You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
“Brands need an unchanging core.” (I lost the citation long ago.)
The prompt makes me wonder about mine:
How would you define me? (Help! Please!)
All along I’ve been writing to discover the universe, where I’ve encountered widely varied experiences. And it’s supposed to be reflected in a brand image? I’m really confused.
an owl balloon
hidden in the attic
resembles an angel
In my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s aunt Nita personally knew three important non-family members in Cassia’s father’s past.
Tara is one she viewed mostly from a distance, the lover who matched him best before meeting Nita’s sister.
~*~
Here’s a longer look, one I condensed in the final revision:
If anything, Tara was a lioness. It’s not just her sunburst of hair. It’s the way she moves and regards the universe. The way she even purrs, when pleased, or growls when vexed. It manifests in an insistence on social justice and rails at power-seeking machinations of any kind, public or private. No, she shares our aversion to anything underhanded or sneaky. But the whole time she and Baba are lovers, she’s far from ready to settle down. She’s searching, even probing, for the direction she wants to follow. What Baba never sees is her underlying anxiety or the ways it’s on the verge of explosion. Still, she opens his eyes and heart to so much.
~*~
There have been moments in my life when I ponder how things would have gone when someone like Tara was finally ready to settle down but I was otherwise engaged.
Personally, what do you think of Tara?
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In my novel What’s Left, a seminal figure in her father’s past is Mitch, who introduced him to her aunt Nita as well as Nita’s roommate Diz and then, let’s just say hippie highs.
It’s possible Nita and Cassia’s father never would have met on such a large campus without having manic Mitch in the story. It would be a tighter plot, but how much vibrancy would we lose? I’ve seen him pretty much as a catalyst, modeled loosely on a real-life figure from my past.
Well, he’s more of a key actor in in Daffodil Uprising, where Nita’s also important.
~*~
Just how do friendships begin? Not all of them originate through introductions by mutual acquaintances. Sometimes you just bump into someone and sense a connection.
Was there an accidental way you met someone you now consider a great friend?
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As Cassia delves into her father’s photo negatives in my novel What’s Left, she’s bound to come up with a slew of Liz, who became his first lover.
Somewhere there’s also the experimental short movie he made, the one that made the rounds of avant-garde showings. The one featuring Liz’s shimmering breast.
Cassia’s aunt Nita had been Liz’ dorm roommate when the whole thing began. She’d tell her niece plenty, should the kid ask. She’s also a central figure in Daffodil Uprising and Pit-a-Pat High Jinks.
~*~
Romantic love is only one of the options when it comes to emotional spiraling.
Could you tell about telling me of some event that knocked the floor out from under your feet?
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In the early versions of my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s father’s parents are barely mentioned. They live miles away in Iowa, for one thing, and, for another, whatever they do is light years away from his contented life in her mother’s close-knit extended family.
As a purely literary challenge, trying to fit any more characters into a five-generation tale runs the risk of adding confusion for the reader. But then, by my eighth and ninth revisions, I stumbled upon a simple tweak that allowed me to acknowledge his parents more fully — the simple names of Grandpa and Grandma Mac would do. Just how much of a picture do you get from just that much?
For the most part, they’re a sharp contrast to Cassia’s experiences of home. She and her brothers never feel comfortable in their childhood visits to their Iowa grandparents. But somewhere in my later revisions, an episode developed that changes her understanding and then allows a relationship, however tenuous, to develop. Can I admit being rather fond of the insertion? For one thing, it allows me to quickly sketch another kind of American family little known to the general public — one that faced earlier pressures not all that different from Cassia’s Greek-American lineage much later. For another, well, it’s closer to my own roots, even when I look at hers with some envy.
~*~
In the final revision of my novel What’s Left, the voice and direction of the story changed greatly. For one thing, it became much more Cassia’s own.
She realized all of her coworkers live in trailers.
I was trying to find a word in Spanish for “wisdom,” one conveying spiritual depth.
Instead, what I came across in the dictionary related to factual intelligence or knowing. All head, no heart.
Nothing even suggesting common sense or good judgment.
What I wanted went deeper, say to the kind of understanding gained through long experience and discipline. Sometimes, the kind of knowing you feel in your hands.
Better yet, what Merriam-Webster calls “the natural ability to understand things that most other people cannot understand.” To which I would add a sense of calm and patience.
If the word or phrase exists in Spanish, I’d love to know it. Perhaps even with a few other things that get lost in translation.
OK, I’ll have to admit they’re cardboard characters. I do little to develop her three great-aunts in my novel What’s Left, the ones Cassia and her brothers and cousins simply refer to as the Erinyes. Unlike the classic Greek marble statues, these have no redeeming qualities from the perspective of the story. They’re out-and-out evil forces, having fled the family rather than staying put where they’re needed. But they have enough influence to wreck everything, given a chance. And, yes, I’m still startled by Sandra’s outburst in my final revision. Let me know what you think when you get to that part.
As an author, I rather like the way they might simply dance across the stage as a trio arm-in-arm. And then back. Like a storm cloud, even.
I also like the way they serve as a foil to Cassia’s father and the others who voluntarily join the family the Erinyes had so readily fled at the earliest opportunity. Should I say abandoned?
Could it be they’re cardboard characters with a marble veneer? Do we even need to name them, individually?
I even delight in the weasel home-breaker who appears in their place further along in the plot — the one who aligns herself with their monetary claims. Oh, but that’s such an insult to weasels.
~*~
Here was one consideration I cut from an earlier draft:
What if the Erinyes had married into Baba’s side — something like it, out in Iowa or Salt Lake City?
And then moved on to Orlando or Orange County? No, they were bound for big cities. Which is where your Baba expected to thrive.
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I dunno, but I’d guess they’d wear globs of makeup and tons of jewelry and loud stretch pants and perhaps even vote for Trump.
As an author, I can’t even forgive them for the way they treated Bella when she began working in the family restaurant, much less their threatening actions in the years when Cassia fights to preserve something for her own generation.
They have me thinking of the phrase “bad eggs.” I’ve seen more than a few in my own time … in my own life, actually.
Have you ever seen someone break up a relationship, a home, or a business? Anywhere else? What was the cause? What did they do? What could others do in response? What was your experience?
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Especially when the sun barely rises above the horizon.
Somewhere in the winter ahead.
Jnana's Red Barn 