The Crab Chronicles

A Hundred Years Ago

I March of 2007 I went to Kazakhstan to adopt my son Michael, and when I learned the adoption hearing in court would take place on April 3rd, I saw it as a good omen. April 3, 1923 is the day my maternal grandparents, Bob Hasty and Wilma Butler, were married. Exactly one hundred years ago today!

In April 1923 Papa was touring with the Philadelphia A's but Connie Mack gave him a few days off for the honeymoon, and even paid for it!
The wedding was planned quickly, as Papa was in town for an exhibition game with the Crackers, and Memaw didn't have time to shop for a traditional dress. They just got married in the Butler family living room. Below is a description of her dress, from a newspaper story.

“She was exquisitely gowned in reindeer brown flat crepe, gorgeously embroidered in gold and bronze, in fashionable Oriental designs. She wore a beautiful imported hat of French blue, with ribbon trimming of bronze, and a combination of harmoniously blended colors, and carried a shower bouquet of orchids and cream roses.”

This is what the paper said about Papa:

“Mr. Hasty is the son of Mr. and Mrs. W.B. Hasty of Smyrna, and is well-known over the state, having been prominent in athletics. Choosing baseball as his profession, Mr. Hasty has risen to the top and has for the past three years been a winning pitcher on the Philadelphia American league baseball team. He is a Shriner and his friends and admirers are legion.”

Their early marriage was tumultuous, with Papa accused of a crime he didn't commit in November of 1923. That was the inspiration for my book Return to Marietta, available on Amazon.

Above, my grandparents in 1971, about a year before Papa died. They were married almost 50 years.

#bobhastybaseball, #bobhastyphiladelphiaathletics, #wilmabutlerhasty, #bobhastymarriage

Celebrity Encounters

I am always fascinated by how celebrities act when they are out in public, and whether or not they are nice to their fans. To me, if you're lucky enough to have fame and fortune you should always be gracious to the people who pay their hard earned money to see you in concert or in a movie or TV show. In general, country music stars have always been traditionally gracious to their fans.

When I was a kid my father got free tickets to country music concerts in Knoxville because he worked at a local bank and the bank bought blocks of tickets. I was taken to a slew of those shows and at the end of their sets many of the artists signed autographs for fans, including Loretta Lynn. She signed an autograph for me and my brother and was really sweet, and chatted with the fans. I've always had the greatest respect for her as a result, and I was sad when she died last year. She was incredibly talented and yet very down to earth.

When I was a senior in high school I was in the all state chorus and we had a concert in Nashville. My parents took me over and we stayed a night or two at the Hyatt, which of course had those wonderful glass elevators and the open lobby. We were staying on a floor about 6 or 8 stories up, and my mom and I got on the elevator to ride down, went down one floor, and an older lady and man got in. The lady was tall and elegant in an expensive looking track suit, and she had a lovely smile. When we got to the bottom and got out my mother said that lady was Minnie Pearl! I was flabbergasted. Of course, she wasn't dressed in her usual costume. I was reminded of that when I read Sean Dietrich's column this morning, about seeing her at the Grand Old Opry.

Years ago when I was in my 20's and lived in Knoxville, Tennessee, where I grew up, I ran into actor David Keith. He is best known for his supporting role in An Officer and a Gentleman. He's not that well known outside Knoxville because he's a character actor but in Knoxville, he's a big deal. My parents had taken me to a play at UT's Clarence Brown Theater called Celebration, when David Keith was a student at UT, and I remembered that when I saw him in Blockbuster, sometime in the late 1980's. He was buying a copy of every James Bond movie in the store. I immediately recognized him, and went up and introduced myself and just said something like "I really like your work." I also pointed out that we had mutual friends because I knew a lot of people who were in the theater program at UT. We chatted for a solid 5 minutes and he was really gracious. I didn't ask for an autograph or a photo.

I saw boxing champ Evander Holyfield here in Atlanta in 1999, when I was eating lunch with friends at a restaurant in Buckhead. I came out of the bathroom at the same time he did and I walked right behind him as he went back to his large table where there were many people. He was shorter than I had imagined but even wearing normal clothes you could tell he was just incredibly muscular and fit, and he moved like some kind of lion or something, just very much an energy and a presence. I have always been a boxing fan. I was blown away, but I didn't try to talk to him or get an autograph.

