A Little Night Music

I began my current WIP with the idea that it would be completely unconnected to my Home trilogy, but then my hero wanted to serenade my heroine. Drew’s a very bad singer, but if he has to sing to Briallen to convince her he can be romantic, he’s willing to do so. My problem was that I needed a song from which I could borrow lines. I’m no lawyer, but I’m fairly certain quoting from a published song would violate copyright laws. So I decided to have Drew sing a Max Marshall song. For those who don’t know, Max is the hero of The Long Way Home, my first, still unpublished book, and he’s a successful singer/songwriter. I wrote lyrics for several Max songs when I was working on that book. Now I’m bringing Max, or at least his songs, into my new book.

I was so pleased with the way the serenade scene worked that I used another of Max’s songs in a later scene for the secondary romance. The heroine’s sister realizes she’s fallen in love with a most unlikely man when she hears him singing his daughter to sleep. Sentimentalist that I am, I got a little teary-eyed writing that scene.

Drew sings a stanza and chorus from Max’s “Georgia Belle,” changing the state to suit his purpose.

Drew took a quick swallow from the long neck in his hand and surveyed the scene. Check on the moonlight. Check on the flowers. He hesitated. Make that half a check on the flowers. He wasn’t sure how romantic Bri would find the orange daisies and hot pink carnations, but they were the best he could do at midnight on a Saturday.  Hell, he’d forgotten he needed something to toss at—at the French doors, no windows either. Were windows more romantic than doors? How could a mere man know the answer to that question? He stumbled over a chair as he stepped onto the patio. No need for a rock now, he thought, as light poured through the drapes.  Here goes.

I have found all I was seeking;
I see the answers in your eyes.
You’re the key that I’ve been missing;
you’re my hope now realized.

“Are you drunk?” 

Not exactly the response he was hoping for. “I’m being romantic,” he said.

“Idiot, you’re going to wake up Rica and the kids.” Bri stepped outside the door and took a step toward him.

He grinned at the sight of her. With her hair sticking up in every direction and her long legs bare beneath the tee shirt she wore, she wasn’t any closer to a princess than he was to a courtier. She still took his breath away. He thrust the flowers at her, took a breath, and continued his song.

 
I’m a rhymer without reason
whose words can never tell
how life was changed one summer season
by my lovely Bama belle.

“Max Marshall would sue you if he heard you mutilating his song.”  

He ignored her.

You are a fever in my blood.
You are the music in my soul.
You are everything that’s good,
and your love has made me whole.

“Drew, hush! I’m serious. You can’t get drunk and come caterwauling around here.”

He lowered his voice on the final lines.

 
All my words can never tell
how I love you, Bama belle.

She stepped closer, placing her fingers against his lips. “No more,” she whispered, laughter just beneath the surface.

“My silence for a kiss, my lady.” He spoke against her fingers.

“One kiss, idiot,” she said and stepped into his arms.

Thad sings for his young daughter a portion of “Remember,” a song Max wrote for his daughter.

Rica sent a quick prayer that Thad had been able to calm Erin. She paused at the door, her heart catching as she heard Thad singing to his child.

It was just yesterday I held you tight

And drove the scary monsters from your night,

And I was a hero in your sight.
I remember . . .

“I love you, baby,” he whispered.

Rica felt the tears on her face. This tough guy with his marshmallow heart was still a hero. In Erin’s eyes—and in hers. Now to convince him of that.

So how do you think the lyrics of Max Marshall fit in these scenes? Are you bothered when fictional worlds are integrated in some way? I’m still in the first draft stage, so these scenes may never be stitched into later drafts.

Poetry as Present

The noun “present” means both something offered as a gift and being in the company of a person or thing. Poetry carries connotation of both meanings. It is a gift from the poets and from those, beginning with my mother, who fostered a love for poetry within me. It is also with me daily, a presence in my life through memories, through lines learned by heart, and through lines on the pages of books I read, some decades old and some as new as last week.

