Posts Tagged ‘creative writing’
Feel Like Someone’s Watching You? — Use It In Your Writing!
by Roseanne Dowell
Several years ago, I dropped my husband off for work at midnight. On the way home, I was following a car. A few minutes later, another car turned out of a side street and followed me. I didn’t pay too much attention until I turned for the third time. The car was still in front of me. I remember thinking; I hoped he didn’t think I was following him. He turned down a side street that just happened to be the same side street I needed, so I turned also and so did the car behind me. At this point, I thought it was strange that three of us were all going the same way and down an out of the way side street. I hoped he wasn’t following me. But having a logical mind, I shook off the thought. I mean here I was innocently following the car in front of. We came to another side street and the car ahead of me turned off. I kept going straight, as did the car behind me. Again, I shook it off and continued on to my house. I turned in the driveway and the car stopped in front of the drive. I couldn’t have backed out if I had wanted to. Fortunately, my house – as usual- was lit up like a church. I mean just about every light on the ground floor was on, several in the living room, the dining room and kitchen light lit up the house as if it were full of people. Actually, it was. My six children were in there asleep. I flew in the house, my feet barely touching the ground. I could barely get the key in the lock, my hands shook so badly. Once inside, I looked out the front window. The car still sat there. I grabbed the phone and called my friend who lived on the next street. She was just about to wake up her husband when the car pulled away. I spent a sleepless night. Every time I heard a car, I looked out the window.
Years later, this sparked a story called Only in the Movies available at Amazon.com http://www.amazon.com/Only-Movies-Roseanne-Dowell/dp/B000RGZSKY/ref=sr_1_20?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267573619&sr=1-20. My heroine drops her husband off at work, just as I did. In fact everything is the same until she runs to the house. Then her life becomes one terrifying event after another.
_______________________
Roseanne’s work has appeared in Good Old Days, Nostalgia and Ohio Writer magazines, along with several other online publications. Her first novel, Satin Sheets, was nominated for the Ippy Award and was a finalist in the Reader’s Choice Award from Author Island. Time to Live Again is available from Red Rose Publishing and Designed for Love is coming soon. Only in the Movies and several other short stories are available at Amazon.com. You can visit Roseanne’s website at: http://www.roseannedowell.com or her blog at http://roseannedowellauthor.blogspot.com/
Happy Birthday Penelope Lively!
Happy Birthday to Penelope Lively! She’s a contemporary Booker Award and National Book Award-winning author. I love reading her work. She’s an expert in delving deep into character and in crafting beautifully written prose. To celebrate her special day, I chose an excerpt from The Photograph, one my favorites of her work. Although, I hope she celebrates with more festive affair than did her character, Glyn!
“It is Glyn’s birthday. He does not remember this until he notices the date on his newspaper. Birthdays never rated highly with Glyn. But he knows how old he is—sixty-two. This reminder of the relentless process is unwelcome. The passage of time is indeed his stock-in-trade, but when applied personally it is as though there were someone out there gleefully chuckling: You too—oh, dear me, yes, you too.
It is Saturday. He plans a weekend dealing with paperwork and ordering his thoughts on a projected article. This will be therapeutic. Glyn is in a curious state these days. He recognizes this, knows that he is not operating normally, that application requires an effort, that his mind wanders, that it is willful, that he cannot seem to control its direction. He has always been able to work; work has been the imperative, ever since he can remember. He has been able to switch into work mode under any circumstances. No, it is not like that. He stares for long minutes at the screen, he does not turn the pages of the book in his hand, or he reads without comprehension.
Kath. Her fault….” End of Excerpt, The Photograph by Penelope Lively
Join me next Wednesday for another Fodder for Fiction Author Birthday Bash!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
Should I Follow Alice Into the Rabbit Hole?
Several months ago, while re-exploring some favorite stories from my childhood, I re-read Alice in Wonderland and Alice and the Looking Glass.