A few years later, I was taking a Russian class at a local language school, preparing for the adoption of my daughter from Russia. The class was at kind of a nondescript language school in an ordinary shopping center in Dunwoody, nothing special. I went in there for class one afternoon and there was a really gorgeous young black woman waiting in the lobby with a toddler. The teacher of my class told me the young woman was the wife or girlfriend of Evander Holyfield and the child was his son. They had signed up a 3 year old to take Russian, Japanese, and another language. Of course, he was a TODDLER, so the time was mostly just babysitting him. My teacher said it was a waste of her time, as the child was way too young to start learning a new language. He showed no interest or aptitude for it. She had been tasked with trying to teach him some basic Russian.

When I was a senior in college the famous beat poet Allen Ginsberg came to our campus for a reading, and he visited my group, the Zeitgeist Literary Society and read our poetry and gave individual critiques to us. He was incredibly nice. He was a teeny tiny little man. I am 5'3 and I was looking him in the eye. There was a party afterwards, and he sat and played bongos all evening and wouldn't drink or smoke pot. I remember talking to him but I don't recall what he said.

Celebrities are just human beings in extraordinary jobs. Remember that next time you run into one.

#lorettalynn, #davidkeith, #evanderholyfield, #minniepearl, #allenginsberg

Michael Thompson Artist

My son Michael is an incredible artist and I wanted to share some of his art with you. He is a perfectionist and never thinks anything he does is good enough but he is wrong:

The City of the Future

When I was a kid I was rather shy and I didn't have many friends. To stay busy, I participated in as many school activities possible. I was in the spelling bee. I sang in the chorus. I wrote for the team magazine. I participated in speech contests. I took piano lessons. I did plays. I was always busy. My middle school years, 5th through 8th grade, were particularly difficult because I was bullied mercilessly for being fat. I wasn't horribly obese but I was a it chubby, and worse, I looked several years older than my peers. I had boobs before anyone else. It was a time filled with anxiety.

For the Social Studies Fair in 6th grade I made a poster and called it City of the Future. I wish I had taken a photo of that poster, but back then photos were not easily taken. Dad controlled the camera and film and as he often said, picture developing cost money. Back then, kids, you took a bunch of photos, rewound the film, popped it out and took it to the drugstore or camera store, and waited a week or two. Then, the shots might be great or they might all be blurry. Nobody could make a photo with a phone -- to suggest such a thing would have provoked snickers or derisive laughter. Photography was mysterious and it required patience. 

I digressed.

The City of the Future, as suggested by my poster, was basically a shopping mall with apartments on the top floor. In 6th grade the cool kids went to the mall all the time.

I was not a cool kid. I rarely went to the mall.

In Knoxville, Tennessee, in the late 1970's the cool kids hung out at West Town Mall. I can close my eyes right now and tell you where every store was located in that mall. My mom liked shopping at JCPenneys, where she had a charge account. There was also a department store called Millers, where the merchandise was a bit more expensive than Penneys. I knew when I found empty Millers bags around the house before Christmas that I was getting some nice stuff and my heart leapt with excitement.

Now, if you really had some money you bought stuff at Proffitts. We rarely ever bought anything there because my dad was tight-fisted when it came to money.

In my daydreams [remember those? they were how we entertained ourselves before smartphones, kids] we lived in a fabulous apartment just above the mall, which was awesome because:

1. We could leave home and walk downstairs and be in the mall, the mecca to every middle-schooler in Knoxville. There, we could get snacks at Orange Julius, and giggle at all the naughty merchandise at Spencer's, and if we needed anything from the drugstore, Walgreens was right there.
2. We could roller skate everywhere in the mall! Roller skating was a very important social ritual. If you didn't roller skate on Saturday you were a social nobody. Skatetown USA was one of my favorite places, and I could do the hokey pokey all day long and not fall, which was important. I could also skate backwards. Unfortunately, I never got to skate with a boyfriend, in semidarkness, under the great twinkling disco ball, while the sound system boomed out a classic tune like the Bee Gees How Deep Is Your Love? [I can still sing all the words to that one]
3. No more yard work!! No more pulling weeds, or getting green feet from walking in newly-mown grass, or cleaning out the garage. I hated yard work with a passion. There were no "lawn services" back then, there were dads and kids.
4. In my fabulous City of the Future the mall roof would be our playground and garden where we could all shoot hoops, play tennis, maybe even swim, in an egalitarian space where we could dash home and use the bathroom very easily. There could even be concerts there, and we could hang out with friends, unsupervised!
5. We could have dance parties on the roof and dance to great tunes like September, by Earth Wind and Fire.

