LOST IN THE ZONE

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

June 28, 2016

Sometime during the late 1990s I wrote a novel called Hot Springs Eternal. I had been encouraged to do so by an agent who had tried to find a publisher for my short story collection Generous Helpings. The agent was unable to find a home for my story collection, but she asked me when I was going to write a novel, implying (I imagined) that a novel would be easier to place. That encouragement was all it took to get me started on a book that had been coming to a boil in my mind ever since the early 1980s, when I worked for a hot springs hotel and health sanctuary in north central California, a gig that changed my life. I already had a title for the novel of my dreams: Hot Springs Eternal.

The title was all I started out with. I resolved to make the plot, the place, and all the characters entirely fictional, and I resolved not to outline the novel in advance. I set the story in the Matilija Mountains in southern California, and I used as a central character a piano player named Casey, who had made an appearance in each of the Generous Helpings stories and had been the amateur sleuth in my first published book, a murder mystery named Play Melancholy Baby. As for the plot, I had no idea. The only way to find out what would happen was to start writing.

Which I did. I started on a Sunday afternoon, and once I started I couldn’t stop. I became obsessed with finding out what would happen, and my day job as a publisher was beginning to play second fiddle. That wouldn’t do, so I started getting up early every morning to get lost in my novel, early enough to bang out a complete scene every time. This meant getting out of bed at (and sometimes before) 4:30 each morning, seven days a week, to write and write. 

Turns out I didn’t need to think ahead. Characters showed up on the screen before me, they introduced themselves, and they took charge. And what a strange bunch of people! Some lovable, others detestable, all of them revealing their nature by how they interacted with one another. There were two eccentric entomologists, both named Livingston Pomeroy; Karen and Nellie Hope, a pair of squabbling twin sisters; their bully of a brother, Joley; a mute clown named Harpo, whose main role in the novel was to seduce every woman he met; a flapper-era movie star named Clara; a hermit named Nqong, who's a transplanted Australian aborigine; a lovely virgin massage therapist named Pandora; and a peacock named Clyde. For starters. Not to mention a yearly swarm of yellow beetles, whom I regarded as a character too.

The point of view moved from character to character, and each character had a personal agenda different from those of the others, which gave the novel multiple intertwined plots. The farther I got into the book the more I wondered what would sort out this Gordian knot, but still I forged ahead into the unknown—by which time I didn’t know what I was doing, and cared even less, because I was having so much fun along the way. I was in the Zone, that magical state where writing becomes passionate and ecstatic and tinged with magic. I’d written in the zone before, but never so deeply and never so lost.

What was I writing, anyway? A new-agey wooo-wooo morality lesson? An out-there paranormal fantasy? A social commentary? An old-fashioned love story? A contentious family saga? A murder mystery? A musical comedy? A bedroom farce? A what?

All of the above. And somehow, as if by magic, every one of those separate but intertwined plots got resolved more or less simultaneously. And at long last I could emerge from the Zone and take a look at what I had watched sprout, grow, and bloom before my eyes for lo these many months.

And, as Ray Bradbury was fond of saying about his own work, “By God, it was good!” Or so I thought at the time.

So I bundled it up and sent it off to the agent, with a note telling her it was like Tom Robbins meets Armistead Maupin. She sent it right back saying she didn’t like either Robbins or Maupin, and she wasn’t going to take my novel on. I tried to interest other agents, and got turned down by a dozen or so.

So I put the Hot Springs Eternal manuscript on the shelf, where it remained for almost 20 years. Then I dared to take it down and read it, and found it to be an over-written mess. It was, to quote Anne Lamott, a “shitty first draft.” I had gotten lost in the Zone, so much so that I lacked restraint and self-control and art. That’s when and how I learned that the Zone is a beautiful experience for a writer, but we shouldn’t let it rob us of our job, which is to write clearly, with our brains as well as our hearts.

To cut this over-long story short, I still found something salvageable in the novel, so I rewrote the book. I simplified the plot and I killed a number of my darlings, as Faulkner advised. It’s much better now. So I made an ebook out of it, and you can buy it from Kindle and other ebook vendors. To read more about Hot Springs Eternal (the rewritten and much improved version), see the promotion below.

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for June’s 99-word story submissions is June first. The stories will appear on my blog post for June 11 and remain there for one week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story containing or inspired by this sentence: “I came home to a place I’d never been before.”

