Sitting With the Boys in the Back of the Room

My 90 year old friend has, for the past two decades, volunteered at a local elementary school. She's done many things for the school including sucking in a number of her friends to help out. For example, I have been a reading tutor, written a play for her to produce and direct, sewed costumes for several of her extravaganzas and now, am her occasional driver.

Which is what I did recently. She'd just had surgery and wasn't driving so I took her to the school where she was at the tail end of a term with six kids doing radio plays.

Yes, you read that correctly. She does radio plays. Kids who have never known radio as anything other than a place to get their music are entranced with what she teaches them--pro-JECTING, coloring your words to get the meaning across, using sound effects. Walking through the school, she is greeted with hugs by all the kids she has worked with in the years she has been there and kids complain if they think they won't have the chance to work with her before the school year runs out.

So, for the past two Wednesdays I've driven her to the school and watched her work with the kids. The first Wednesday, it was a final rehearsal. Last Wednesday was a performance before two classes of fourth graders.

Six kids sit at desks at the front of the room, scripts in hand, nervous expressions on their faces. My friend, who has been given the best chair in the room, has a cardboard "on the air" sign held up to get silence. With her fingers she counts down from five and on one, the narrator--her stories always have narrators--begins the story of "The Three Little Elephants," a re-telling of "The Three Little Pigs.'

When they finish the first play, there is a brief intermission before they go on to the second play about how Portland, where the school is located, got its name.

At the front of the room, where I always sat when I was in grade school, the kids are well-behaved, pay attention and clap enthusiastically when each performance is over. No surprise, when the teacher asks how many of the boys and girls present have worked with my friend, the entire front of the room holds up hands.

I am in the back of the room, surrounded by boys. The ones who can't keep still, would never volunteer for a radio show and are bored listening to one. The ones kids like I was would secretly admire but didn't dare emulate and irritate the teacher. The ones who often grew into those cute high school bad boys girls like me never dated but always watched with interest.

The guys around me fake-cough through the first play. My friend and her six actors don't seem to notice. The teacher does. She comes over and, glancing at me as she talks quietly to them, gets them to stop. They do. Well, pretty much.

She throws me an apologetic look as she returns to her post at the side of the room where she can see everything better. I smile. If I knew her better, I'd tell her it was fun for once in my life to sit in the back with the bad boys. Made me feel a little naughty. Not an altogether unwelcome feeling at my age.

Total Recall of the Useless

In my head is the knowledge that camels have pear-shaped erythrocytes, that in oysters copper carries oxygen, not iron. I know that land heats and cools faster than water, that the hand, immobilized in any but the position of function, is destined to be a perpetual fly-swatter. I can recall who cast the vote in the Oregon legislature to doom the first gay-rights bill in the late 70s. I know how to say "welcome to Wales" in Welsh.

All these things I can pull out of the crevices of my mind. But I cannot tell you for sure where my car keys are. Even though I swear I put them the same place. Every. Single. Time. Still, I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for them.

They must move on their own. They tuck themselves into parts of my purse I never open. They hide behind the cushion in the chair near where I dump my purse. They walk into the kitchen and take up residence on the counter near the stove.

If I could find the other set of keys, this would not be a problem. However, I'm the only one who carries a key to my car. My husband refuses to carry more than one remote so the second set of keys is God-knows-where in, around or near his bureau. If I want to leave the house on anything other than my bike or my feet, I need to find my keys.

And I never can.

Other inanimate objects refuse to stay where I put them. Or where I'm quite sure I put them. Things like the hairbrush that belongs in my gym bag. I have, over the years, purchased a half-dozen small brushes for my purse and gym bag. None of them is ever where I need it to be. If I need one in my purse, they're all on the shelf in my closet. Need one in a gym bag? They're all in the purse I left at home. Not a problem after an exercise class, you say? Except that I often go for coffee with friends after our class and drowned-haystack-in-a-windstorm is not a good look for me.

I suppose I don't need to add that my cell phone has learned bad habits from my hairbrush and car keys. Only when I've plugged it in to charge it do I know where it is. And please don't tell me to find it by calling it from another phone. First, I have it turned off most of the time so it doesn't annoy me. Second, do you really think I know the number? I mean, I'm too busy remembering "geography is the study of the relation of man (sic) to his (sic) natural environment" and "i before e except after c, when followed by g as in neighbor or weigh." How can I be expected to remember a phone number?

Okay, some of what I pull out of my gray matter is semi-useful, like the "i before e thing." But the secret to the 9 times table isn't. Nor is the system for numbering the highways and exits of the interstate highway system. And yet I know them.

I have finally given up hope that it will change. I just factor in a ten minute search every time I want to leave the house.

Speaking of time, I see it's time to run errands. Have to find the damn keys first. Maybe they're near my gym bag from exercise class this morning.

My Imaginary Friends

I saw a sweatshirt recently I think I might have to buy. It says, "Writer's block is when your imaginary friends stop talking to you." I'd wear it on the days when I'm feeling discouraged about something I'm writing. I mean, if they make sweatshirts about it, I can't be alone. Right?