At the time, I had no idea that I would be living with the story for much of the winter. My twins’ elementary school is getting ready to perform Wonderland. My boys, Thing 1 and Thing 2, make spectacular Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum! They practice their musical number of The Walrus and the Carpenter ‘round the clock! (It’s adorable – but I’m biased.)
Over the weekend, I went to see Tim Burton’s new Alice In Wonderland movie in IMAX 3-D. I absolutely LOVED it! And I went in with a negative attitude because I HATE wearing those silly glasses [wink}.
I’m not tired of the tale – contrarywise. It might be recurring again and again – stuck in my head, even. But I’m looking for themes, comparing interpretations, and thinking about crafting a story where the show within the show might symbolize a coming of age. In this plot, what happens in between to propel the main character through obstacles and what the main character’s goals will be are still under development. However, these three Alice’s spark an idea for a structure or a symbol of the passage of time.
Perhaps, a bedtime story could mark the naïve beginning of the protagonist’s childhood. As a teen, the protagonist could prepare to perform a starring role in a school play of the same story. Perhaps, as a symbolic ending to the story, the protagonist watches a film interpretation of the childhood favorite.
Just pondering and brainstorming… Who knows what I’ll make of it!?
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Fodder For Fiction First Friday Writing Excercise: March 2010
This month’s writing exercise is kid’s stuff! I thought it would be fun if we all tried our hand at Madlibs Online. Complete the form here. Press the “generate Madlib” button, then copy and paste the result in the comments section below. It will be fun! You don’t have to stop there. You can use the silly result to inspire a new story.
Best to you!
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Fodder for Fiction Birthday Bash: John Irving
by Lisa Lipkind Leibow, Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
I can barely form words to express my excitement over celebrating the birthday of one of my favorite authors of all times. John Irving is the king of quirky characters. I read The Hotel New Hampshire when I was a teen, and giggled at the stinky dog named Sorrow, marveled at the odd family, and related to the familiar New England setting. I had that sweet-but-empty feeling at the last page when I don’t want a fantastic book to end. He’s the first author I ever set out to read everything he ever wrote – just for fun, not because a teacher had assigned it. To this day, when he has something new in the works, I rush out to buy it. My favorites of the bunch are The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Cider House Rules.
In honor of John Irving, I’m sharing one of my favorite first paragraph hooks, ever! And since it deals with what happens when the boys of the St. Cloud’s Orphanage are born, I thought it fitting to celebrate the birthday of John Irving, the first author I ever read who I immediately sought out everything he ever wrote. I love his quirky characters so much!
“In the hospital of the orphanage—the boys’ division at St. Cloud’s, Maine—town nurses were in charge of naming the new babies and checking htat their little penises were healing from the obligatory circumcision. In those days (in 192_), all boys born at St. Cloud’s were circumcised because the orphanage physician had experienced some difficulty in treating uncircumcised soldiers, for this and for that, in World War I. The doctor, who was also the director of the boys’ division, was not a religious man; circumcision was not a rite with him—it was a strictly medical act, performed for hygienic reasons. His name was Wilbur larch, which, except for the scent of ether that always accompanied him, reminded one of the nurses of the tough, durable wood of the coniferous tree of that name. She hated, however, the ridiculous name of Wilber, and took offense at the silliness of combining a word like Wilbur with something as substantial as a tree.” Excerpt, The Cider House Rules by John Irving.
Help me celebrate one of my favorite author’s special day by sharing something you love about his work. Check out his official site for more information about his novels, including his latest, Last Night in Twisted River. http://www.John-Irving.com
HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOHN!
I GOT SPARKED!
by Lisa Lipkind Leibow
I’m coming off of an incredible ten days, when it comes to the flow of creative juices. If you listened to my interview on Kim Smith’s Introducing Writers BlogTalkRadio, you might have heard a little about it as I was just beginning the event. Now that I have finished the round, I can’t wait to share the results!
