Out From Under? -- Jennie

I don’t think my problem is plot. I have a million ideas for stories, a million ways to begin and end them, a million conflicts and resolutions.

It’s everything else that kills me: picking that perfect word to convey meaning, creating well-crafted characters who are deep and fully developed, who are relatable but also unique. And scripting rich dialogue between these characters, dialogue that shows the conflicts and resolutions without my telling it.

It’s setting, too—slowing down the action, so the reader can see the scene: letting the rivers rage, and the owls call, and the carcass of a cat sink slowly into the dirt.

Once Christy told me that the first three books go under the bed. This means that it takes writing a few novels before actually publishing one. Since Christy’s so clever (she published her first), I told her I’d give her my plot—all of my plots--and she could work her word choice, dialogue magic, etc., etc.

She chuckled.

So I’ve had to apply all these tedious little things to my plot by myself.

It’s been interesting.

Wherever I go (the mall in Eugene, a museum in San Francisco, my classroom on a test day), I’ve found myself studying people, and I’ve listened to what those people say to each other. I’ve taken long walks to hear the crack of ice under my feet, to the sound of sticky tires on pavement, and to the air trapped under a pigeon’s wings as it took flight above a bridge.

I breathed in hay after a rain.

I’m reading Poe before bedtime, and scaring myself silly.

I’m crying over loss.

In essence, my senses have become heightened, and I’m trying to transcribe that in my writing. This book, in turn, has slowed down. It won’t be tied up in the two months in which I usually complete a manuscript.

It has grown up; hopefully enough this time, to stay out from under the bed.

Reviving Steinbeck -- Jennie

In reading my kids John Steinbeck’s The Pearl before we head off to La Paz, I’ve been awed once again by the master writer’s attention to detail, his significant settings.

Incidentally, since today is the last day of Banned Books Week 2008, it’s worth mentioning that Steinbeck is the American Library Association’s tenth-most frequently-challenged author.

As I walked through the autumn-anticipant Ashland this morning, I tried to apply some Steinbeck-ian observation.

Snapping a rose from its stem, I picked off a petal. Before letting it fall to the slick street, I rubbed it between my fingers for a minute, thinking how remarkably similar it was to a human eyelid: thin, soft, and veined, with like curviness.

Next, I grabbed a fistful of lavender and crushed it in my palm, releasing its sweet, wet, earthy scent.

Finally, I plucked off an overhanging plum—ripe and fleshy—and sunk my teeth into its stickiness, waking up my lazy taste buds.

It was an unusually sensory amble through downtown, an ode to nature of the small sort.

Steinbeck is inspiring, even in a city.

The walk made me wonder, though: How can a guy who made the American setting critical, who’s been dead two decades, get such a bad rap in the reading world?

He’s a hero.