Bob Gillen

Healing through story

Tag: Mannequin Monday (Page 5 of 9)

Mannequin Monday – Filling the Void

February 22, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Mannequin Monday – Filling the Void

What do I give myself to when faced with a wide open day? How do I fill the void? A life shift offers opportunity, unexplored space. What will my story be?

Storytelling makes the world go round. I’m reading News of the World.

And again, I offer you another story bite of my own for this week. “The Playlist.”

What I’m Reading/Working On

A friend, a writing coach, asked this week in a social media post: what is your writing goal for this year? I replied by saying, fill the void. A bit humorous, maybe. A touch enigmatic. I’ll explain. My life circumstances have changed dramatically in the last several months. There is now literally a void, a large open space, in my life. How to fill it? So easy to say, I have tons of time to write. Not so easy to actually write.

I need structure to write. I’m not referring exactly to a writing outline, a book plan. There is a blank page, an empty screen, waiting for my words. I re-energized my weekly blog about a year ago with the Mannequin Monday concept. Drape the blank form with thoughts and ideas. The structure I began with was one I borrowed from several online courses I had taken with the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Listen to or read a transcript of an author talking about their approach to creative writing. Reply to a few discussion questions, and offer comments on the work of other participants. Read a writing lesson. Write an exercise inspired by the lesson.

The structure worked for me. I had a pattern. I was not creating entirely from scratch every week. And so Mannequin Monday came to be. I am now 50 weeks in. The structure has evolved somewhat. Simplified to What I Am Reading and What I Am Writing. But the focus remains the same. Fiction. Storytelling.

A brief mention of what I’m reading this week. Paulette Jiles’s book News of the World, on which is based the new Tom Hanks film. I like the main character’s occupation: a printer who also travels the country with current newspapers, charging a dime a head to read the news of the world to his audience. The story is set in the years following the Civil War.

I am five chapters in. Perhaps a bit too much backstory for a short book, but a great read so far. More comments next week.

What I’m Writing

Once again, I used Ray Bradbury’s writing guideline: nouns and titles. Make a list of words, titles, phrases. Let a story emerge from the words. Here’s my latest effort.

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Mannequin Monday – No Car Chase Without a Driver

February 16, 2021 / / 1 Comment

Mannequin Monday – No Car Chase Without a Driver

No story without a character. This week I talk about the people who inhabit a story. The mannequin itself, before it’s dressed. So many memorable characters in fiction.

And I offer you a short piece inspired by a Rodin sculpture.

Enjoy!

What I’m Reading

I remember the driver, not the car chase. No story comes to life without good characters. Their efforts to survive, to conquer, to love, to find a place in the world. 

I remember the detective, not the crime. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch lives, grows, through dozens of crime novels. Louise Penny’s Armand Gamache commands our attention through all of her crime novels.

I remember Hemingway’s Santiago, the fisherman, not the great marlin he caught in The Old Man and the Sea.

While I never finished re-reading Moby-Dick, I do remember Ishmael and Ahab, not so much the white whale.

his fierce determination to survive

I remember Gary Paulsen’s Brian Robeson, the thirteen-year old boy in Hatchet. I recall his fierce determination to survive. Memories of the environment he found himself in are secondary.

I remember this week’s read: Elizabeth in Raymond Fleischmann’s How Quickly She Disappears. Her engrossing adventure, much of it emotionally wrenching, dealing with a psychotic man who claims to know where her missing sister is. I won’t recall the details of her search. I will remember her. Her strength, her resolve. 

I remember Kieran Elliott in Jane Harper’s The Survivors. Kieran heads an ensemble cast of characters, carrying guilt over the deaths of two men in his small town, now dealing with a missing girl and a murdered woman.

I remember U. S. Marshall John Whicher in John Stonehouse’s Whicher series. Breathless adventures, thrillers. True page-turners. Yet nothing without the MC, the main character.

Needless to say, story and plot, setting, are important. Those are the world the characters live in. But it will always be the characters who live on in my mind.

What I’m Writing

This week I used one of Rodin’s sculptures for inspiration in a writing exercise. Here’s the photo. I focused on the hand on the left.

The Hand

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Mannequin Monday – If people don’t die right, they haunt

January 25, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Mannequin Monday – If people don’t die right, they haunt

Our mannequin, our framework, will perhaps remain unclothed this week. It’s all about not dying right, about absence. Haunting.

Quotes from Wynton Marsalis and Eddie Glaude.

And a story of mine, inspired by the quotes.

