Tag: Writing

Finding another dimension of personal growth

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In my novel What’s Left, one of Cassia’s big discoveries is how much her father had changed in the span from high school to his return to the college town a few years after his graduation.

Among the passages I cut from the final version is this:

No, I guess Baba takes it all in stride because of all the healing and growth that had happened within him since Nita introduced him to Tibetan practice.

~*~

Not everyone, of course, looks deeply into the people and the world around them. Some seem oblivious to the cosmic harmony or greater good that could be shared.

Too many, in fact, remain blatantly superficial, considering the threats now before human existence.

But I’m preaching. I’ll apologize.

There are other options, as I discovered when I took up yoga.

Who or what have you seen helping people you know change for the better? Is there any practice or teaching you’d recommend?

~*~

Cassia’s hometown may have looked something like this. Front of the store at 109-113 South College Avenue in downtown Bloomington, Indiana. Built in 1895, it is part of the Courthouse Square Historic District listed in the National Register of Historic Places. (Photo by Nyttend via Wikimedia Commons.)

~*~

 

Matters of real value

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

In my novel What’s Left, she has every reason to wonder about what she’s going to do when she grows up. Unlike many of us, Cassia could continue in her family’s business — there’s some security there — but she looks beyond that and sees … well, this is one view I cut from the final version of the novel:

Yet, when we look around, we see everybody doing the exact opposite: most people can’t wait to get away from their office or factory or showroom or classroom. American society these days exalts its leisure and scorns people who aren’t making the big bucks. That’s backward!

~*~

One of the lessons I learned as a cub reporter was the importance of respecting secretaries and janitors. They could give you some of your best story tips, if you listened. Most of them knew far more about the operation than the managers at the top.

Who do you know who’s not highly paid but makes a huge difference for those around her? (Or him.)

~*~

 

And then there are Cassia’s two older brothers

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the early versions of my novel What’s Left, her brothers stayed off in the background. But Gyatso and Billy moved far forward in the eighth and ninth revisions, especially when I discovered they didn’t require a lot of narrative development to be present. Sometimes a single short detail now pops their activity into fullness.

One thing about Cassia’s extended close-knit family is that her cousins are practically her siblings, too. Cassia’s cousin Sandra, for instance, could well be her sister, and both Gyatso and Billy line up well with some of their boy cousins.

It’s a fine line to walk, keeping the story moving without bogging down in too much detail, but it’s a rich matrix all the same.

~*~

I once had a coworker who grew up in a family where the way they showed affection for one another was by exchanging truly negative words and phrases. As far as I could tell, physical harm wasn’t part of it. Even so, maybe they understood what it meant and felt affirmed and included, but when he did the same thing with those of us in the office, many of my colleagues felt deeply insulted, even wounded. Maybe you know of writers capable of re-creating the domestic scene, but I’m not one of them. I’m still largely baffled.

The dynamics of siblings can make for endless intrigue. I’d love to know more — much more — of how they work in our lives.

Are you from a large family? Do you have brothers or sisters? Do you ever “borrow” their clothes? (Or anything else?) Does your household make you different from your friends or classmates? How would you describe your siblings — and your feelings for them — in a few words? Go ahead, vent, if you must.

~*~

In my novel, the family restaurant could have been like this. Cornelius Pass Roadhouse, Hillsboro, Oregon, by M.O. Stevens via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

 

Envisioning your reader

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

One of the basic bits of advice given to a writer is to envision your reader. It’s one that’s always troubled me, though. Could it be because I carry multiple identities as a writer? Poet, novelist, Quaker, retired journalist, with overlapping interests?

As a poet, I can’t describe the audience that shows up for a reading — the individuals seem to represent all types. Picture my readers? They could be anywhere in the subway car I’m riding!

OK, maybe it’s a younger, or at least more hip, crowd, but not entirely.

