Tag: Stories

Why I Write

It’s about Power.

As a writer of fiction, I can create a city, a village, a country, a world. I can fill it with characters that I love or love to hate. I can imbue them with a certain amount of free will and, if I don’t like how they use it, I have the power of the eraser or delete key. The characters I create may be human or they may be animals, even mechanical beings, or a combination of these.  I can ride down a country road feeling the fluid strength of the steed beneath me, enjoying the bucolic scene of field and meadow, knowing that around the next bend there is a plot twist that will change my story, transform the world. I can change the weather from stormy to sunny and back again. In short, I am god.  I can wander through forests of words and chop down the one I want to take to a sentence I’m constructing. I can plunge into oceans of emotions to catch the one that will give my character motivation to propel the story forward.

Similarly, when I write memoir or creative non-fiction, I take an event from the headlines or from memory and, while sticking to the reality of it, invent or reimagine dialogue I did not hear or do not remember. I give the incident a spin to emphasize the part I think is important or transformative. It is my story told my way. This kind of writing does require research to authenticate it. I enjoy research because it opens the discovery of things I did not know and enriches knowledge that I then mine for other stories.  I prefer fiction and poetry because I am not bounded by facts, annoying facts that constrict my imagination.

Writing is an inexpensive form of entertainment and also therapy. The cost of a pencil and paper can set me up for hours and hours of diversion. I disappear into a world I create. Sometimes it is hard for me to resurface, to attend to my daily tasks and the real-life characters, human and animal, who live with me. I am glassy-eyed and slightly incoherent for a time when I leave my writing desk depending on how long I have been immersed in writing. My dear husband can attest to the state of suspended animation that surrounds me. I gave up the idea of writing the great American novel by the time I was thirty. I write for myself because I love to play god.

Too Many Questions?

It’s hot enough to melt the metal handle on my purse, even if placed in the shade. That might be an exaggeration, but it borders on the truth. It’s July and my husband and I are staying with our son and his family in Hot Springs, South Dakota in an Airbnb apartment on the uppermost floor. We’ve hit the jackpot because it has air-conditioning in each window and the extra luxury of ceiling fans. My husband and son are golfing in the hundred-degree scorcher, Chloe’s mom is napping on the couch and I’m coloring with Chloe, our five-year-old granddaughter. The fan whips cool air above our heads. She tells me she can’t color with her best friend, Olivia at daycare. I ask her why? She tells me because they fight, but Olivia always apologizes. I ask Chloe if she apologizes to Olivia. Silence. I try again as we both color on the same picture. “Grandma,” she says, “stop asking questions!” I smile to myself.

I’ve been accused of the same crime before. Asking so many questions. Where do you live? What’s your dog’s name? What breed is she? Where did you go on your trip? Why did they move there? Did you work there long? It’s just I love peoples’ stories and a good memoir delights me almost more than peanut butter chocolate crust cheesecake with homemade whipped cream. 

Some writers struggle with writing a memoir. They wonder, Is it ho-hum? Is it self-indulgent? I’ve wondered about mine. Who in the world wants to read about me merrily driving a John Deere tractor, singing a Beach Boy’s song at the top of my lungs while plowing a field, then making a turn too wide and ripping out a barb-wired fence at the end of the field? Surely, others have done that. Who would care to read it? It’s that doubt that leaves my manuscript tucked away in a file for over twenty years. I know I need to muffle my critic’s voice inside, dust the manuscript off and believe my story is worth sharing with others.