§§§

And now a word from our sponsor:

Hope Hot Springs, high on a forested mountainside in Southern California’s coastal Matilija Range, was once the home of millionaire Joel Hope and his silent-picture-star wife Clara Bianca. They threw wild weekend parties back in the 1920s for the libertine Hollywood royalty, who cavorted naked in the hot mineral waters and in the hotel where the bedroom doors were never locked.

Now, 60 years later, Hope Springs is the home of Karen and Nellie Hope, Joel’s constantly squabbling twin daughters. They share the former resort with a commune of hippies, and they plan to reopen Hope Springs as a weekend hotel, for a new generation of Hollywood stars. They’ve hired a piano player named Casey to direct the staff and be the hotel manager, as well as the host and entertainment for the guests, once the hotel is open for business. They have an excellent vegetarian chef named Diana.

This all promises to be a successful venture, but the powers that be want it to fail: SoCal Development, in collaboration with Anacapa County and Pacific Power, is scheming to claim the entire mountainside under the doctrine of eminent domain. SoCal’s plan is to displace the Hope sisters and their community, clear-cut their forest, and build California’s first geothermal bedroom community. All Karen and Nellie have going for them is good intentions, a loyal staff, and Nqong, an Australian aborigine sage who has lived like a hermit in the Matilija mountains most of his life, tending to the healing waters and caring for a yearly swarm of exotic yellow beetles, who might just save the day.

This ebook is available on Kindle and other ebook retailers.

§§§

Before I say goodbye for this week, let me add one more observation about getting lost in the Zone. Maybe I didn’t come up with a great piece of writing in my first try, but I have never had such downright fun writing, before or since, as I did while I was absorbed in that first draft. I'll never regret spending the time that way, and I'm also proud of the revision. I think you'll like it.

Goodbye for this week.

photo by Clark Lohr

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

WRITERS SOMETIMES START EARLY

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

May 21, 2016

Welcome writers. Welcome readers. Welcome anybody who enjoys telling or writing, or hearing or reading, a good story. This blog is devoted to the pleasurable and dedicated art of writing stories of all kinds: short stories, long novels, memoirs true or false, and flights of wild imagination.

So long as the stories are stories, that is. What does that mean? For one thing, a story needs a plot to qualify as a real story. Something has to happen to somebody, and some sort of change needs to happen. Another essential ingredient is conflict. Readers of this blog have heard this so often that I can imagine them wondering when I’ll let go of that rag I keep chewing on like a terrier. Answer: probably never.

To illustrate the point, here’s a short memoir piece about the first story I ever wrote. I’ve related this memory before on this blog, but it comes in handy here, because our guest poster, Augie Hicks, also began writing at an early age, and from the description of her first published novel, and from the excerpts she shares with us, it's clear that she has a built-in passion for conflict and trouble. Read on.

§§§

My First Story

by John M. Daniel

 Not long after I learned to read (I cut my teeth on The Wizard of Oz), I developed a strong urge to tell stories of my own. That is: I wanted to write! If Mr. Baum could do it, why couldn’t I?

I decided to write my first story when I was five or six years old. I borrowed a pencil and a piece of paper from my mother and asked her what I should write my story about.

“Write about what you know about,” she advised me.

So I did. The story came out something like this: “Johnny and his mother went to the circus. They saw clowns. They had fun. They came home. The end.”

My mother was proud of me. (Of course. That’s what mothers are for.) But when I showed my story to my brother, Neil, who was nine years older than I, he said, “It’s not a real story. A real story needs conflict.”

That put me in a quandary. At the age of six, I had no conflict in my life, so I couldn’t write a real story if I were to write about what I knew about. That put my writing career off for another ten years or so.

Then I started reading the novels of Richard Bissell, and I thought to myself: I can do this. I tried it, and I found I was right: I could do this. By that time I was a teenager, so of course there was conflict in the life I knew so well; it goes with the territory.

Elmore Leonard said that 70% of what he knew about writing came from reading the novels of Richard Bissell. So you can believe me when I say that Bissell is worth your time. But it doesn’t have to be Bissell. Find your own favorite writer and write something that writer might want to read.

Once I got started, I never stopped. The first fiction I wrote wasn’t worth the wear and tear on my typewriter, but I got some stories published in little magazines, and eventually my first novel was published–by Perseverance Press! I dedicated Play Melancholy Baby to the memory of Richard Bissell (and Lorenz Hart, another one of my writing heroes).

