Winter Outside, But Warm in My Kitchen

   

     The next morning scratching noises could be heard coming from the cardboard box on my kitchen floor.  Four sets of tiny feet were busy burying their water source in wood shavings.  Of course, they didn't realize what they were doing, but an upside down fruit jar at the far end of the box stood submerged in shavings. The feeder dish suffered the same fate; I stayed busy that first day. Late that night when I slipped into the kitchen to check on them, I stood mesmerized. Neither the cold outside nor the new surroundings had affected the little charges one bit. Sound asleep they were, four fuzzy yellow balls huddled in the corner 'neath the warming light.

     Two weeks had flown by when my little friend Kate and her grandmother came over and we gave them names. The Araucanas were named for Meg and Jo, from Louisa Mae Alcott's Little Women, and Maddie and Minnie seemed perfect for the Rhode Island Reds. We took turns holding each one because my friend Beth, in Glorieta, New Mexico always held her baby chicks letting them go to sleep in her lap.  After they were grown, you could still hold them. I knew I wanted to do the same with mine.

    One day when I was holding Maddie, I saw pinfeathers coming out on her wings. Oh my! They're growing so fast, I think I'd better pour myself a cup of coffee, and while it's warm and cozy in my kitchen, I'll just sit a spell and watch them grow.

Chicken Scratchin's

Before we take another step into November, I need to tell you something. Did you read my blog last week? What began last week as a preview of what's comin' is what'll be comin'! I've started to share with you my chicken scratchin's.

Something new in your life? Nail it down! Write it! Tell your stories about that new thing!

Hold Onto Your Fork--- Something Good's Coming

     It happened when I stopped by Buzbee's Feed Store that morning to pick up some mulch for my  garden.  They had already put the mulch in my car when I crossed the heavy wooden floor to the cash register to pay my bill.
     A lot of commotion under the stairs to my right stopped me, and I turned to see. A hundred gallon watering trough, postioned in probably the warmest corner of the store out of the draft, held the answer. I peeked over the edge to see blond wood shavings, framed by a big warming light, with fifty or sixty baby chickens down inside peeping.
     I asked Ray, the man waiting at the regisster, "Are those all the same kind of chickens?" I had noticed some were more gold-colored than yellow, and one or two were almost brown.
     "All Araucanas," he said.
     "Those lay the blue-green eggs, don't they?"
     "Yes."
     "My son, his wife, and  their two boys are raising some of those up near Denton." I  remembered how much fun the kids had with their chickens---them, and the entire neighbothood. I was there when their first hen squawked over her newly laid egg. I paid my bill, thanked him, and left the store.

     When I drove in my driveway, clearly, nothing had changed since I left: the same cloud-covered sky, still the same wintry day with a slight wind pushing in from the east. And inside I listened to the same empty echoes from the same empty rooms, hushed by the same silent carpet.

     Yet somthing had changed!

                                                                                                ...to be continued next week...

Henny Penny! The Sky Is Falling!

     Are you bored? Lonely? Winter blues getting to you? Why not take a trip to the Feed Store like I did? And, get you some little chickens, actally chicks? Put'em out in the kitchen near the stove like your grandma did.

     Check online if you're saavy or get to the library and read all about them,  That way you'll know which kind you want to buy. Me? I got two Rhode Island Reds and two Aracaunas---the first time, that is.  I chose the first ones because they lay brown eggs and the others lay blue-green ones.  See, you already know it's fun to check out chickens.

    What I needed was something to keep the house from echoing, something to break the silence, and somthing to change the routine. (something to come home to). I found it in four tiny balls of yellow down!  They all looked alike in the beginning.  They peeped, they pecked, they sipped from the upside down water jar with the round, red lid.  The rushed all day around the confines of their cardboard box lined with sweet-smelling wood shavings, then huddled up to sleep their nights away under the warming light.

     Have you been online lately? Checked out the library? There's so much to learn about chickens.

 .........continued next week

The God of Joyful Surprises or Turning Point

Tonight I begin with something Elizabeth Sherrill penned:
     My husband and I had never heard Itzhak Perlman perform in person tll that evening at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City, We knew from record liner-notes that he was crippled by polio at age four, but nothing prepared us for his awkward, lurching walk across the stage, supported on crutches. He reached the chair beside the conductor's platform, lowered himself onto it, laid down the crutches, unhooked the brace-clasps on his legs, and picked up the violin from its case on the floor.
     A moment of tuning, a nod to the conductor, and the orchestra launched into the opening movement of Beethoven's violin concerto. Perlman lifted his bow; the high, sweet solo line soared above the rest. And then there was an ear-piercing ping!
    The conductor signaled the orchestra to stop. Silence ensued as Perlman lowered the violin and stared at the broken string.  Would the performance be canceled or could a new string be found and attached? Would the virtuoso play on an unfamiliar instrument?
    Perlman nodded again to the conductor and put the violin back beneath his chin.  The orchestra resumed playing; the solo voice sang out, plaintive and angelic.  You can't play a violin on three strings! What kind of transposition, invention, substitution did it take to produce that  perfect sound?
   At the final note, all of us were on our feet, cheering, clappng, shouting for the sheer joy of the performance we'd witnessed. When the pandemonium died down, Perlman fastened his leg clasps, picked up hiscvrutches, stood up, and said with a bow to the audiennce, and a smile, "Sometimes we have to make music with what we have left"

   This story is my inspiration; I hope it is yours as well, sufficient to cause you to continue. Next week, I give you the first chapter of my "Chicken Tales".
 .

