Family Histories by Karla Stover

                           


I belong to the D.A.R. on both sides of my family and love family histories. Of course, mine is special. 😊 On my dad's side, one of the great grandfathers harbored Jessie James and not long after, moved to southeast Oregon. The family homesteaded Warner Valley, owned all the water rights, and spent 20 years and all their money in court fighting off owners of the MC Cattle Ranch who wanted to take over the valley. My maternal great grandmother arrived from Cornwall on the 4th of July, heard the fireworks, and thought the Indians were attacking. Whenever her daughters came to Puget Sound to visit their sister, my grandmother who had relocated, they wrote first asking if the Indians were still peaceful. Anyway, the great grandparents settled in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and had quite a few children, mostly girls. Both sides of the family survived the 1889 Johnstown flood and my grandparents talked about it often. Maternal great grandmother led her children out an attic window and rode out the flood on the roof of the house. They were lucky in that a big barn floating by got lodged somehow so the house was saved. After the flood, paternal great-grandfather was walking by the river looking for survivors when he found a little girl named Bessie Sypes. He took her back to her father who had been telling folks, "we were all saved except little Bessie." Bessie never spoke again. Lucky me, my parents wrote all the family histories down.

Now, all this is by way of a conundrum I have. I live about five miles from a lake and a little community, both called Spanaway. And living on the lake is a 90-year-old woman who has been there all her life and wants someone to write her history. I could go over with a tape recorder, listen to what she has to say, and then type it up. But I don't want to and I feel guilty. It's such a shame that parents don't take the time to do this or that their children aren't interested until it's too late. If nothing else, talking to family has told me which funky genes (heart and low iron on Dad's side and lung and Alzheimer on Mom's side) came from whom. Unless they were the result of spontaneous mutations, like Queen Victoria's hemophilia.

Stephen King: My Favorite Teacher by Joan Hall Hovey

 

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     The year was 1984, a lovely summer’s day and I was sitting in the packed, buzzed audience waiting for Stephen King to appear.  To say I was excited is an understatement. Uncool? Totally. I’d bought my hardcover copy of his book Different Seasons for him to sign.  I wouldn’t be denied. I had all his books in hardcover – Carrie, Cycle of the Werewolf, Danse Macabre, Salem’s Lot -  there would be  many more to come. He was my hero in a time when I was already much too old to be star-struck.  I’ve read that it is mainly teenagers who are addicted to Stephen King’s work, and I was hardly that.  Though probably immature.  I’m at a much more more advanced age now and that hasn’t changed, and I hope it never does.  Stephen King was  the Elvis Presley of the literary world.

     I hadn’t had a novel published yet; that was still a dream, floating somewhere above the horizon. But I’d written and published some articles and short stories, enough to make me eligible for a travel grant through the NB Arts Council to London, England to the writers workshop at Polytechnic Institution  on Marylebone Road, aptly across the street from Madam Tussauds wax museum.  Stephen King would be a panelist, along with authors P.D. James, Robert Parker and some others.  I was eager to hear all the celebrated authors, but I’d flown all this way from New Brunswick, Canada to see and hear Mr. King.  

     He came into the large room through the back door and I swear I knew the instant he did.  You couldn’t miss the rising buzz of the audience, of course, the shifting of bodies as people turned to look, but I also felt the change of energy in the air. On stage, Stephen King joked about his ‘big writing engine’ and I had heard (within my third eye – yes, it can hear) its power, its purr.   Or maybe there’s more to it.

     As he talked to us about writing, he spoke about seeing with that third eye.  The eye of the imagination.  He told us to imagine a chair.  Then he said it was a blue chair.  I saw it clearer now.  He added the detail of a paint blister on the leg of the chair.  Now I saw it close up, with my zoom lens.  We hung on his every word.  He was funny and brilliant and entertaining, and we learned. Everything he said was not necessarily something brand new, but were reminders to pay close attention to details.  To always tell the truth in our writing.  I even got to ask a couple of questions.   And his answers to all our questions were thoughtful and insightful.   I try to pass along a few of those lessons to my own students.