I had a fantastic opportunity to participate in a program called SPARK! It’s a creative exchange, open to writers, musicians, and visual artists of all kinds, SPARK is a participatory creativity event that takes place four times each year. The project’s rules are simple. Writers send artists a story or poem; artists send writers an image of their painting, photograph, or sculpture; and musicians send either an MP3 file or a link to their work on another website. Working over a set period of time, each person uses their partner’s piece as a jumping off point for new work of their own. SPARK Round 7 was my first time to participate. I sure hope it won’t be my last!
I received my inspiration piece, a painting by artist Amy Souza and my imagination took off from there! My new short story Shoshanna can be found on the SPARK Website along with an image of the Inspiration piece.
ENJOY!
WHAT MAKES A FAMILY?
A family need not be a mother, father, sister, brother. Thankfully, we live in a diverse world. Today, in any random-neighborhood, suburban street, or city block, a single mother with three children, might live next to a couple who, married for the second time, blended their families like The Brady Bunch. Across the street might live two, happily-married, gay men with their four-year-old, adopted daughter. Three houses down, a dual-income husband and wife have been married for years but struggle with infertility.
As the infertile couple works with a doctor, they are likely to investigate the myriad of options available for them to start a family. They might look into domestic and international adoption, they could try artificial insemination, or more invasive procedures, like in vitro fertilization. If the husband learns he has problems with sperm morphology or mobility, they might look into obtaining donor sperm. If the wife’s eggs are not viable, they might consider donor eggs. They might even begin to investigate opportunities to obtain donor embryos.
If successful, either in adopting or giving birth using assisted reproductive technologies, the infertile couple may raise a child not biologically-related to one or both of them. Back to my initial question: What makes a family? Certainly, biological relation does bind some to their families. However, it need not be a factor. To me, it doesn’t matter how the family came to be, unconditional love, support, a sense of belonging are the hallmarks of family.
What’s striking about my novel, Double Out and Back is that it explores from a literary perspective, some of the social issues faced by a generation that has more options than ever when it comes to starting a family. What fascinates me is that when it comes right down to it, even with the technological advancements in reproduction and healthcare, families still must rely on one another to thrive.
Special note: I love the new show Modern Family! I think the photo of the fantastic cast perfectly illustrated this article!
Best to you!
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
February’s First Friday Fodder For Fiction Writing Prompt!
Using the following first line as a prompt, write the first paragraph of a story. Build on the hook provided. This is the actual first line of an unidentified novel. Extra bonus points for the first one who posts with the name of the novel I pulled this from.
“My father walked beside me to give me courage, his palm touching gently the back laces of my bodice.”
Have fun with this! Anyone who posts their paragraph here before midnight EST, Sunday, February 28, 2010 will receive a hand-crafted book charm/thong!
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
THE SMELL OF LOVE AND OTHER EMOTIONS
Smells can bring back a flood of memories, or elicit a visceral reaction based on a traumatic experience. It’s funny, I grew up among a generation of grandparents who smoked like chimneys. I live my adult life as a member of a “non-smoking” community. Those friends that do light up, tend to do it on their own time, since restaurants, office buildings, and other public buildings no longer allow smoking. So, while I’m not that fond of the smell of cigarette smoke, I savor the memories of my grandparents and great aunts and uncles that it conjures on the rare occasions I smell it. I built on this emotion to help show Amelia’s longing for her parents in Double Out and Back. Here’s an excerpt.
Her daddy and Mr. Knudson would sit on the stoop together. Mr. Knudson would smoke Marlboros and her daddy would smoke his pipe. He’d switched from cigarettes to pipes when the Surgeon General confirmed that cigarette smoking was harmful to your health. But while Amelia found the aroma of cherry pipe tobacco intoxicating, it did nothing to prevent lung cancer from riddling her daddy’s body and killing him. That notwithstanding, Amelia‘s memories of him with Mr. Knudson survived as times when her daddy acted the most relaxed and happy.