I haven’t supported myself with my writing (not many writers do), but I’ve never stopped writing, and in the meantime I’ve worked in the written word: as a student, a reader, a bookseller, an editor, a ghostwriter, a fiction writer, a publisher, and a teacher of creative writing.

I owe it to my mother, my brother, and mainly to other writers–Bissell, Leonard, and many more. And of course to my readers.

Thank you, dear readers!

§§§

AUGIE HICKS

author of

Fanaman Curse

Augie Hicks writes under the name A. H. Scott. She has been a writer almost since she first grasped the concept of writing. In grade school she rewrote Charlotte Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew for her classmates to perform. Writing has always been her passion. She writes in multiple genres, including Victorian Thriller, Mystery, Western Thriller, YA, Tween Mystery, and non-fiction. Fanaman Curse is Augie’s first traditionally published novel.

Here’s what Augie has to say about the joy of story:

I believe the joy of story resonates deep within the soul of a writer, wherein we have the need to share. Perhaps the story is not always as deeply felt by the readers as it is by the writer, but there are always those who hear the echo.

When I write I try to look for truth by researching the people, locations, and time periods that I write about, whether the story is fiction or non-fiction. I investigate in my mind the circumstances that follow a murder, or the tools used to commit a crime, or how the protagonist weaves his or her way through the journey of self-recovery, or how the antagonist tries to prevent the protagonist from achieving his or her goals. Often one or more of these components are set in motion while I am creating plot, developing characters, and describing the setting.

I know that if I don’t hook the reader in the first ten or so pages, then the reader won’t get into the story. I try to drive the story forward by making the reader think or care about the main characters. If they don’t care, then why read any further? I’m quite comfortable with this method, even though it may not work for all stories.

•••

As I wrote Fanaman Curse, I discovered death, despair, duplicity, and hatred surrounding the inhabitants of Fanaman. Death occurs aboard a luxury liner as it sails across the Atlantic from the East Coast of the United States, bound for the coast of Spain. One of the characters’ royalty is revealed. As the tale unfolds, murder, ghosts, lies, and truths are exposed. 

The cover of Fanaman Curse was charcoal drawn 

by one of my daughters, AliciaRose

She only knew that something was dreadfully wrong…

Charlotte dressed with haste behind the brocade dressing divider in her bedroom. “I need to get out of this cabin before he comes back. I’ll walk along the deck. It’s important that I be around other people instead of being alone. I really need to find deGraffy. Who do I trust?”

The ship docked, but Charlotte was not going ashore.

“DeGraffy will tell me the truth—if he’s really Papa’s friend.”

Finding him was number one on her list of things to do. She had to inform him that someone had been in her room, twice. She would tell him about the strangeness of the cabin steward, how he treated her and the splash that awakened her. She tried to blink away her tears as something blew into her eyes.

 •••

“Now I remember…the outer lights in the corridor were on. But when the intruder was in my room earlier, the outer corridor was very dark. That was why I could not make out who was there. The flash of light I saw appeared to have come from the corridor, maybe a torch. I’m not sure. Perhaps there was more than one person working together. What did he want...all I know for sure is that it was dark.”

•••

The death of my little brother when we were children still haunts me. I cannot see who is coming towards me. Hands white as snow dripping icicles puncture the ground. They fall leaving blankets of bloody footprints going nowhere, leading everywhere. The sounds of screaming geese off in the distance awaken me to a cold sweat, never remembering what truly happened. I fall back to sleep after many hours to be awaken once again as if drowning in the sea below. Something keeps holding me down. I cannot climb up Heaven’s Stairway. I scream to the woman in white who is running down the rocks. She does not see me. She plunges headfirst into the black abyss. Never screaming—just quiet. Mother says my brother’s death was an accident, but no one will tell me.…

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for June’s 99-word story submissions is June first. The stories will appear on my blog post for June 11 and remain there for one week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story containing or inspired by this sentence: “I came home to a place I’d never been before.”

§§§

That's it for this week. Please come back next week. Make a habit of it. Meanwhile, may your life be full of peace and stability, and if you write, may your stories be riddled with conflict. 

 http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html

TURNING POINTS

THE JOY OF STORY

John M. Daniel’s Blog

May 14, 2016

<photo: John teaching photo>

Greetings, story writers, story readers, story tellers, and story listeners. Today and this week I’m happy to showcase the talents of ten writers who sent me their 99-word stories for this month. The prompt I provided was:

“Think of something you feel strongly about, an opinion that defines who you are—or who you are not—politically, spiritually, economically, professionally, or any other important way. Why is it important? When did this self-knowledge come to you, and how did it change your life? Show (don't tell) this in the context of a story.”