     Stephen King has been teaching creative writing to aspiring and even established writers for decades, long before his wonderful book On Writing came out.  Such a gift to writers that is, regardless of the genre you write in.   I am gushing.  I don’t mind. It’s true.

     I have been fortunate to have had many highlights in my life –  an anniversary trip to Niagara Falls with my wonderful husband, the births of my children and grandchildren, great-grandchildren – a trip to the Bahamas with my eldest son – my own first novel published and several more after that - and I have to say that that workshop in London, England, where Stephen King spoke to us about writing, is right up there.  Thank you, Mr. King. 

     I want to leave you with a quote from an interview with contributing writing for the Atlantic, Jessica Lahey, published in The Atlantic,  Sept  2014.  She asked him if teaching was craft or art.
“It’s both,” he said.  “The best teachers are artists.

     Stephen King is an artist on every level.   He tells the truth.  In his fiction.  And in his teachings.

How do you get in the mood? By Rita Karnopp

How do you get in the mood?  By Rita Karnopp

Has it occurred to you that when you ‘feel’ like writing you do some of your best work?  I’m all about ‘setting the mood.’

 

How do you set the mood for writing – you might ask?

 

Surprisingly, it’s one of the easies and most rewarding thing you can do for your writing career. 

 

I believe we are in one of two states-of-mind.  #1 is our usual state-of-mind - the employee, the mother, the baseball coach, the wife, the craft master, or the confidant.  And #2 is the creative state-of-mind.

 

How do you flip the switch – you might ask?

First-of-all be aware of your state-of-mind.  If you can’t seem to concentrate because you can’t turn-off your usual state-of-mind – it will be a struggle for sure.  You must decide there is a time for your regular life and you deserve a time for your creative life.

 

Let everyone around you know when you are writing – that is your time.  Unless the house is on fire – do not disturb!  You must not only convince your family and friends of this – but you must also convince yourself you deserve this time to yourself.

 

I often told my family (then the kids were young – and the husband was new to the idea of my writing), I write for me.  All the other stuff I do for them – but I deserve some time for me.  They go it … and finally so did I.

 

Now that you’re in the right state-of-mind – what next?  Turn off all responsibilities – demands – obligations - and relax … it’s time to write.  My rule of thumb, after years of developing ways to ‘get me in the mood’ – to write – is to set the atmosphere first-of-all.

 

When I write – say 1800s historical – I read 1800s novels and historical documentary books.  I watch 1800s movies and documentaries.  I self-absorb myself in the 1800s – and sometimes it’s almost hard to snap back into the current year.

 

When I was writing White Berry on the Red Willow – I was so self-absorbed it felt like the future – and I struggled to come up for air.  Some may say this is extreme – but it’s normal for me.

I also ‘get in the mood’ by shifting my music or by playing 1800s video as background ‘mood’ ambiance.  I’m writing a scene in a Blackfoot village and Douglas Spotted Eagle is playing his flute or the Last of the Mohicans’s soundtrack is intensifying in the background will my hero races across an open field … two Blackfeet hell-bent on his heels.

 

Creating mood is so important … it keeps you in-tune with your surroundings … and the book take life because you can smell the trees pine pitch, or you can hear the rustle of the leaves in the trees, or you can taste the buffalo stew, or feel the softness of a ermine lined boot, plus you can see ahead two buffalo skinners who deserve the wrath of the Blackfeet behind him. 

 

Once you lock into the five sense of your story … it will take off like a wild fire.  You are surrounded with your character’s dialog and the action surrounding them.  Nothing else exists …and your fingers fly across the keyboard documenting everything they see, hear, feel, taste, and say.

 

I personally call this moment a ‘writer’s surge.  If you’ve never had one – you’re in for a treat when it happens.   I might venture to add – nothing is more exciting than a writer’s surge!  Nothing!

 

Never stop to correct grammar, sentence structure – the time for editing, revising, or proofreading your scenes is later. Get a drink later and never stop for a minute or so to check you emails.  Any disruption, break, pause, or intrusion –will snap you from the scene you’re writing – you’re snapped from the scene like a blast of cold air from an opened door in the middle of a blizzard.  The ‘mood’ is over!