In thinking about my adolescent dream of the future, I realize that I was chasing a dream of nobody judging me for the size of my house or the neighborhood, or even my clothes. I would be able to check out all the sales at the coolest store ever, Merry Go Round, and dress cool.

I only ever achieved cool in my shoes and clothing a few times, as a child. Dad took me shoe shopping once when Mom was sick, and we bought shoes at Baker's Shoes. We came home with brown suede platform shoes that made me 3 glorious inches taller. I was beside myself with 1970's joy. I wore them to school, fell and sprained my ankle. My mother said I could never wear them again. Great anguish! I put them in the closet where they remained for years. Below, a photo I made a couple of years ago when I cleaned out a closet preparing to move. When you never wear shoes they stay pretty nice.

Below right, me in 8th grade. I was starting to worry less about being a cool kid.

Ironically, I have now lived for years a very short distance from what was once a very nice mall here in Atlanta, Northlake Mall. I went there many times, over the years. I haven't been there recently, though, because now I buy pretty much everything online. The mall is being converted to office space for Emory. I don't want to live in an apartment at the mall any more. I don't worry about being cool.

I know I am getting old, though, because in my mind, I see those kids just like they were back in middle school -- and a lot of those kids are now my friends on Facebook. The cool kids have grandchildren, many of them. I like music like D-35 by Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Maybe one day I will have a grandchild to love and spoil --  and that's the epitome of cool, to me, now...

How to Get Kids to Eat Vegetables

I was the world's pickiest eater as a kid. I only really ate two green vegetables, green beans and plain lettuce. I would also eat green peas but in my mother's eyes that didn't count. Nor did green Jello. I tried to get her to bend the rules many times when we were at a cafeteria and her command "Get at least ONE green vegetable!" seemed really harsh and unfair.

I guess I was lucky, though. I had an aunt who helped her kids' plates until they were in high school. At least we had some choice in the matter.

My mother believed kids should eat vegetables, and drink a glass of milk at dinner every night, and we should eat meat. She told us there were four food groups and it was important to cover them all, every day. The four groups were meat, dairy, grains, fruits and vegetables.

Now, if Dad was out of town or there was some special occasion going on, she would bend the rules. If fish were being fried, she was okay with us eating fried fish and hushpuppies. Pizza didn't have to have veggies on it.

My brother would cheerfully eat almost anything. He was the opposite of me.

All this is to say that I am sort of puzzled by moms today who have conniption fits about their kids eating vegetables. It's not really a hard problem to solve. I was lucky because my kids came from countries where the attitude towards fresh fruits and vegetables was: wow, what treats! They didn't have the grocery stores filled with fruits and veggies in the dead of winter.

Adults give signals to their kids all the time and if the unspoken signal is Hey I know they are horrible but you have to eat your vegetables because they are good for you, so do that chore already...

Nope nope nope. Here are 3 ways to get your kids to eat veggies.

1. Parents, act like vegetables are WONDERFUL! They are AWESOME! What a treat!

That's the first step to getting your kids to eat veggies. Treat fresh vegetables as though they are highly prized. Forget about saying things like "eat your veggies or you won't get dessert!" Say IF you are good I will bestow upon you the magic that is fresh broccoli!

2. Quit giving them a bunch of choices. At any meal, tell them they need to eat up or go to bed empty. If they don't want to eat anything say fine. See you at breakfast. Then enforce it. let them go to bed hungry. It won't kill them.

3. Make the food they get delicious. Don't just give them veggies with no seasonings! My mother tried to get me to eat boiled brussells sprouts or boiled broccoli, without any seasonings. YUCK. I wouldn't eat them then and I still won't.

Buy fresh minced garlic in a jar, and garlic salt or powder. Buy onion powder if your kids refuse to eat anything with cooked onions. Find veggie recipes that involve seasonings, butter, and cheese. Remember: almost any veggie will be scrumptious if you add bacon and cheese.