Among my earliest memories is my mother reading to me from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. I memorized some of Stevenson’s poems before I could read. I wrote my first poems—very bad ones—at six. At ten, I discovered Emily Dickinson, with whom I have visited regularly ever since. I can’t imagine a life without poetry.

One of the things I always tried very hard to do when I was teaching was to bring my students to see that poetry is not written to be isolated in a classroom of reluctant students wrenching meaning from it with pain and protests. Poetry is living; it is as much a part of us as the stars we wish on, the wind that lifts our kites, the smell of lightning bugs on our hands. Dylan Thomas’s definition of poetry seems right to me: “Poetry is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.”

 Because poetry is a part of my life every day, it seems quite natural to find inspiration for the fiction I write in the poems I read. Many writers have sound tracks for their novels. Although I too find ideas and inspiration in music, I even more often turn to poems I love to help me capture a feeling, craft a love scene, or give me the seed for a section of dialogue. April is National Poetry Month, a celebration throughout the United States of poetry and its place in American culture. One meaning of “celebrate” is to make publically known. Part of my celebration is to share with you three poems and snippets of the particular moments they inspired.

Grief, Cynthia Angeles

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;

so many things seem filled with the intent

to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster

of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:

places, and names, and where it was you meant

to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or

next-to-last, of three loved houses went.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,

some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.

I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture

I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident

the art of losing's not too hard to master

though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

It was over then. Zan wasn’t surprised. She’d always expected Caleb to leave. She’d had plenty of practice at losing. Her mother chose death over her child and husband. Her father left years before his body followed his heart. Caleb was just the latest in a line. And Tal.  The man she loved, the child she loved. Her breath caught on the sudden stab of pain--sharp, physical pain, like a blade plunging and turning in her chest. She bent double from the blow. “Damn you,” she cried. “Damn you.” She didn’t know if she were cursing her parents who had abandoned her, Caleb who had followed in their path, or the distant deity who had let them leave.

Lovers, Connie Chadwell

How Will You Kiss? by Judith Pordon

Lilt me your lips,
our lost breath intermingling.

Synchronize our silence
as lazy hours ease by.

Waft cocoa, hazelnut, cinnamon,
scents around me.

Tremble with me
in paralyzing pauses.

I may no longer breathe
without breathing you.

Silence surrounded them as if the world had paused for this long delayed moment. He kissed her slowly, his mouth savoring hers. Saja tasted cocoa and cinnamon and lust and memory. His hand trembled as he stroked her breast, his mouth moving to brush kisses across her face. “Brody.” Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

 “I’m here,” he said. “I’ll always be here.”

Chair-Two Women Talking, Fred Bell

True Love by Judith Viorst

It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there's no one here but him,
And because
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packer
Even though I am philosophically opposed to football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be either having an affair or lying dead in the middle of the street,
I always hope he's dead.

It's true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking them and the next morning I couldn't get out of bed,
He wouldn't tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he'd save me.


It's true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I had to stay home with the painters and the exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I wouldn't let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid indigestion, dandruff, and other features of married life that tend to dampen the fires of passion,
We still feel something
We can call
True love.      

“All I ever wanted was to have what you have, to have a marriage like yours and Dad’s. Easy and—"

 “Easy? No marriage is easy, not if there’s any commitment. There’s anger and disappointment and loneliness enough to make you wonder if being alone is less painful. Maybe Dan and I did you a disservice by not fighting in front of you. Buy you’re an adult now, Dori, old enough and smart enough to know that no two people as different and as strong-willed as your Dad and I are could exist in perpetual harmony.  We didn’t speak for a week after I unplugged his TV in the middle of the Daytona 500. And the freeze lasted longer than that when I campaigned for Trent Porter.”

 “None of that mattered. You stayed together. You were happy. We were happy.”

 “They mattered to us. But you’re right: we stayed. The good was always enough to keep us together during the tough times. And we just kept falling in love again.”

 Dori heard the unspoken words as clearly as those spoken. “You didn’t stay, Dori. You ran away. You quit. You left.” Was Zan right? Should she be wearing a sign that read “Dori Marshall, Coward.”