Continue reading “Envisioning your reader” →

So William Shakespeare wasn’t the writer?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The range of the bard’s vocabulary and situations long appeared to be beyond the possibilities of the man’s background and training.

Long ago I came to a sense that he might have simply been the recorder and editor of a more free-form ensemble, an improv troupe, if you will.

Now I’ve come across arguments that the real playwright was Amelia Bassano, and it’s far more convincing.

A digital search will point you to the arguments, pro and con.

Anyone else like the idea that the most important writer in the English canon was a woman? One of Italian and Jewish descent, at that?

Are you sure you’d want your parents to see this?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In What’s Left, Cassia spends hour after hour organizing the chaotic mess of her father’s photo studio after he vanishes in an avalanche halfway around the globe.

He was something of a hippie, too, as she sees in some of his excesses from the period. Here’s something that popped up for her in a conversation with her aunt Nita. You won’t find it in the final version of the novel, though — some things just got toned down.

And? You ever see the movie he made about the courthouse?

The one with the dome turning into his girlfriend’s breast? Diz’s?

You remember he made that while he was still an undergraduate? Before all the really freaky stuff that followed?

Yes, and that reminds me. We need to have to get that reel converted to digital from Super 16. Before it starts disintegrating or fading. 

You know what a hit that was in some circles? How he was on the verge of notoriety or celebrity?

So why didn’t he continue in that vein?

How would he have paid the bills? The big bills? Where were his introductions? Producers, distributors, even actors? Or his confidence,

~*~

I’ve been trying to think if there’s anything in my past quite that outrageous, but it all seems to be included in my Freakin’ Free Spirits series. My kids would likely be disappointed, but I’m glad my parents never knew the details. I hate to think, though, of some of the things my two girls are hiding from me. My, the times have changed!

What’s something you or your friends are hiding from your parents? What’s most shocked or surprised you about them? What other directions might their lives have taken? What might you hope your own kids never ask you about?

~*~

The vibe lives on, one way or another.

~*~

 

Would the novel work with a Covid-19 twist?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

One of the joys of publishing ebooks is that they can be updated easily and quickly.

So I had a flash, maybe while I was in the shower, and wondered what would happen in What’s Left if Cassia’s father died of a coronavirus complication instead of an avalanche.

It was tempting until I started realizing that it would have to be an entirely different story. She couldn’t grow up, for one thing, not unless I wanted to project that into the future, up to 30 years from now. Right now, everything just a year from now’s looking fuzzy.

And it couldn’t work with the premise of her having to go back through photo negatives – we’ve been digital too long now. As for the hippie, Buddhist, or AIDS epidemic dimensions?

The very thought, though, has me looking at some of the daily news reports through fiction-oriented lenses. Who are the villains and who are the heroes? Where do you want to set this – the White House, an intensive-care unit, a multi-generational household? What focus would you take? Would it be romance, young adult, sci-fi, fantasy, children’s?

I don’t see myself getting to this anytime soon, but good luck to any of you who feel free to tackle a Covid-19 big tale. There are certainly plenty of angles to consider.

One way I kept my unconventional sanity

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I relied on writing poetry and fiction in my spare time as a discipline to counteract the conventions of newspaper editing, my professional career.

The job could feel quite dulling of any aesthetic awareness, and quite confining.

Still, some of the qualities between my vocation and avocation overlap, including an insistence on factual observation.

And now I’m free to focus more fully on my literary aspirations. Surprisingly, my focus has been on the fiction, rather than poetry. Could it be that without that dual tension of before, I can now steer a route between them?

How do you stay mentally sharp?

 

My wellspring in poetics

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

For me, poetry springs from quietude and meditation. I began to resonate with what I was reading and then started writing poems seriously only after I had taken up yoga and eventually moved to the ashram. My Quaker practice in the decades since has sustained the practice, even while working in chaotic newsrooms or dealing with passionate relationships.

If you’re “into” poetry, either as a poet or reader, what’s the prompting for your own interest?