Below are some ideas.

Make dipping sauces of ranch dressing and fresh parmesan and let kids dip veggies.

Spinach -- de-stem the fresh spinach leaves and toss them with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, dried cranberries, walnuts, and blue cheese crumbles.

Cauliflower -- boil until soft then mash it up and add a cup of mayo, a spoonful of mustard, and some cheese. 

Brussells Sprouts -- halve them and saute them in olive oil after dousing them liberally with balsamic vinegar, garlic (powder or fresh) and salt and pepper.

Green beans -- cook them in a skillet and add either balsamic vinegar and garlic OR barbeque sauce OR melted cheese

Cabbage -- buy what's called coleslaw cabbage and saute it in oil, then add soy sauce, onion powder, garlic powder

Pumpkin -- when fixing spaghetti or anything with tomato sauce, add a can of pumpkin puree. It will taste like tomato.

Squash -- saute in butter and throw in fresh garlic and/or chopped up bacon.

Broccoli -- see recipe below. I used to hate broccoli. I will eat this all day long.

 

Golden Broccoli Casserole

[Brenda Gantt recipe]

4 cups broccoli                                                                  1 cup mayonnaise

½ an onion, chopped                                                          1 cup grated cheese

½ - ¾ stick butter                                                             Ritz cracker crumbs [optional]

1 cup cream of mushroom soup                                           2 eggs

Steam or boil your broccoli to desired tenderness. Saute the onion in the butter until soft. When broccoli is done, drain it in a colander, then place it in a 9x13 pan or casserole dish. Add the mayo, soup, and cheese to the onion/butter mixture and stir well. I like to add minced garlic, seasoning salt, pepper, etc. Beat up eggs and stir them in carefully so they don’t cook. Mixture should just be warm. Spoon the mixture over the broccoli and cover as well as possible. Top with crushed Ritz crackers, or if you’re watching carbs you can do more grated cheese.

Bake at 350 until top is bubbly, about 30 minutes.

#freshvegetablesforkids, #veggieskidswilleat, #strategiestogetthekidstoeatvegetables, #veggierecipesforkids,

Working Women

The older I get the more I realize that there is a serious issue with what young people today know and what they should know. In these days of Google, so often nothing is learned and retained. Many folks under 30 don't know the capitol cities of their states, the name of the Vice President, what countries fought in the American Revolution, or basic science like the fact nobody can visit the sun. Watch this video and you will be horrified.

Most Generation Z's have no idea how hard women have worked, historically.They cannot envision a world without microwave ovens and dinners delivered to you at home, and going without meat because it wasn't affordable. If you say the word "feminism" to them they don't even understand what that is, because they don't live in a world where women have very limited choices. They can choose what career they want. They can get a bank account or credit card in their name without a husband or father's approval. They don't automatically make less money than their male coworkers.

 

My mother chose to stay home because she grew up with a working mom and she was often scared or lonely at home by herself. She wanted her kids to have a mother who was around most of the time.

Her staying at home was a financial sacrifice and a personal sacrifice. She was very smart, yet working women often put her down for staying at home. The implication was that she was privileged or lazy but that was far from the truth.

Like generations before her, Mom worked non-stop. She fixed 2 or 3 complete meals every day, for 4 people. She didn't give us TV dinners or takeout food. My father expected meals fixed from scratch, every day.

I asked my mother once about my great grandmother, Granny Butler, who grew up in a prosperous home with servants and who married a wealthy man. I pictured Granny as a lady of leisure. My mother gave me a withering look. "Granny always said even with servants there was a lot of work to run her household and raise twelve children."

She went on to point out some facts I had never realized. For instance, most clothes when I was a kid were cotton and had to be ironed. We didn't have a dryer until I was in elementary school so wet clothes had to be hung on a clothes line, dried, and then brought in and ironed.

We were lucky, she said. We didn't have to churn butter, or kill chickens, or can vegetables for the winter. We had running water and indoor toilets.

Buying food and preparing meals was complicated and tiresome when I was a kid. Mom had a strict food budget and it didn't include eating out. She had to buy meat, vegetables, fruit, foods for school lunches, etc. My brother didn't like to eat breakfast so she was constantly trying to find foods he would willingly eat. I was super picky and refused to eat most veggies except lettuce and green beans. Dad had high cholesterol so she had to use vegetable oil and margarine and trim the fat off of meats. She had a number of food allergies so that was another factor.

