Parenting Your Characters

I dropped my kids off at school this morning. Mainly they take the bus. But today my first grader son had class snack today and there was a small bit of distrust in me (blasted!) that the snack wouldn't make it to school without getting dumped out all over the ground.

As I walked back to my car after the bell rang (and of course handed the snack safely over to Mr. Pickering), I walked past the lines of children, the many parents standing by their children until they go in the school building. I walked past the Kindergarten playground, sequestered from the rest of the school, seeing a ratio of more parents to children; kids and their toddler siblings running all around, parents chasing and shouting disciplinary phrases.

Getting closer to my car, I see older kids being dropped off, parents staying in their cars, kids slamming car doors and running away towards their classes.  It dawned on me:

As a writer, we have different levels of fictional character development, just as we who are parents have different levels of hovering, if you will, over our children.  The more we write our character and get to know them, the more they take on their own personality, further away from the person we were basing them on, perhaps, and further away from who we thought they were supposed to be when we first started writing about them.  The same goes with parenting: the older our children get, the more we have to let them go.  Not because it's just what you do, as some parents hold on for dear life as long as they can. It's the child that wants to walk home by themselves from the bus; it's the child that wants you to drop them off and stay in the car; it's the child that says 'please don't kiss me in front of anyone at school.'

We all have different methods to develop our characters when we sit down to write our story or novel. I, for instance, use a worksheet as I go, writing down details of my characters, from the simple (hair, eye, and skin color; job status; relationship status) to the complex (minor and major fears; something they have wanted their whole life; something they want to get rid of). I also try to develop a character matrix to see who is dating whom, who is related to whom, etc. And thus a family of characters is born.

When I sit down to write, I can use the notes and the matrices I have created; however, normally my main character, especially, is like a Kindergartner that I hold on to as much as I can, just letting her run away from me for a very brief period, me trying to stay in sight of her at all times until she goes in to class. Time moves on and writing moves on and the character starts to grow as the story begins to bloom and move, ebb and flow, and blossom into a place the writer is feeling good about.

But as the story grows, the character's personality develops and the ideals that were on that page of character details end up running off the page. Much like the ideals we think our children will be like, or the things we say when the babies are small, like, he was such a kicker in my belly, he for sure is going to be a soccer player or karate kid.  And he turns out to be a musician.

Children develop based on their home environment (nurture) and surroundings (nature). So do fictional characters.  But as writers, we have to let the characters flow. We can't hold on to who we thought they were supposed to be. As they interact with other characters, more and less developed, they take on their own personality.  Your own character can surprise you.

Two weeks ago in my Writer's Group as I read a chapter close to the end of my fictional memoir, I of course had ideals of how the character would end up in the novel on the last few pages.  As I finished reading the last couple of words, then take a breath as I'm done, the critiquing begins. I like to hear what they say, and wait to explain how I wanted the character to develop only if they ask about it.  But this time, my talented peers had plans of their own for my character, based on how the story had developed up to that point. They saw my main character having a strong moment and being able to have a "Rocky-style finish." I felt so proud. I had let my main character slip through my tight grip and end up being in a place much better than I had originally planned, from the character detail page to the outline of the entire novel!

The bottom line is, I let go. I know I held on for a while. I remember reading early chapters and having a concrete throat while I drove home, feeling so angry that my peers didn't see what I had intended for the character back then. I let go. And she grew, slipping through my typing fingers and onto the pages as her own being, based on how she emerged dealing with the other characters and story-points that led her to the end of the novel.  And so we as parents let go. And no matter who our children become we say and believe with all of our hearts that we will always know them and foresee their every move.

We are silly, us parents. Letting go is part of the deal.  And such is the case for us silly writers.  Let your characters go with the story flow.