I hoped this exercise would yield stories packed with conflict, choice, change, and consequence. Something happened, causing the narrator to make a choice; and the consequence of the choice was a change. The point I’m making here is that stories often depend on turning points, because when you think about it, life itself is made up of turning points large and small. Those turning points often if not usually result in an attitude change, making the narrator a slightly or radically different person. I believe we all have such stories to tell about why we are the way we are.

The results were mixed. Some of the stories submitted illustrated the points I’ve just made. Some did not. That doesn’t mean the stories in Group A were better than those in Group B. I think what it means is I wasn’t clear enough about what I wanted. And the heck with that; what I wanted is not the point. What it really means is people write what they’re inspired to write, and I can learn something from all the different responses to my prompt.

And, on second examination, I find that in each of the stories I received, including those stories inspired by the alternate prompt about the cherished gravy boat, the plot hinges on a turning point of some sort. Turning points. They are the essence of story and the essence of life.

§§§

TURNING POINTS

A Collection of 99-word Stories

OUT OF MY SHELL

by Cathy Mayrides

I was a precocious and noisy baby. But I blossomed into a self-conscious, timid child and then a shy young adult.

I worked as a waitress in a bustling Greek diner. On my first day, I was cursed at, spilled on, stiffed, and insulted. By the second week, I considered quitting.

Then, I had a fight with the misogynist cook, who threw spaghetti at me. Furious, I told him to “fuck off!”

There was applause.

I came out of my shell that very day. This job made me strong and resilient. I learned how to stick up for myself.

•••

HOW I BECAME A GOLFER

by Carol Murphy

I spent every day of my seventeenth summer at the club. At first I stayed by the pool, working on my tan. That’s how I met Louie, the tennis pro.

Louie courted me and won my girlhood—game, set, and match. He was my first affair. Then I found out he was also serving aces to three other members.

In the game of tennis, “love” means nothing.

I quit tennis.

Stewie, the golf pro, invited me to play a round with him, and then he signed me up for lessons.

Phooey on Louie. Stewie had a better stroke anyway.

•••

MY DREAM LIFE

by Pat Shevlin

Anticipation had been building since the press release. Homeless families filed into sports arenas across the country, many quizzically wondering: “What is going to happen? Who is coming?”

She finally appeared on the big screen, silencing the boisterous crowds: “Today your lives are changed forever; a gift from America’s wealthiest citizens and Habitat for Humanity. Today you’re going to get a house.” She pointed jubilantly. “And you’re going to get a house.… Kids, you’re all going to get a house!”

Men and women cried and screams of joy erupted, waking me from another dream in which I was Oprah.

•••

DRUNKEN UNCLE

by Carol Dray

The breakfront was off limits to me. Women with wrinkled hands and spiny fingers adorned with platinum rings spiraling loosely behind walnut sized knuckles held guard. In royal procession, they drained it—hand painted, gold embossed china shipped from a land I couldn’t pronounce, to set out like the Holy Eucharist and be returned to the felt-lined shelves in reverence.

Plates and bowls were passed around, the docents clucking at careless hands.

An Uncle drained his wine, then held the gravy boat belonging to my great-grandmother over his full plate, letting it slip and shatter.

Ceremoniously, he belched: “Amen!”

•••

AN AWAKENING OF COMPASSION

by Jerry Giammatteo

Luis was different. He wasn’t from America, spoke accented English and was not into sports or horseplay. Luis was a serious boy, a science nerd.

The kids at school shunned him. I didn’t purposefully like many others, but did nothing to welcome him either.

One day, I saw him looking particularly sad. “What’s wrong, Luis?” I asked.

“My dad is very sick,” he replied haltingly.

“Sorry to hear that,” I responded, feeling bad.

At lunch that day, Luis was sitting alone, as usual. I saw him and approached.

“May I sit here?” I asked.

“Sure,” Luis said, smiling widely.

•••

SLEEPLESS IN NEW YORK

by Christine Viscuso

 “I’ve spent sleepless nights deciding whether to vote for Hillary or Bernie.” I shoved my wine goblet, for a refill, in front of my husband.

 “I know, dear. You’ve kept me up with your tossing and turning.”

 “Bernie believes in a better life for the poor and middle class, health insurance for all, breaking up big banks, free college. And he mentioned us seniors. I agree with him. But Hillary is realistic as to how to pay for all that. Well, I finally decided.”