Schedules were fun. My brother was on sports teams. I was taking piano lessons and going to church activities. She belonged to organizations like AAUW and taught Sunday School for years. Before my brother learned to drive she had to be really organized to get everyone everywhere. Dad usually didn't get home until 6 and couldn't help.

Maybe once a week we would get to go to a cafeteria like S&S and eat, or we would have Krispy Kreme donuts for breakfast. All other meals were on Mom.

I made my bed every day and helped her around the house but my brother created more work. His room was always a disaster and he hated being made to take his turn doing dishes, or vacuuming.

My father grew up during the Depression and he ruled the checking account. Mom had to beg him for money to buy school clothes for me and my brother, or a new dress for herself. He saw no reason for us to have extensive wardrobes. I wore dresses homemade by my grandmother for years, or hand-me-downs from my cousins.

Dad never wanted Mom to call a plumber or handyman to do anything at our house. So she saved back a little money from her household budget to quietly pay the plumber to fix Dad's screwups. As soon as he was big enough to work a screwdriver my brother was drafted to help around the house.

I remember Mom and Dad buying furniture at yard sales that we would then refinish or paint. The desk I have my computer on was once a garage sale find and I remember refinishing it, as a little kid.

When we bought our little cabin at Douglas Lake I was 8 years old. I helped Dad with the cleaning, the painting, and putting down linoleum in the main room. There was no air conditioning in the cabin.

My parents bought me a new notebook and some pencils every September before school started. My father would have pitched a fit if he had been given a lengthy list and forced to come up with $100-$300 worth of school supplies. (I was in sticker shock the first time I had to do that, for my daughter.)

Dad liked to entertain and throughout their marriage he would announce to Mom "We're throwing a party!" -- usually giving her a few days' notice, or maybe a week if she was lucky. He often invited 10-50 people, and he didn't want to hire a caterer, so she had to prepare all the foods, on a limited budget. Sometimes he would just bring work colleagues home and she would have 30 minutes to ensure each guest had adequate and delicious food.

My mother worked VERY hard.

Mom also couldn't have a credit card in her name until the mid 1970's. Sometimes salesmen would only deal with Dad. Dad himself never told her how much money they had and he never let her write a check without his okay.

Even if she had wanted to work, babysitters would have taken most of her check because there was no other option. One time my mother did substitute teaching but the money was so bad she didn't do it for long.

Young women today have no idea how hard life was for a woman before they came along.

To Know the Place

It has taken many years, but I am finally learning how to really see and feel the glories of this beautiful place, earth. The journey was worth it.

When I was 8 years old and my family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, we started spending most Sunday afternoons in the car. Mom liked to “go to ride” on Sundays, after church and after Sunday’s big lunch, we would typically go to ride and stay gone all afternoon, exploring beautiful East Tennessee. The mountains were everywhere, even at home. Knoxville is in the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains and you could stand at the back windows on the second floor of our house and see the foothills in the distance.

I hated going on Sunday drives. I was always bored. My parents couldn’t figure out why I didn’t appreciate the beauty of the mountains.

[left, me in 5th grade]

Soon after we got settled in, Mom and Dad realized there was a terrific little town an easy drive from home. We often drove to Gatlinburg, which in the early 70’s was not the congested tourist mecca it is now. I loved to go to the candy kitchen and watch the mesmerizing machine that makes taffy, or go to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum, or the tacky gift shop known as Rebel’s Corner. Even before we got to Gatlinburg there were fun places to explore. On the way to Gatlinburg we went through Pigeon Forge, which had a restaurant in an old train car, a mill that still milled cornmeal, and a little family-owned restaurant where you could get a wonderful meat n’three -- of course that was years before Dollywood. I found places where I could put my face close to what I was seeing far more fascinating then the hulking shapes of the mountains.

In fourth grade, I failed the eye exam given to all the kids. The ophthalmologist discovered I was quite nearsighted, and I got glasses. Suddenly, the mountains were not just a blur. Mom told me later she felt terrible because she and Dad hadn’t realized that my vision was impaired and that’s why I found the Sunday drives so boring. Of course, I was a kid -- and sitting in the car staring out the window was boring even with my glasses, I reassured her.