 

What are your favorite poetry presents?

Shoe Shopping

I’ve been shoe shopping today, the best kind of shoe shopping. Price was no concern. Neither was heel height nor the fact that I haven’t worn high heels in a decade. I have been shopping online for a shoe for my newest heroine. It’s not a Cinderella shoe, but it is important.

You see my heroine Bri (Briallen  Kendrick) is a jeans and boots girl. The most important thing in her life is Fantastica, the pet therapy farm she and her sister, Rica, own. Bri works with the animals and kids, and Rica is the public face of Fantastica, attending the fundraisers, speaking in the videos, and interacting with contributors. But Drew Bellamy has a seven figure check for Fantastica. There is one catch: his presenting it is contingent on Bri’s attending a charity ball. Rica, who has bullied her sister into attending the gala, is an experienced shopper at Another Dance, a consignment shop. She found Bri a killer dress, and she’s narrowed the shoes to two. She insists that Bri make the final choice. Bri and I are having a difficult time. She's trying to figure out a way to wear her boots, and I'm trying to figure out a way she can wear both of Rica's finds.

Here are her choices.

Alexander McQueen
$1765

Jimmy Choo
$895

I must admit I had great fun shoe shopping for my character.  I even got my sister and my best friend involved. Why is it that women bond over shoes? I remember an extended discussion of shoes on The Eloisa James Bulletin Board that prompted this poem:

The Lay of the Shoe-Scorning Woman

(with apologies to Sir Walter Scott)


Breathes there a woman with heart so dead 
Who never to herself hath said,
These are my own, the shoes I crave!
Whose credit cards have never burned
As charges through machines have churned,
From wandering through shoe shops to save.
If such there breathe, go, mark her well;
For her no sisters’ voices swell.
High though her status, smart her game,
Boundless her closet as wish can claim,
Despite those gowns and bags and jeans,
This wretch can be no fashion queen. 
Living, shall forfeit sisterhood,
And, fading surely, as she should,
Shall join the earth on which she trod,
Unwept, unnatural, and ill-shod.

Are you a shoe-shoppin’ fool? Which shoe do you think Bri should choose? If you are a writer, do you shop for your characters? If you are a reader, are clothing details important to you?

Periphrasis: Speaking Around

I’ve been rewriting this week—rewriting not my own work but rather essays written by other scholars.  By far the greatest problem with the texts I’m working with is a lack of clarity and conciseness. The authors of these articles are erudite people with impressive credentials, but they are unable to communicate their knowledge simply and directly to their designated audience. Untangling meaning from convoluted, wordy sentences reminded me of a sentence from George Orwell’s famous essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946). “The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not.”

I recognize that academic prose tends to be inflated and embellished, but I also know that periphrasis, or circumlocution (the use of unnecessarily wordy and indirect language), is not exclusive to academicians. I’m finding that pruning and recasting cumbersome sentences written by others is making me more conscious of my own verbal vices.

You will find listed below twenty extreme examples of circumlocution. The first is from George Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language”; number 15 is my contribution. The others are from unknown sources. (I know some of these are posted on various sites. But I have had a list that includes most of them in my files since 1978, so I know they are not original to the posters.)

1. Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

2. An ave reposing in the digital flanges is of greater monetary value than a duet in the shrubbery.

3. A mobile section of petrified matter agglomerates no bryophytes.

4. Desist from enumerating your fowl prior to their emergence from the shell.

5. Scintillation is not always identification for an auric substance.

6. A plethora of culinary specialists has a deleterious effect upon the quality of purees, consumes, and other soluble pabula.  

7. A chronic disposition of inquiry deprived the domestic feline carnivorous quadruped of vital quality.

8.  It is in the realm of possibility to entice an equine member of the animal kingdom to a source of oxidized hydrogen; however, it is not possible to force him to imbibe.

9. Persons deficient in the faculty of determining values move with impetuosity into places which purely spiritual beings view with some trepidation. 

10. If John persists without respite on a constant prolonged exertion of physical or intellectual effort, he will develop into a youth slow and blunted to perception and sensibility.