Flannery O'Conner, Roald Dahl Quotes and my own

A Few Quotes from Flannery O’Connor… and some of my own:

Writing time---2 hours –let nothing interfere.

Try arranging your novel backwards.

Do not take a year off.

Read some Shakespeare to limber up your language.

      Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite.

      Never speak colloquially. You will lower the tone.

      Fully develop your characters, as if they were a book to themselves.

      Reread favorite authors.

      Read your work out loud.

Roald Dahl, popular children's writer says, By the time I'm nearing the end of a story, the first part will  have been reread and altered and corrected at least 150 times.....good writing is essentially rewriting.  I am positive of this." 

Active Scenes -- We're Livin' It (we hope)

As bluebonnets splash  across the hillsides in TEXAS rright now, LISA WINGATE'S stories floodthe Texas bookstores and home booksheves. Let me share what Lisa shared with our writing group:

Make every scene in your  story a living experience. Show Don't Tell is sometimes approached as a complicated concept, but really it is very simple. Readers want to experience the scene personally. In any great scene your reader should be feeling and experiencing the same stress, fear, emotion, and excitement your character is feeling
-- Make a notebook of good examples to get you into the flow of writing a good scene. Divide is into sections according to the type of scene--action, romance, flashback, etc. Use this to get into the flow when you're about to write or when you're stuck.
-- Let the audience live it. A scene should be a living experience. Consider the most recent brain research on fiction. When we read good material, our brains light up just as if we were going through the actual experience.
-- No over-sharing, please! Trust the readers bring in their own personal experiences. Good writing is like a symphony  Your words are the melody, but in each reader's brain, there is a little conductor ready to pull the reader's personal experiences and combine them with the story. Why is a scene about rejection in junior high school powerful? Because we all know how it feels.  The story begins with the writer and lives with the reader. Trust the conductor in the reader's brain to add new instruments to the scene. Don't over-explain. Readers are smart.
-- Create tension and conflict. How do you create tension/conflict on the page?
   1. Thoughts, feelings, and gut reactions.  Get into the head of your point of view character and ask yourself  what he or she is seeing, feeling, smelling? How will he or she react to the situation?
   2. Use the 5 senses.  Try to incorporate all of your character's senses.
   3. Live it, don't describe it. Show the audience how it feels rather than telling how it feels.
   4. Include a setting that fits the mood. Use the setting to enhance the stress, provide contemplation, or emotion. Storms=crisis, etc.
   5.  Show thoughts and feelings as a reaction to ongoing action in thestory.
   6.  Body language, body language, body language.
   7.  Show how this scene could be life or death in some way.
   8.  Sentence structure -- the rhythm of sentences affects mood and speed of reading. These things give the prose the appropriate feel for the scene.

 In the springtime when Bluebonnets swarm across the highways and byways of Texas, joined by Indian Blanket and Red Paintbrush , we're the most beautiful state that I know!

I Once Knew A Man

Some of the greatest opening lines:

1.Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. - Charles Dickens, David Copperfioeld (1850)
2.The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children's games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. - C.K.Chesterton, The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
3. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)
 If you are working on your opening lines, don't let them linger too long in your head, for
I once knew a man
Who could figure and plan
The stories he intended to write.
For hours he'd sit
Planning characters to fit
With never an end in sight.
He'd dream and envision,
Redo his revision,
And imagine the query he'd send.
But when the bell tolled
If the truth be told
The pages in his lap were blank!

Good Storytelling

Almost a century ago, a young English boy on a visit to a rural community in Scotland set out to enjoy a swim in a small lake. Some distance from shore cramps seized him. A young farm boy working in a nearby field heard his cries for help.
  The country lad plunged into the lake, towed the drowning swimmer to the shore and admisistered first aid. In a short time the victim recovered, able to return to his home in London.
  Years passed before the two boys met again. This time the city boy came to the rural community to ask the farm boy what his future plans were. His family wanted to place at the young farmer's disposal money needed for his education.
   More years passed and the farm boy graduated from college with high honors and embarked upon a career of scientific research. In 1928 he made a discovery that would save uncounted millions of lives when he found germs could not exist in certain vegetable molds.
   But what about the London youth? Well, one winter while on an epochal journey to the Near East,  to meet Franklin Delano Roosevelt of Washington, D.C., and Joseph Stalin of Moscow, USSR, for a series of conferences, he came down with pneumonia.
  The statesman's condition becme alarming. Back in England the drug invented by the one-time farm boy was readied, then sped by plane to the sick man's bedside. Within a few hours the miracle-producing penicillin had performed its mission.  For the second time Alexander Fleming had saved the Londoner's life.
   Yes, Winston Churchill was the boy who went swimming in that small rustic lake a century ago.

*your assignment, dear reader, is to rewrite this story or write a good story of your own so as to catch an editor's attention this week!)