I could never understand, until the last ten years or so, why anyone would want to just sit and stare at mountains or anything else in nature. I found sitting and staring at anything [other than a book or movie] incredibly boring.

My dad used to come home from work [he was a bank VP] and fix himself a drink, and go out into the backyard and just stare, and sip. He was usually out there at least half an hour before he would be ready to come in for dinner. I had no idea why he did that. Of course, as an adult I understood the importance of unwinding after a busy day. Mom usually joined him, and I know she liked being outside in the quiet, too. Her life as a SAHM was stressful but just different from Dad’s life, of course.

I realize now that those middle years of life, roughly from ages 20-50, are the busiest times for most of us.

Now, having sold my house in 2021 and living in an apartment since then, I realize that the lovely backyard of my house, with it’s trees and flowers, was a haven. Why didn’t I stay out there more, staring at the yard, the creek, the hydrangeas, the great magnolia tree, the squirrels and cardinals that lived there? Why didn’t I enjoy that peaceful place more?

[right, the blooming apple tree in my yard]

There are several lessons here. Really seeing nature is a great gift. I have friends and cousin/friends who literally crave getting outside and away from their busy lives. They feel a pull, a longing, to see mountains up close, to see flowing water and huge trees up close, to feel the sunshine on their faces while they hear only bird songs and insects drone. I wish that I could easily slip away to bask in the places where I feel most peaceful.

The folks of my mom’s generation are almost all gone now. I don’t have the luxury of staring down the road and seeing scads of time left to calm down and appreciate this amazing world God designed for us.

As the years have passed, I’ve slowed down a good bit. I am far less of an energetic dervish like my dad and far more able to sit and just be still in nature, without constantly checking my watch or worrying about getting insect bites. Now, I am not so impatient. I pay attention to blooming things, to birds, to the subtleties of nature and the peace that’s found by water.

One day my ashes will go back into the soil and water of this place, of North Georgia, where I will join the crowds of my ancestors that worked hard all their lives before finally being able to rest. The thought doesn’t frighten me in the least. I welcome it, in fact.

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.” T.S. Eliot

Twelve Writing Tips for Novelists

Whenever I write about writing or about my books my Facebook feed shows lots of pop-up ads for writers needing writing and marketing advice. I always roll my eyes when I see those. There are tons of scam artists out there trying to make a fast buck off of people like me who like to write but who don't have a literary agent.

Just yesterday I saw an ad for a "contest" and in order to enter it you had to pay $75! Um, no, that is a load of bollocks.

You can read all the advice in the world about writing and it won't do that much good if one thing isn't true: your commitment to writing. I've read how-to books about writing novels and really felt like there was a lot of great advice in them but it took me YEARS to work up the guts to even try to write an actual novel. You have to really want to be good at writing, or you won't be. Nobody "accidentally" writes a novel.

So for what it's worth, here are some writing tips from me.

