Healing through story
“Write hard and clear about what hurts.” Advice from Ernest Hemingway. Looking this week for the hurt in our story. The hurt in our characters. The hurt masked by our mannequin’s facade.
I am reading Under a Gilded Moon, historical fiction set in North Carolina in the time of the Vanderbilts.
And I offer a character sketch for Tessa Warren from book two in my Film Crew series. Welcome to another Mannequin Monday!
Continue readingIs there music in the space between the notes? Can we hear music in the silences between heartbeats? British bandleader Jools Holland talks with other musicians during the COVID lockdown. This week we drape our bare mannequin in the cloak of silence.
And I offer writing of my own, a piece of flash fiction. “Jonathan’s Last Note.”
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“An apple, cleft in two, is not more twin than these two creatures.” The story of twin siblings drapes our bare mannequin this week. A classic romantic comedy: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.
And from my own writing, I offer an excerpt from my novel Apart, with references to Twelfth Night.
I re-read Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night this week. Viola’s line, “What country, friends, is this?” came to mind early in the week. Not sure if it was prompted by current politics, or if it simply popped into my mind.
You remember the play, right? A storm at sea separates a twin man and woman. Each thinks the other is lost at sea. Viola, the sister, disguises herself as a man. Twists and turns ensue, until they are reunited at the end.
The trials of twin siblings always make for a perennial favorite story line. You can read the play here.
Reading Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night reminded me of this chapter from my book Apart. I am about to re-publish the book with a new cover and a new title, A Twin Long Gone. The refresh will make it clearer to readers what the book is all about. I hope.
In the story, actor Kelsey Graf is helping the main character, Gabe Wray, in creating a video for YouTube that may help him find his long-lost twin sister. They are trying to re-create what his sister might have been involved in when she went missing.
Chapter 14 “What country, friends, is this?”
The following morning the three met at a small black box theater in North Hollywood. Turo had found that it was available for a few hours on a weekday morning. He had told Cabe, “Since Gail had a strong interest in acting, taping Kelsey in this setting may trigger a memory with one of our potential viewers. I’ll edit it into the video after we set up the idea of Gail being an actor.”
Continue reading“You can’t put life on a piece of paper. Or love.” A mother facing death in the concentration camps writes to her daughter Rose, who escaped to America. This week Mannequin Monday explores the play A Shayna Maidel, by Barbara Lebow. We dress our mannequin with the power of dialogue.
And, as always, I offer a short story of my own. This week it’s a character sketch of Kelsey Graf, one of the key players in several of my books.
Continue reading“A shuddering ripple, a thrill of strength.” Rainer Maria Rilke’s description of Auguste Rodin’s sculptures. Mannequin Monday this week examines the work of Rodin, with implications for authors.
I offer my own story, Scars Tell a Story, where I try to absorb some of Rodin’s artistic outlooks into my writing.
Continue reading“So why then does he feel he is on his way to perdition and not paradise?” We’re dressing our mannequin, our story framework, with words from an emerging Irish writer. The Irish Independent celebrates David Ralph’s “Taghazout” this week.
And I offer my own short story “It’s Best Not to Talk,” about a rookie cop finding out when to speak, when to shut up, on her night shift.
Ireland’s national newspaper The Irish Independent offers New Irish Writing, edited by Ciaran Carty and appearing on the last Saturday of each month. Currently featured is “Taghazout,” by David Ralph. Ralph hails from Tipperary and lives in Dublin. He is working on a collection of short stories.
The story opens, “He wakes like a swimmer emerging from water, his head rearing up off the pillow, his mouth sucking hard at the air.” Coming up from the deep. “He is hungover, his head hammering.”
He is hungover, his head hammering.
The man wakens to a huge hangover, remembers he is scheduled to go on holidays, hurriedly gathers his gear and dashes off to the airport. He will meet his friend in Morocco to surf and party. As he rushes to the airport, prepares to board his flight, he is riddled with anxiety. It’s a black cat kind of day. He can’t shake the feeling death awaits him somewhere before the day is over.
“His bag is packed in no time. His friend Francois is already there, waiting for him in Taghazout, a village along the coast past Agadir. A midwinter break to the gloom. Francois says it’s a paradise for surfers, yoga enthusiasts, sybaritic partygoers. So why then does he feel he is on his way to perdition and not paradise?”
The author immerses readers in the chaos swirling in the character’s head. “He passes gate after gate after gate. When he approaches Gate 111, he sees that people are already queuing to board. Already they’re snaking round a corner, tripping over each other to get inside an iron canister that will javelin them in a miraculous arc up over France, on through Spain, and finally set them down on the edge of the Sahara.”
As fellow passengers are boarding, the man’s mind is spinning: “And then the thought comes to him as he considers the blue liveried hostess with her hair pulled tightly back in a bun. He could just stand up and walk off. There is nothing and no one stopping him. He doesn’t have to get on that plane.”
Read on to see what the man decides to do. The author has captured one long foreboding moment in a man’s life. A singular moment? Or one of a string of such moments?
“Come to Paris. Your sister is dead.” The opening lines from Elle Marr’s debut novel The Missing Sister. This week we clothe our mannequin with words, stories set in Paris, We visit three novels, two historical, one contemporary, all set in the City of Light.
And can we talk of Paris without Edith Piaf joining us? I offer an imaginative story of my own about the Paris catacombs. Thanks for joining us this week.
Over the last few months I’ve read, by coincidence, a handful of novels set in Paris, written by women authors, featuring women protagonists. Two were historical fiction, one contemporary. And all gripping reads.
The first was Pam Jenoff’s The Lost Girls of Paris. Here’s the opening line: “If not for the second-worst mistake of Grace Healey’s life, she never would have found the suitcase.” The story moves back and forth between New York in 1946 (the opening line) and Paris in 1943. A woman administrator in the London office of war operations proposed using women operatives behind enemy lines.
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