One writer was disappointed that the movie glossed over the story of Gilbert’s purchase of a home for Wayan, an ostracized divorced mother in Bali.  I agreed that the story was amazing but then I found myself irritated with Gilbert for what I thought was self-aggrandization.  We examined the idea that often what bothers us about another is a problem we have with ourselves.  I chewed on that notion after I left.

For me it seemed a self-congratulatory tale, a do-gooder seeking praise. But it wasn’t really. It was a story of one woman shepherding resources at her disposal to improve another woman’s daily life.  That Gilbert claimed the good work was what irritated me.

Why?  Because I have been taught that modesty is a woman’s way.  Other people may praise you, but you must not toot your own horn.  It felt like Gilbert had gotten away with something that she, as a woman, should not.  The irony is that I often write about the curious tendency of women to censor the behavior of other women–and here I was doing just that.

I appreciate now that Gilbert was showing women how to claim actions.  As women we must. Too many works by women, artistic, social, political, and religious, have gone unnoticed, sometimes due to modesty, sometimes due to malicious intent.   I am glad to have been brought to this understanding and am glad to toss away a fossilized belief.  Let’s allow for self-celebration.  Let’s claim what we do.

Homegrown Authors! KaBooM at the Lexington Farmer's Market: photo by Susan C. Brown

This past Saturday members of KaBooM were at Lexington’s Downtown Farmer’s Market at a booth cosponsored by the Morris Book Shop and the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning called “Homegrown Authors.” The event turned out to be one of the most successful sales days ever for our group; you might want to check out the Morris Book Shop site for details on more selected Saturdays this summer when you can meet area authors and buy signed copies of their books.

But as Jan said in her immediate previous post, these days are not only about selling the book. Continuing her theme, I’d like to reflect on what I learned from our time at the book table on Saturday: many of the folks we met at the Farmer’s Market are hungry not only for fresh, locally grown produce.

They are hungry for good writing.

We set up the sewing frame to let people know that the object we were selling was hand-sewn, and a number stopped to have conversations about book binding and the beauty of hand crafts.

Sewing Frame entices passersby to see hand sewn signatures: photo by Susan C. Brown

But an even larger number of passersby were fascinated by the content of When the Bough Breaks.  One person who read through the table of contents was completely stopped by the title of Lynn’s short story.   “Heartichoke!” she called out: “Oh, isn’t that just perfect, that’s exactly what it’s like!”  She bought three copies.

A retired English teacher stopped to tell us of his frustration that high school students are not guaranteed opportunities to do their own writing in English classes.  We showed him the structure of our book: the brief essays after each entry that reflect on the creative process and the role the group plays in our continually developing craft; followed by individual writing prompts—“Try this”—to encourage written responses.  At that, he was sold, too.

And a number of folks were simply pleased as punch that this joint venture meant they could buy literature with their produce: “that’s fantastic,” they said.

We couldn’t agree more.

This week I attended a bullriding contest and I judged a literary contest. I observed some differences between the competitions. In bullriding, it’s the rider, the clock, and the bull. The rider who stays on the longest wins.   That is the simple method of determining the winner, without consideration for style, or conflicts overcome, or originality in setting or situation. The story is always the same. The bull wins.

In a literary contest, there are many variables, the most crucial being the judge’s sense of what is the most valuable characteristic of a written piece. After years of judging, teaching, and writing, I’ve decided that structure matters very much. Is it a story, first of all? Does it satisfy the requirement that there is a conflict that has been dealt with? I read first, not in an analytical way, but for pleasure. One of the pleasures of reading a good story is the sense of satisfaction and completeness a reader feels when the story ends, as in the stories by Kim Edwards, Michael Knight, Charles Baxter, and Barbara Fisher. This understanding is felt or known, but the reader may not immediately be able to articulate why the story has created such satisfaction. Then, if one is a judge, one can return to the story and see how and why she felt that the story was successful. I start with that response to a story. Then I consider voice, vision, and acumen with language. Once, in the past, I liked the third place story best, because of its language and imagination and voice, but I did not choose it as the “best” because its structure was more flimsy than the winner’s was.