What I’m Reading This Week

I came across this quote from Wynton Marsalis this week. “So many of us have lost loved ones to Covid-19 and didn’t have that last chance to say goodbye in-person. Your dearly departed is forced to come to you from the spirit world and sit with you. Their presence allows you to grieve slowly, to mourn completely. So many people say they just can’t sleep. It is a profound, holistic pain that can only be assuaged in a realm that is deeper than dreams.”

The quote refers to his new musical work, The Democrarcy! Suite.

In the same vein, I heard an impactful comment from cable news commentator Eddie Glaude. Glaude was speaking of the effects of the COVID explosion on many of us when he said, “If people don’t die right, they haunt.” He is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. Also the Chair of the Center for African American Studies and the Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton. His quote inspired my own writing this week.

The 400,000-plus deaths from COVID are compounded by the knowledge that most, if not all, of those 400,000 died alone, apart from family, friends, loved ones. They died alone.

What I’m Writing This Week

Here’s what I’m writing, what I’m feeling, this week.

A Whisper of Breath

If people don’t die right, they haunt.

The comment jumped from the TV,  framed by a jumble of unheard words. It hit Elizabeth McLane between the eyes.

Yes. That’s it.

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Mannequin Monday – How Quickly She Disappears

January 18, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Mannequin Monday – How Quickly She Disappears

So many words to drape our mannequin form this week. Books, both fiction and non-fiction. A debut novel How Quickly She Disappears. And a new Steinbeck biography.

And another bit of fiction I wrote, more from my heart than usual.

What I’m Reading

This week I am in the middle of reading six books. Not six books on my To Be Read pile. Actually reading each of them. The perils of the digital age.

I am a public library lover. A heavy user. Before the COVID lockdown I always had at least one library book at home. Lately I have been using LA County’s digital version, Libby. When I am reading online, and come across a mention of a book that looks interesting, I immediately go to Libby. I put the book on hold, or borrow it right away if I can. I am not ashamed to say that I can easily put one book aside to taste a new book. If it grabs me, I will read it right away, then go back to the one I paused.

I was an early reader as a kid. Our town had no library, so I took a 30-minute bus ride to the nearest library. It was only a storefront, but I browsed every book on every shelf there over the years.

Today I am diving into How Quickly She Disappears, a debut novel set in Alaska in 1941. Halfway through the second chapter, I’m hooked. This meant setting aside The Enigma Game, a WWII story. I am a big fan of the author, Elizabeth Wein. I’ll be back to it shortly.

Two of my loan books are non-fiction. I am slowly working through Atomic Habits. And I finally got to borrow a new biography of John Steinbeck, Mad at the World, by William Souder. I’m one chapter in, and I will surely finish this. I’ve been looking forward to a new biography on Steinbeck, hoping for some new insights into his writing.

Using Libby gives me the opportunity to try out a book. If it does not hold my attention, I return it right away. But it gives me the chance to experience a wide range of books. Digital shelf browsing, at its best.

As a postscript, I should add that the books I borrow on Libby don’t include what I have on Amazon Kindle. More books there that I am working my way through. A great time when there is always a book to be had.

 

 

What I’m Writing

A story I wrote, based on what I’m going through these weeks. Maybe another expression of how quickly she disappears. Enjoy.

In the Deep

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Mannequin Monday – Take Me Somewhere…

January 11, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Mannequin Monday – Take Me Somewhere…

I’ve never been to the catacombs of Paris. Never come face to face with the roots of Irish humor. But on this Mannequin Monday books take me where I have never been. Elle Marr, Tana French…

Words don’t simply clothe a blank form. They transport the viewer.

And an excerpt from my next book Surfrider,

What I’m Reading

In several recent blog posts I’ve said that, when I open a book or begin watching a film, I expect the story to take me somewhere I’ve never been. Whether it’s an emotion, place, personality, mystery, spirit – I want to experience something new.

Stories I’ve enjoyed recently, for example, that fit that bill would include:

  • Tana French’s mysteries, one of which is In the Woods, based in Ireland. A sense of place, of culture, of humor…all new to me.
  • Elle Marr’s novel The Missing Sister, set in the Paris catacombs. A dark, intriguing place, a bit of history, that I never knew existed.
  • Eric Jerome Dickey’s novel Before We Were Wicked, set in 1996 Los Angeles. A new-to-me perspective on Black experiences, insights into African cultures, even the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles in the late 90s.
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Mannequin Monday – Be Still

December 7, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Mannequin Monday – Be Still

Turn down the volume and listen to the silence. Mannequin Monday brings us a note of quiet this week. Drape the form in soft fabric. In words that rise out of the silence in our hearts. A moment of stillness.

A few words from a biblical psalm help us be still.

As always, a lighthearted story of my own.

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