writers also have something to say on the subject.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the different takes on the same topic. Take a gander.

Dr. Bob Rich https://wp.me/p3Xihq-1ag
Connie Vines http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Helena Fairfax http://www.helenafairfax.com/blog
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/blog/
Anne de Gruchy https://annedegruchy.co.uk/category/blog/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor http://www.skye-writer.com/blogging_by_the_sea
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Rhobin L Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/