I find that a number of stories show tremendous promise but have been sent out before they are completely finished. That is the most common reason why a story does not win. It needs a few more turns on the spit, for more fat to drip out, more flavor to be tendered in.

Bullriders rarely go into the ring until they are ready. There’s too much at stake. For writers, submitting to subjective judges, it’s harder to know about  a story’s readiness. So I suggest that writers master structure as a necessary skill. If you do so, you will go far in your quest for the prize.

To write a whole novel is an astonishing act of perseverance and passion. That accomplishment deserves oversized cupcakes laden with butter cream and studded with high quality chocolate bits. My goodness! We indulged in reading gorgeous writing about Wyoming, an anti-dote to Annie Proulx’s eccentric wire-flogged people. We licked our fingers and sang praises, brightened by the sugar high. The book was very good.

The happily sated feeling reminded me of the conference of the Kentucky State Poetry Society we attended on Saturday. The upper room in the Kentucky Fudge Company in Harrodsburg was full of sunbeams, people who’d spent the whole day engaged in reading and writing poetry. Whenever two are gathered in the name of poesy, fellowship happens. Love comes down as a scorcher and blazes across the blank page. Something new is made. In communion. In sharing. In getting outside of the lonely mire of self-ness. Hallelujah for the community of passionate poets, for writers who dare to share their nascent forms of future literature, for that courage, for their discoveries, and for those who listen.

I am an introvert, a writer who gets snarly when interrupted, as my family can attest. They knock on the door and quickly pocket their fists to better to keep their fingers intact. Yet I have come to appreciate what the society of writers does for writing. As one poet said on Saturday, she had felt “different” all her life because of her love of language, until she met the poets in Harrodsburg. Others who knew the magic of creating experience out of words recognized her as kin. To that poet, to the society of poets, to kaboom, to all the books in utero, the poems, essays, plays, and stories yet to be published, I raise a cupcake of appreciation and take the biggest bite imaginable.

Words weigh more when read out loud. When reading silently to yourself from the page, you hear your own voice, your own incantations and prejudices. But when the author reads, you hear her intent, her emphases and pauses and, hence, her meanings, as her voice feels its way from word to word, stone to stone through rapids, over falls, along placid streams, into reflecting pools.

It felt as if I was hearing these poems and stories and essays for the first time. So, it seems, we begin again. I left that celebration brimming with good cheer. What a joy again to be part of this enterprise. What gladness at our individual and collaborative triumph. What gratitude for the reading public who appreciate this book, this venture, this claim.
Lynn

We moved on to a live critique of four pages from “Blue Hen,” a chapter in my novel-in-progress.  The first round robin elicited such praise that I felt almost embarrassed, as if my fellow writers were exaggerating the good points for the audience. But because they explained how the piece worked and pointed out particular passages of support, I felt encouraged and pleased that my intent had been realized.  Then, of course, came the harder parts, the places where rhythm contradicted sense, where details were left out, where (strange) questions were raised.  (This is often my favorite part of hearing criticism because it makes me go back to the words and discover what other meanings lay hidden as I wrote but rose up bright and blinding for a reader.)

One person questioned “piles of peach pits, the color of toasted coffee.”  When I got home, I went out back to my peach tree and found several pits that were indeed deep brown. I felt relieved and satisfied that my description worked, because the sentence came to me as sound, in the repetition of p, t, and hard c. I rely on Kaboom writers to tell me when I am so in love with the music of a sentence that I forget its sense.  Sometimes I argue with their responses, usually right then.  However, after time has passed, and I am ready to revise a piece, the protective anxiety that clouded the session is long gone.  Their thoughts written down, offered in generous spirit, guide me to the better word every time.