1001 (Minus 976) Books to Read Before You Die

I am grateful to technology because it has given the world another reason to realize that the act of reading will never be a dying past time (thank you Kindle, thank you Nook). Reading is a fundamental gift that all humans can be blessed to learn. Reading provides the brain stimulation, inspiration, confidence, information and enlightenment. I enjoy reading because it helps me be a better writer. The stories I love to read are of humanity; stories of people like me or like people I know who struggle and in the least make it through difficult times with some sort of grace and accomplishment.

I recently took a book out from the library: “501 Great Writers,” a comprehensive guide to the giants of literature. I was just curious, for my writer and reader ego, to see how many of these writers I have read. I am very much into classic literature. It was a Shakespeare class in college, actually, that inspired me to become a writer.  So I continually read the “classics” of literature, from “The Great Gatsby” to “The Bell Jar” to my current huge undertaking of “Atlas Shrugged,” the philosophical and political opus by Ayn Rand.

Just looking at the table of contents in “501 Great Writers,” I already am overwhelmed and my ego is feeling bruised. First off, I know I don’t have time in my life now, and who knows if ever, to get through each of these writers; even if they each wrote a short story for me to pick up. My free time for reading is seldom these days. But the table of contents….from A to Z….I shocked myself….I have read a round 100 of the writers listed in this book. One fifth! But the ego is still bruised – not that I even want to read the remaining 401 writers necessarily….what hurts is that from all my years interested in writing and reading and studying, there are so many writers that I haven’t heard of.  Then I boost myself back up off the floor by realizing there are so many writers I do know that I think belong in this book. 

I mean, these lists are subjective. The Oscars are subjective. And political. But that’s beside the point.  Lists like this, there are obvious picks, and controversial picks (which help with the marketing of this book – give the readers something to discuss and they will be more likely to read it). There are historical picks and contemporary picks. These lists are [hopefully] made for people like us to think. 

What I wanted to do with this book, besides fuel my education, see what “score” I had in the current literary world, and make a new list of books I want to and need to read….what I want to do is put together my own list for my friends and followers based on suggestions from this book plus suggestions from my little literary world and mind.  (Unfortunately, I have decades to catch up on modern-age authors that are not included in this book.)

Here are my top 25 suggestions of excellent writers, and a good selection from each writer that you should read (in no particular order):

1. William Shakespeare (read and see King Lear)
2. Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
3. Jack Kerouac (On the Road – read it before the movie comes out)
4. Margaret Atwood  (Wilderness Tips – Short Stories; read “Hairball”)
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tender is the Night)
6. William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying)
7. Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
8. Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
9. Franz Kafka (Metamorphosis)
10. Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
11. John Milton (Paradise Lost)
12. Ray Bradbury (Fahrenheit 451)
13. William Burroughs (Naked Lunch)
14. Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
15. D.H. Lawrence (Sons and Lovers)
16. Philip K. Dick (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)
17. J.D. Salinger (Franny and Zooey)
18. Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
19. Niccolo Machiavelli (The Art of War)
20. Edgar Allen Poe  (The Fall of the House of Usher)
21. Henry David Thoreau (Walden)
22. John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
23. Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
24. David Mamet (American Buffalo)
25. Joseph Heller (Catch-22)

 Not on the list but worth my mention:

1. Christopher Isherwood
2. Balthazar Gracian
3. Joan Didion
4. Augusten Burroughs
5. Ayn Rand

What would make your list? I would love to get recommendations from people (other than “People” magazine).

writes and wrongs and in-betweens



hi dad
(paso robles, ca)

My father wrote a couple of books in the 1980s, published by the American Institute of Family Relations. One of the titles was "Kids Can Cope Creatively," and the other "Rights, Wrongs, and In-Betweens." Both books were non-fiction pieces designed to help children and families through the difficult journey of life, growth and human relations. I unfortunately do not have copies of these books. My father passed away last January and I don't believe he kept copies of these books. Ironically, however, I have kept the gift that my dad did give me, and that is the gift of writing. Every time I sit down with my laptop, or with my journal and favorite pen, I smile and am grateful for my creative abilities. Thus the title of my blog, "Writes and Wrongs and In-Betweens;" not only is it a shout-out to my dad, but it also applies to my self, my soul, my gifts and my shortcomings.