He used to sit on the porch wearing pants from his electrician’s uniform and a sleeveless undershirt with a small tuft of chest hair peeking above the neckline. His bangs were swept back with a little “tonic,” as he called it. His broad mouth held teeth clenched around the mouthpiece of his favorite pipe. Carved out of ivory, the pipe’s bowl, shaped like an eagle’s head, looked as if it were singing an aria, with the hooked beak slightly opened and eyes wide.
As he visited with Mr. Knudson, he would effortlessly use his thumb to pack tobacco into the pipe. Then he‘d strike a match against the brick steps and hold the lit match to the ivory eagle’s hollow skull, now packed with cherry tobacco. As he’d puffed on the mouthpiece a few times, the flame had danced, growing larger, then smaller again with each inhale and exhale. The tobacco began to glow as it caught the flame. Then that delicious fragrance of cherry tobacco would drift through the air – her daddy’s scent, warm and inviting.
Amelia lit cherry tobacco as incense in her home to evoke her daddy’s aroma on days when she missed him most, but it was just not the same. The cherry tobacco alone did not do the trick. It must have needed to be mixed with the scent of the honey-roasted peanuts he ate, and the perfume of his prize-winning peonies in the garden, and the Old Spice cologne he slapped on his face after each morning‘s shave, and the Mr. Bubble brand bubble-bath soap he secretly borrowed from her, and him…and him…and him.…That warm, home, Daddy smell only survived as an olfactory memory. She wished she could have bottled it.
Excerpt Double Out and Back by Lisa Lipkind Leibow
What aromas have you encountered that brought back welcomed memories? What stenches might you imagine in a story that could bring back a dreaded memory for a character? Share some ideas, here – fact or fiction.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fictionhttp://www.LLLeibow.com
On Men and Monsters
In fiction, there is often no question as to the significance of monsters used in a given story. Monsters represent that which is dark and evil in humanity. We write and read about them to acknowledge their impact on our lives and to define the very real monsters that exist in our world. While many writers are vague about their influences or base their writing on secondhand experiences, it is important for me to share about my past encounters with real human monsters and how they have influenced both my life and my fiction.
I come from a family of vampires—not the immortal, blood-sucking creatures of lore, but rather psychological leeches who thrive on the undue, often negative, attention of others. For many years, I also contributed to the dysfunction, continuing the cycle of harmful behaviors and self-destruction by partnering myself with abusive men. When I finally did break the cycle, the reality of my family’s energy sucking behaviors was both sobering and unsettling. I had just left my fiancé, who had left me with a cracked skull, torn rotator cuff, split lips, and bruises from head to toe, and I had temporarily moved “back home” to regain my bearings and start over my life. After years of living hundreds, sometimes thousands, of miles away from my parents and siblings (they moved often), I had not realized that the family from which I came had striking similarities to the man I had just escaped.
I learned that my mother and youngest sister, like a number of other members of my extended family, suffer from a type of personality disorder that makes it nearly impossible for them to empathize with others. Even worse, their worlds consist of one drama after the next, leaving heartache and destruction in their wakes. They live to gain attention from others, no matter how their actions might affect the people around them. Moreover, they achieve varying levels of pleasure in causing others pain. As I came to identify the darkness within my family, I began to identify that darkness within myself—and I began to distance myself from both. As I did so, I was able to see it with even greater clarity, and the more I distanced myself from them, the more they worked to reel me back into their dysfunction.
I now live free of my past monsters, but it has been a long and painful journey to get to where I now stand. My past has left me with much to share, and so I write about the people I have left behind: they are the monsters in my horror, the aliens in my sci-fi, and the dark shadows in my literary fiction. They are the creatures from the furthest depths of my imagination, and they are the lessons I hope I never have to repeat again. In writing about—and overcoming—them, I offer a slice of reality and hope to my readers. After all, the only way to destroy a monster is to expose it the light.
_______________
Lisa Lane lives in Las Vegas with her husband and their two cats. She has authored over a dozen novels and screenplays, as well as numerous short stories and essays, and she prides herself in her ability to move between different genres and formats. Her literary influences include Olaf Stapledon, Kurt Vonnegut, and Anne Rice.