Not that I've ever experienced classic writer's block. If that's a complete throttling of all ability to write, I've had more like writer's Jersey barrier--it keeps me from going in the direction I had planned to go by putting a big, ugly concrete thing in front of me.

It is usually put there by my imaginary friends. Because they do talk to me. My characters, that is. Some days they're more real than some of the folks in the grocery store. (That's not as scary as you think. You have no idea who shops at my grocery store.)

Anyway, my point is my characters and I have a close personal relationship. We talk to each other. They let me listen to them talk to each other, even to other people not in the story. It's how I know who I'm writing about. Until I get it wrong. Then they put up that big Jersey barrier and I'm in trouble.

It's usually because I have forced one of them to do something they would never think of doing. An out of character behavior or bit of dialog. Swearing when they'd never swear. Being aggressive when they're a shrinking violet. Okay, let's get real. Hardly ever do I write about shrinking violets. It's more likely I've made a confident person act tentatively in circumstances where s/he would never behave that way.

What they do, my little imaginary friends, is populate my dreams. They bitch at me, tell me in no uncertain terms how wrong I am. If I'm lucky, they suggest new ways to get through the scene they don't like. If I'm not, they just  point out the error of my ways and expect me to figure it out.

It happened recently when I thought I was happy with a revised novel. Amanda wasn't. She gave me bad dreams for I-don't-even-remember how many nights in a row until I made it right.

Genre fiction, the kind I write, is supposed to be plot-driven. Or formulaic. Maybe some of it is. The kind I like isn't. It's character driven. The imaginary friends of the writer show up in the first chapter, hook my interest and lead me through their lives, conflicts and resolutions. Yes, the end of genre fiction is predictable--the killer's caught, the lovers reunite, the world is saved. But only because the writer listened to her/his imaginary friends and let them be who they really are.

Writing About You-Know-What

Kissing. I mean writing about kissing.

Here's the problem for every self-respecting writer trying to craft a decent love scene: the English language, as glorious as it is, has very few words for "kiss." Or to be specific, very few words that I'm willing to or interested in using in place of the word "kiss." It's a serious problem. What is out there, really, other than that four letter word that begins with "k?"I have searched on-line and in my old hardback thesaurus and have come up with nothing satisfactory. The choices are dreadful.

For example, I refuse to even consider the word "osculate." It sounds more like something a doctor would do in a yearly physical. It's clinical. Cold. Sterile. It calls up images of metal examining tables and paper gowns. Not the warmth of a candle-lit room with Barry White singing in the background. Even a doctor in the throes of a passionate embrace with the woman he's proposing to doesn't osculate. (Don't ask how I know. Let's just say I've been there and done that.)

No, the only way "osculate" would get into something I was writing would be if I were to describe two people bringing into contact the flesh covering their orbicular oris muscles. Then it might work. But I'm not aware of a great demand for that type of anatomically descriptive love scenes.

"Neck," which Mr. Gates's prompt tells me is a synonym, gives me a different image--a warm summer night, a car and the gearshift getting in the way. Or, if one is writing for a younger audience, with the whole vampire thing that's going around, it calls up images of fangs and blood. Neither is what I write.

"Canoodle" is what celebrities do in the back booth of a restaurant in Beverly Hills so they can get caught by some reporter and make it on the entertainment shows on TV. "Peck" is what one does on the cheek of a friend to greet her. "Smooch" is loud and rude. "Smack" has too many other meanings, none of them good.

And "buss?" This is truly the worst of the lot--well, after "osculate." How in the world did a word that sounds like public transportation become synonymous with something emotional, passionate, loving, sweet, tender, sexy? I mean, "he bussed her." Really? Was she part of a school desegregation program? Run over by a Greyhound vehicle? Ridden out of town on a Trailways?

Janet Evanovich is supposed to have switched from romance writing to mysteries because she ran out of ways to describe the love scenes. I'm beginning to have some idea of what she meant and I'm just on the kissing. Maybe I'll use my translation program to find out what the word is in other languages. I bet the French have a ton of words for "kiss." I mean, they're French, after all.

Do you suppose they call it French kissing?

Writing Romance

As I said last week, romance novels weren't what I thought I'd write. But now that I've settled on this genre, I'm loving it. I get to hang out on-line with a lot of other terrific writers who share my interest. I will have my first novel published in June (I've mentioned that before, have I? Sorry.) I get to download a ton of cool stuff onto my iPad and count as research reading which would, under other circumstances, be my entertainment.

In the hundred or so novels I have on my magic machine I have found a wide range of books. Some of them are so-so, many of them fun and funny, all of them have something to teach me as I hone my skills.
But none of them prepared me for the reactions people have when I tell them what I'm writing.

The folks who look oddly at me and ask "Why would you want to write that?" are easy to deal with. I just tell them I'm following the first rule of writing--write what you know. That usually shuts them up. It also makes them look speculatively at my husband.

The next group is easier. They're the women who would never, even if water-boarded, confess to most people that they read romance novels. They're usually lawyers or accountants or something like that, women with serious day jobs who escape into the fiction of romance. They get it. I love talking to them about what I'm writing.