Writing....is it actually a gift?  Or a curse? That saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words..." A poignant statement. But have you ever actually sat down to write those thousand words? Have you ever tried to paint a picture using words, expressing an image for one to see, using only words?  It is a challenge. But when you have completed a section of your story, your poem, your novella, even an essay....whatever it may be, if you can paint that picture you have just created a moment in time for someone. You've helped someone's dream come true, their imagination to develop and broaden.....you've achieved what all writer's aim to do: to inspire.

Here is a brilliant, on the first page of "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath:
"New York was bad enough. By nine in the morning the fake, country-wet freshness that somehow seeped in overnight evaporated like the tail end of a sweet dream. Mirage-gray at the bottom of their granite canyons, the hot streets wavered in the sun, the car tops sizzled and glittered, and the dry, cindery dust blew into my eyes and down my throat."

Did you picture New York in the summer? Can you feel what she was feeling? I am choking on exhaust and rubbing sweat off my brow! An amazing passage. And more lucky that it is the third paragraph on the first page of her book. What every writer who wants to get published knows: you have to hook the reader on the first page. Sylvia Plath was one such writer. And so then...

Sometimes having the gift of writing can be a curse?.... For me only because I feel I have to write all the time. For Sylvia? She was not able to express herself outside of her words?  For me, I never have enough time to write. If you read my intro blog, you would have seen that being a writer is only one-one-hundredth of who I am. But writing is my soul. Writing is how I am. I am the moon and writing is my earth. And when I am able to take a moment and express myself through words, I feel complete, that I have done my job and the day has had night and the ocean, tides, and another night will soon come.

I then return to the conclusion that writing is most certainly a gift.  It can be painful, it can be waivering, it can be fleeting...it can keep me warm at night and safe from the cold. The words I write will hopefully some day be those things to other people.  If even just one.

Hello!



This is me in one of my many "hats!"

 This is my first blog. It is about 15 years overdue. I am a writer by night and a marketing consultant by day. And those are just my "jobs." I also have three children, a husband, and a 116lb bundle of canine love (a Great Dane named Charlie). I have a home to keep, two yards to garden, a soccer team to coach, a Writer's Group to attend, and chores and errands and sleep (the latter happens sometime after the moon is already descending behind the Reno foothills).

But this is my life. And this Blog is going to be about my life, which could one day discuss my profession, or my passion, or an event or an anecdote or maybe even a chapter from my latest manuscript. I chose the title "Writes and Wrongs" because every day I am writing and learning and writing about what I am learning. As a mother I am constantly updating my methods in parenting and discipline and patience. As a wife I learn more about myself and about love, loyalty and commitment, plus patience returns with understanding and forgiveness.  Not that every time I have a learning experience it's because I feel something went "wrong." But when things do go wrong I am very introspective and try to better myself or at least be prepared lest it happen again.

One of my clients recently shared with me that she wears so many hats throughout the day, sometimes she doesn't realizing there is a tower of hats swaying above her head, weighing her down. Boy can I relate! With all the hats I wear, it is important that I try to keep just one hat on at the time. So I can focus on the task at hand. I can't tell you how many times I have had a stack of crazy Kentucky Derby type hats on top of my head, so heavy they end up falling down and for me to pick them back up and put them in their place takes a whole day in itself!

Even now, as I wear the hat of "Blogger" or "Writer," two of my children appear one at a time asking me questions, putting drawings in front of my laptop screen, then walking away but still hollering "MOMMMM!" from another room. So when I lift my fingers from the keys then I have to quickly switch hats, from "Writer" hat to "Mom" hat. Run DMC said it best: "It's TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY TRICKY... HUH?!?!"