11. Immediately upon the absence of the domesticated carnivorous feline, the common rodent proceeds to engage in sportive capers.

12. Unselfish concern for the well being of others has its genesis in the personal domicile of the individual.

13. Cautiously survey the perspective prior to going forward precipitously.

14. Aberration is the hallmark of Homo sapiens while longanimous placability and condonation are the indicia of supramundane omniscience.

15. Consumption for nutriment of the round fruit of any of various wild or cultivated trees of the genus Malus regularly during the time occupied by the earth in one revolution on its axis causes the medical practitioner to remain absent or afar. 

16. If a large solid-hoofed mammal becomes available to you without compensation, refrain from casting your faculty for seeing into the oral cavity of such a creature. 

17. Each vaporous mass suspended in the firmament has an interior decoration of metallic hue. 

18. He who locks himself into the arms of Morpheus promptly at eventide, and starts the day before it is officially announced by the rising sun, excels in physical fitness, increases his economic assets and celebrates with remarkable efficiency.

19. Superfluous chronological dispatch institutes riddance of valued effects.

20. A body of persons abiding in a domicile of silica combined with metallic oxides should not carelessly project small geological specimens.

What are your verbal vices? Do you notice the verbal vices of your favorite writers, or do you think they are free of them? Finally, how many of the inflated proverbs can you translate into simple English? I will post the answers Monday, and I’ll give away a book from my contest stash to one randomly selected poster (Sorry--U. S. addresses only).


The Answers:

1. I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor yet bread to the wise, not yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. (Ecclesiastes 9.11)
2. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
3. A rolling stone gathers no moss.
4. Don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
5. All that glitters is not gold.
6. Too many cooks spoil the broth.
7. Curiosity killed the cat.
8. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink it.
9. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
10. All work and no play make Jack a dull boy.
11. While the cat’s away, the mice shall play.
12. Charity begins at home.
13. Look before you leap.
14. To err is human; to forgive, divine.
15. An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
16. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
17. Every cloud has a silver lining.
18. Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
19. Haste makes waste.
20. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Susan and Irish, if you'll send your contact info to me at jangarho at gmail dot com, I'll send you each a book.

The Work of Writing

I’m spending my Labor Day laboring. I’m wrestling with characters who want to go their own way. I’m weaving in bits of research about grief-stricken children, commitment phobic men, and guilt-ridden women. I’m struggling to find the best words and craft them into the best sentences. I’m writing, and writing is hard work.

I’m indolent by nature and a world-class procrastinator, but I have an extra incentive to fight my inclination to waste time and to persevere in meeting a personal goal of 30,000 words by September 28. I just started my second week as a member of the Bon Bon Chocolate Mafia team in the 2009 Unleash Your Story fundraiser to benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The team is made up of a dozen (at last count) friends, most of who met on the Eloisa James/Julia Quinn bulletin board. We are writing, reading, and editing our way to a team goal of many thousands of words and $1500.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that affects the lungs and digestive system of about 30,000 children and adults in the U.S. and 70,000 worldwide. Research has led to progress. In the 1950s, few children with cystic fibrosis lived to attend elementary school. Today, thanks to advances in research and medical treatments, many people with the disease can now expect to live into their 30s, 40s and beyond. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation works to find better treatments and, ultimately, a cure for this fatal illness. (Information from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation website).

You can join the Unleash Your Story event by making a donation through my page, joining one of the existing teams, or signing up as an individual and collecting donations from family and friends for meeting your own writing or reading goal.

Those of us who write and read romance fiction have a special dedication to the HEA. Participating in Unleash Your Story directly or through contributions to a participating writer or reader allows us to play a small part in working toward a real-life happy ending for the tens of thousands of children and adults whose lives are threatened by this disease.