But perhaps the most fun I've had is discussing my romance writing with other writers. I've been involved in critique groups both formal and informal for more than 15 years. I've had long and detailed discussions about point of view, scene vs. summary, the beats in dialogue, how to describe a room without sounding like Architectural Digest. Only since I've been writing romance, however, have my conversations with other writers been funny.

There was the writer who read one of my first drafts of my first novel. She made the usual comments about the arc of the story and the development of the characters. But then she went off in another direction. "One thing, that scene in her hotel room. Have you been kissing my husband?"

I said no, other than the peck on the cheek when we'd come into their house, I had not. Was that what she meant? No," she said. "I mean KISSED my husband. The way you describe your character kissing is exactly like the way (my husband) kisses. I didn't think anyone else kissed like that."

"Well," I said. "Aren't you lucky?"

Then there was the writer/friend who had proofed a novel about to head off to my Crimson Romance editor. She was happy with most of it except for one question. "That thing you said he does with his tongue. I thought they did that with their teeth. But I'm not sure. I don't think I was really paying much attention when it happened to me."

I was at a loss for words.

Best, maybe, was a recent lunch with a friend who is a writer, a romance fan and a PR whiz. She works for a construction company. After I regaled her with my stories of writing, she said, "I've been working all day on the most boring writing imaginable--an application to renew our permits to put up steel structures. All I can say is, after this lunch, steel erection will have a whole different meaning."

Always glad to be of assistance to my friends.

The Lure of Romance (novels, that is)

The Wall Street Journal has a piece today on the surge in sales of romance novels, particularly the more spicy ones, due to the popularity of electronic readers. Women, it seems, like to read the books, they just don't like strangers to know what they're reading because of the cheesy covers many of the books seem to have. (I've always thought there was a market for fake covers with headlines proclaiming the book inside was a finalist for the Pulitzer or Booker prizes to solve the problem. Who would have thought the answer was a reading machine?)

This is of great interest to me because I am about to have my first romance novel published. I wouldn't have predicted this would be where my writing would lead me. I started out writing a couple mystery novels both of which got flattering rejections--that was back in the day when rejections came by mail and were personalized. You know, five years ago.

Anyway, I always assumed I'd follow in the footsteps of my favorite mystery writers. I've been reading in this genre since I was very young--starting with Nancy Drew like a billion other females. As an adult I've enjoyed Sue Grafton's alphabet, Elizabeth George's handsome hero, Tony Hillerman's knowledge of SW Native American culture, Diane Mott Davidson's recipes and Janet Evanovich's cupcake (okay, okay, okay. Not the cupcake heroine. Morelli and Ranger. There. Are you satisfied?)

Of course I've read romances, too. The ones by the Brontes and Jane Austen that masquerade as literature,  the ones my mother read by Nora Roberts, the ones my mother would never read by Sandra Brown. But write one? Nah, not my thing.

Then something interesting happened. Two people began to live in my head, a beautiful woman and a drop-dead gorgeous man. I started writing character sketches about them, began to collect magazine and catalog pictures of what they would wear, what their homes would look like. In other words, they obsessed me. So I wrote about them. And, since they were young and beautiful/gorgeous, it became a romance.

That's when I realized what I like about romances. It's not just the "happily-ever-after." With mysteries you get much the same thing only it's justice being done. What I like about romances, at least the good ones, is the characters. The quirks, qualities and problems of humanity. The way we relate to each other, screw it up and then, with luck and a little effort, make it all work out in the end.

That's the lure of romance novels for me. That and a love scene that reads as if the writer actually understands anatomy. But that's a topic for another day.

Reimagineering

The folks who design the Disney theme parks are called "imagineers," engineers with imagination. I'm married to an engineer. From meeting many of his colleagues I have often wondered how long and far the Disney people had to look to find a full complement of such creatures. Most of the ones I know have math down cold and they're fabulous at A to B to C logic. Out of the box thinking? Not so much. (My husband, of course, is the exception. Maybe I should loan him to the Magic Kingdom.)

But I digress.

I have a contemporary romance about to be published, the first of a series of five I have planned, written, drafted, outlined, dreamed about, rewritten, passed around to writer friends to read--just about anything you can do to a manuscript, I have done to four of the five novels.

After the first one was accepted by Crimson Romance for publication, I asked about submitting the second one. Sure, the editor said. Send it any time. I went through it one more time for luck, re-spell checked it and off it went.

Less than a week later, while working on the third novel, in one of those light-bulb moments, the glitch in the one I'd already sent to the editor appeared. I don't like to read books about women who live in towers, sleep in glass coffins or need princes on white horses to swoop in and make their world right. I like women who make their way themselves and choose, rather than need, to have a man along with them. That's what I try to write.

But in the second book, not only had the hero rescued the heroine once, he did it twice, while she sat around waiting for it to happen. To make it worse, another woman helped. Not only was this not what I like to read, this was not who I believed my heroine to be.

So, I wrote an embarrassing email withdrawing the book from the editor's consideration. And I started the task of reimagineering the book. I know what I want her to do. Now I need to use the engineer side of my brains to figure out the structure so she does it in a way that makes the story arc work?

Wish me luck.