1. Assess your commitment. Do you really want to be a great writer? If not, walk away. Writing is really hard and lonely and often doesn't pay off so if you aren't committed, just find something else creative to do.
2. Read. Read novels all the time. Put down your phone and read novels, or read novels on a Kindle app on your phone. I recently started reading a novel on my phone and wow, I thought I would hate it but I don't. I always have my phone on me and now I don't have to find my paper book and stick it in my purse before I run errands or go to the doctor. Reading instructs you in how to write better than any class.
3. Forget about being "literary." That stymied me for years. I have an MA in Creative Writing and I figured anyone who knew that would expect me to write in a very mannered, "literary" style that's not me at all. I had to get past that.
4. Outlines are optional. I was convinced for years that until I could produce a detailed, brilliant outline that my novels would simply be a mess. Not true. You can start off with just a vague notion and see where each day's output takes you. There are many famous writers like Pat Conroy who never made an outline before starting a book. I just never like to be constrained by an outline. I like to see where my imagination takes me as I write. Sometimes minor characters become major ones, or something interesting pops into my head as I write. I have to be able to go off plan, often. 
5. Your life is fodder for your writing. Everything that happens to you will always be great to use because you are intimately familiar with it. However, you can definitely reach beyond your own life. I was the kid who was always eavesdropping on grownup conversations and I didn't realize then that family stories and gossip are excellent sources for books. After hearing so many family stories about my grandparents' early marriage I was inspired to write Return to Marietta. My main characters, Lillian and Will, are closely based on my grandparents, but since it's a novel I was free to improvise the rest of the book.
6. Be curious. Be a busybody. Ask people questions like "Tell me about how you met your boyfriend?" or "How did you feel when you left that party?"
   or "Did you like school as a child?" etc. I am blessed to have friends who have led much more interesting lives than I have -- so I have lots of material. Of course, if you use what they say you will need to change the names and/or some details so all your friends and relatives don't stay mad at you all the time...
7. Don't write stereotypes. My mother used to tell me "All bad people have some good in them and all good people have some bad in them." Even Hitler liked dogs. One-dimensional characters are boring. In the movie 3:10 to Yuma Russell Crowe has a great line when he says "Even bad men love their mamas."
8. Write a lot of garbage. I hesitated to write for years because I was so fearful it wouldn't be any good. I should have started writing much sooner but I let that fear stop me. Truth is, you will likely write a LOT of crap before you can write something fairly decent. Writing is a process of trial and error. The more you try, the more you win.
9. Short stories don't matter. I had heard so many times that in order to be a good novelist you had to write short stories. Nope. I rarely write short stories. Almost never. A great short story is very different from a novel. Mastery of one doesn't guarantee mastery of the other.
10. Be sparing with description. I have stopped reading so many books because the author just went ON and ON about the color of curtains and the state of the weather and those held no interest for me. If you really love lots and lots of detailed descriptions, good for you. Write thousands of words describing the scene before any action occurs. Just don't cry to me when people fall asleep reading your book.
11. Find readers to help you out. After I finish a book I send it out to a few trusted readers so I can get constructive feedback. I cannot be objective, nor can anyone, when it comes to their own work.
12. Do not let rejection force you to stop. Not everyone will like what you write. Many literary agents will have no interest in what you write. Do NOT let their criticism or rejection cause you to stop writing. As long as you are enjoying writing, nobody has a right to tell you to stop.

 

#freewritingadvice, #howtowriteanovel, #thewriterslife, #tipsforauthors, #tipsfornovelists

Dancing in the Wreckage

I am proud to introduce my newest book to the world: Dancing in the Wreckage. Here's what it's about, in a nutshell: When wealthy attorney Carson Strickland dies in a plane crash he leaves everything to a son nobody knows about, and his law partner’s search for the heir uncovers secrets buried for years.

Dancing in the Wreckage defies easy categorization. It's a mystery, a romance, a coming-of-age story, a family saga, and a quirky character-driven story. One of the main characters is dead, and yet his story provides a lot of humor.

I had a lot of fun writing it. It's very different from my other books.

A few years ago after helping my third cousin Roy discover his connection to me through my maternal great-grandmother I started thinking about unexpected family connections. Many people do the testing offered by Ancestry, 23andMe, and other sites, and learn really startling things about their families. Sometimes they are adopted, like Roy, and know nothing about their birth families. Other times they learn their father was not their biological parent. I know 23andMe has counselors trained to help people in the “NPE” (non-parent expected) category.

This book was inspired by a real-life situation I found myself in during the summer of 2022, when I looked at my list of DNA relatives on 23andMe and decided to proactively try to help one of my second cousins figure out our connection. I had been on 23andMe for years and always noticed various people whose names were not familiar, and I just knew there were fascinating stories back there. I called one of my other cousins and together we figured out how this lady was related. Turns out she was his half sister!She was welcomed into our family with great enthusiasm.

I was fascinated by the notion of growing up thinking your father was one person and then finding out years later that your biological father was someone you never met. I started writing. Rarely am I so inspired by real events!

That said, Dancing in the Wreckage is purely fictional.

Not only is it the story of an attorney named Carson Strickland, it's the story of Zak and Amy -- two individuals who are connected to Carson and yet unknown to each other for years -- who meet and recount their life stories, trying to understand their connections to him. Amy grew up fearful and puzzled by men, as there were only females in her home. When she gets old enough to date, disaster ensues. Eventually she realizes she can only find peace alone. Zak’s story is very different. He grew up in a conventional family. At age 18, Zak learned a family secret that rocked him, and he embarked on a life of aimless addiction and partying for a while. Eventually he fell in love and decided to join the family barbeque business. When Zak and Amy finally finish sharing their complicated life stories, they realize they love each other -- and more importantly, that the truth about Carson can actually generate healing and closure, instead of pain.