 “And?”

 “I went to vote for Bernie and was turned away. It’s a closed election!”

•••

SO YOU THINK YOU’RE A WRITER?

By John Hellen

My first memory of anyone thinking I had any writing talent was when I was in the USN. I played baseball, but hardly anyone from our base came to watch us play. I even put a notice on our board that the Knights of the Round Table were jousting and competing, but no one was coming to see them.

Finally I pleaded for them to support our team. It worked. Officers and their families came to watch us play.

I’m 78 and retired. I received a notice offering a Creative Writing course. I took it, and you’re reading it.

•••

THE INHERITANCE

by Diane Hallett

My great-grandmother died last month. The will was read yesterday. Mary got the quilts, Uncle Ralph her bike, and the farm went to Monks in Poughkeepsie. I got the gravy boat. I guess she took my praise for her gravy last Thanksgiving to heart.

Perhaps it could be a vase for flowers, or a container for my shell collection, or a goldfish bowl? Ungrateful me.

It’s a bird bath! I ran outside, but tripped over the dog. It shattered, but amazingly it had a secret in the lining; diamonds and gold are everywhere.

Thanks Grandma. Your gravy is delicious!

•••

SHOP LOCAL

By Diane S. Morelli

Marcy owned the tiny flower shop by the subway station. People frequented her store to buy spirited floral arrangements. Marcy’s bold opinions were included for free with each purchase.

Lana worked at the neighboring beauty salon. Each payday, she treated herself to flowers. Lana once said to Marcy, “I want you make a breathtaking bridal bouquet for me.”

“With pleasure. Now you stop wasting time on men who are wrong for you.”

“But, Marcy. Love takes time to blossom.”

“Fifteen minutes. Give or take a few.”

Lana balked. Then she met Alexander.

Marcy asked, “Where?”

“Speed-dating. Thanks to you.”

•••

MIDLIFE RESOLUTION

by Madelyn Lorber

Somewhere around the age of forty- two, I came to a decision.

I was going to make changes in my thought process. I determined: my appearance was okay, and that was good enough; I was reasonably intelligent, and that was terrific; I was more fortunate than most, so I embraced that fact; and if I needed to be submissive, on occasion, or vigorous, it would merely be an act that served me well.

From that time forward to today, for the most part, my life as a mate, parent, child, sibling, relative, friend, and citizen has rewarded that change.

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for June’s 99-word story submissions is June first. The stories will appear on my blog post for June 11 and remain there for one week.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.

2. One story per writer, per month.

3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.

4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.

5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.

6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.

7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THIS MONTH’S PROMPT FOR NEXT MONTH’S 99-WORD STORY: Write a story containing or inspired by this sentence: “I came home to a place I’d never been before.”

§§§

And now a word from our sponsor:

Generous Helpings Six Stories of California, Calamity, and Love Shoreline Press ISBN 1-885375-5 Paperback, $12.00. Send check to  John M. Daniel, PO Box 2790, McKinleyville, CA 95519 For an autographed copy, call (800) 662-8351 and place your order by phone The characters in John M. Daniel's collection of fiction walk in and out of each other's stories, giving the book a friendly continuity. The book is also held together by the author's obvious enjoyment of old-fashioned popular song; most of the stories are named after American standards, and one of the recurring characters is a piano player named Casey, who views the world as his own piano bar. Also common to the stories in Generous Helpings is the theme of California disasters. These stories, as different as they are from one another, contain such memorable events as the Loma Prieta earthquake, the Painted Cave fire, the Rodney King riots, and the devastating El Niño storms of 1983. But the most important unifying theme of this book is suggested by the title: that people everywhere survive their problems and make progress only by helping one another. Generous Helpings is a slender volume of long short stories, and a big-hearted book. Review Quotes “Mr. Daniel’s writing is soft and accomplished with wry understatements and overstatements tossed in when you don’t expect them.…This is fun and easy reading, generous in ways you should come to appreciate.” —Lin Rolens, Santa Barbara News-Press “Daniel is an extraordinarily readable writer.” —D. J. Paladino, Santa Barbara Independent “Great reading!” —Midwest Book Review

§§§

Thank you, friends, for stopping by. It's always a pleasure to chat about stories, and to share the joy that story gives us. I look forward to seeing you next week, I hope. Till then, so long.

 

http://www.danielpublishing.com/jmd/index.html