Fighting with the Hero

I’m battling with the hero of my second book. I never wanted him to be the hero. Before I started the first book, I had five characters in mind: three women who had been almost life-long best friends and the ex-husband and the brother of one of the women. I knew that woman #1 would be paired with her ex and that woman #3 would be paired with her friend’s brother, but I didn’t have a hero for woman #2. As I was writing Book 1, I decided a secondary character (a good-looking, successful doctor) would make an ideal hero for woman #2.

There was another secondary character, one whom I saw as the bad boy of my story and a foil for my beta hero. Bad Boy was a bit of a jerk—smart-mouthed, full of himself, and an irritant to the hero. I didn’t like Bad Boy much, but I wanted to know why he was such a pain. I discovered he had a secret, and discovering his secret made him a jerk who deserved a little sympathy rather than an unmitigated jerk. About the time of this change, I wrote a scene that just seemed a gift from my muse. You need to understand that my muse has ADD, and her help is sporadic at best. But this day she was generous and focused, and she gave me a lovely little scene in which the jerk baited woman #2 before he gave her a message for the book’s heroine.

Meanwhile, it was becoming clear that the doctor wouldn’t work for woman #2. She was avoiding his calls and yawning in his face. And she kept eyeing Bad Boy, who kept inserting himself into scenes where I was sure he didn’t belong. I kept cutting these scenes, but he was persistent. Finally I gave in. He became the match for woman #2. I have been fighting with him ever since, and I hate fights.

In an effort to better understand him, I gave him a personality test, sort of Myers Briggs lite. He turned out to be an INTJ (Introverted-Intuitive-Thinking-Judging). Such types are variously known as Masterminds or Strategists. They are stubborn and critical of the status quo, have little interest in other people's thoughts or feelings, are quick to express judgments, have a vision of the future, like to be in control, and often come across as arrogant. That’s an impressively accurate description of Bad Boy.

I, on the other hand, am an INFP (Introverted-Intuitive-Feeling-Perceiving), as is woman #2. INFPs are termed Healers or Dreamers. They are sensitive and caring, make choices based on personal values, are uncomfortable with hard facts and logic, have a great need for harmony and strive to avoid conflict, and often are perceived as ignorant of reality.
Small wonder Bad Boy won’t behave as I, and the heroine, want him to. But at least now I understand him better, and my head is filled with possibilities for new conflicts between him and his heroine.

How much credence do you place in personality tests? Do you know your MB type? Have you ever thought about typing fictional characters, either those you have created or those you encounter in your reading.

Inspired and Perspiring

I am blessed to be part of a group of writers who serve as readers, cheerleaders, advice-givers, and all-round support system for one another. These women, some newly published, some soon-to-be-published and some yet-to-be-published, are honest, smart, funny, caring, and young. That last quality may seem irrelevant, but I see it in neon letters as bright as a Vegas marquee because it is the quality that separates me from my writing friends. I think they would describe me as honest, smart, funny (at least occasionally), and caring. But no one can truthfully describe me as young.

Sometimes I fear that difference diminishes my chances of succeeding in the genre we all love. The romance writers I know who belong to my generation are genre stars who have been publishing for decades, not aspiring novelists hoping for a contest win or a call from an agent.
I’m all too conscious of Time’s winged chariot, and I admit there are days when the writing is not going well that my age becomes an excuse to give up on the dream. My inner critic rants not only about the lack of plot and the ineptitude of my writing but also about the futility of a woman of my years trying to break into romance. I think longingly of the time when I was only a reader of romance fiction and limited my writing to genres I could reasonably expect to be unaffected by my years.

Imagine my surprise when I read that Pearl Wolf, whose debut romance novel, Too Hot for a Spy, was published by Kensington in March of this year, is 79. Wolf has a second Fairchild novel scheduled for release in 2010 and four more books in the series planned. Reading her story revealed my concerns for the pitiful excuses they were. Thomas Edison famously said, “None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” Ms. Wolf provided the inspiration. Now I’m perspiring heavily as I struggle with a synopsis and query letter, and I’m saying here in my very first Just Janga blog in front of you and God and everybody that by summer’s end I will be querying for The Long Way Home and be well on my way with Book 2.

Have you ever found inspiration unexpectedly?