I realized as I was writing that the book depicts so many sides of the adoption triangle, most obviously in the way Zak’s life and Amy’s lives differ. I have two adopted children, now grown, and so adoption issues are particularly fascinating to me. What most people don’t really know is that when a mother places a child for adoption, although it’s a very selfless act, it’s also undoubtedly traumatic to both mother and child, a primal wound. It must be acknowledged for there to be any real healing.

I wanted to depict many different scenarios – adoption, abortion, keeping a child, placing a child, a child growing up in an orphanage. I also wanted to show different family situations -- single-parent homes, two parent homes, etc. -- and the pros and cons of each.

Having said that, Dancing in the Wreckage is NOT a message book. There is a lot of humor in it.

I am delighted to share that it's also set partly in Tucker, Georgia, my adopted hometown. I moved to this area almost 30 years ago and Tucker is the best-kept secret in the Atlanta metro area -- a friendly small town an easy drive to the bustling metropolis of Atlanta. The photo on the cover is downtown Tucker.

I seem to find myself always writing about Atlanta, Augusta, and Knoxville, but I make no apologies. They are all great cities and I have been blessed to live in each one. I also write about attorneys a lot, and paralegals, and I know those professions very well. 

I hope you will order a copy of Dancing in the Wreckage and that you'll enjoy reading it. Pass along the link to all your friends who love to read!

 

 

Bizarre Art

My uncle Lewis was a fine artist and a professor of art at Hollins University for more than thirty years. I grew up surrounded by his paintings. It never occurred to me we were in any way unusual because we had original oil paintings in our house. Among the paintings were two portraits of my father's parents in our dining room for many years. (I thought everyone had real living breathing grandparents and other grandparents just in paintings.)

I have always been fascinated by art and by artists.

I don't much care for most contemporary art, but I don't hate it or have a closed mind to it, either.

I was astonished recently to see the photo below of a new sculpture in Chicago that is supposed to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his wife. To me it looks... well, bizarre is the kindest word I can use.

According to an NBC news story:

"The bronze structure, which is 20 feet long and 26 feet wide and titled “The Embrace,” depicts the arms, shoulders and hands of the Kings hugging after Martin received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, the moment immortalized in a famous photo."

Does this look like two people embracing?

To me, it looks like severed arms are holding a giant bean or a giant poop.

The photo that inspired the sculpture can be seen on this page. It's lovely. I also admire the aim of the sculpture, as stated on the website:

"The Embrace is intended to inspire visitors to reflect on the values of racial and economic justice that both Kings espoused."

What is sad and disturbing to me is that this sculpture detracts from the message, because it's so bizarre.

For many years, this quote has been on my email signature: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only love can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

I love that quote because it's so true, and it's profound. Dr. King faced terrible danger many times in his life. He went to jail for his beliefs. He was assassinated because he had the courage to fight for a more just world. He deserves to be honored with a beautiful, dignified memorial.

The artist who did the sculpture, Hank Willis Thomas, likes sculptures of severed arms and hands, as you can see here and here.

My son only has one hand, so you may be thinking I am particularly sensitive to depictions of hands and arms. Nope. I am just utterly puzzled that this sculpture was approved by many people before it was installed.

The artist wants viewers and visitors to the site to feel "...the same spirit of love and unity that the Kings embodied" [source] and that's certainly noble, but I don't think that's what viewers feel.

Some wags on Twitter said: "it is horrifically bad" / "Did they run out of bronze?" / "The picture [of the Kings embracing] is boring since it doesn't have the two-armed monstrosity holding an "eggplant" while walking on its elbows." / "This evokes confusion." / "What I got from the statue was that it should be illegal to electrocute a contortionist." / "Viewed without faces, the sculpture looks degrading & laughably sexual. It’s terrible." / Context doesn't help, as this guy argued. Still looks like a giant turd."

As much as I admired Dr. King, I find this statue bizarre and awful. It is controversial, which might have been the whole point...