This is a good rule in general, but it has failed me at the most inopportune times. For example, my grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth McClellan Shirley, was in many ways a self-made woman. Born in 1888, she had a career as a teacher long before she married my grandfather because, as he said, she “needed someone to take care of her.” How he missed the fact that she had managed 8 grades in a single schoolhouse, I’ll never know. What I do know is that she spent 50 years taking care of 7 children plus two invalid inlaws plus an entire farm that involved raising those children, feeding those children plus hired hands, plus relatives plus growing her kitchen crops plus supporting a husband who ran for political office, plus being active in the community and church. I just knew there was a great story there, but when I began to research it, here is all I got:

• she seemed to enjoy having her family around her
• she gave us socks for Christmas
• she had yellow cornsilk hair that was past her waist which she wore braided around her head
• she combed her hair every night 100 strokes
• she thought her yellow hair was too bright, so she had it “grayed” at the beauty parlor “which was more seemly…”
• she taught me how to turn milk into butter by working the butter stick up and down, saying the magic words “Come, butter, come…”
• I never saw her cry
• she rarely showed her teeth in a smile but she just might push out her dentures!
• I never heard her sing
• she was a listener
• even after I graduated college, we never discussed religion or politics or sex
• she said she never ate anything twice that belched her once
• she was an advocate of “early to bed, early to rise…”
• she loved to garden and was taught by Indians how to plant and harvest
• she liked fresh air in the house, so she slept with the windows open
• she kept peppermint candy under her pillow
• she was an excellent cook
• she said you should ‘winter and summer’ with a man before you married him
• she rarely went to movies or any other forms of entertainment
• she never bought anything on credit, saying that if you wanted something, you should save for it.
• she took snuff
• she took rock candy and whiskey for winter colds
• she raised chickens and had no problem axing off their heads for Sunday dinner
• she had practical solutions for every problem. For example, at age 2, I still had not learned to tie my shoes and my mother asked her mother what to do. Grandmother Shirley put me up on a high stool and said “You can get down when you can tie your shoes.” It worked.

I may yet write about the woman for whom I am named. I realized that I only knew Nancy the grandmother, and hadn’t a clue about the girl/woman she was. Yet when I began interviewing her contemporaries, I got a picture of her true identity. I learned from her cousin Percy, who was deeply in love with her, that she “had jet black hair to her hips, blue eyes, and a waist so small that you could touch your fingertips if you put your hands around her waist…” I had asked him what she looked like as a girl. Then I asked about her essence, what she was like as a person. He said she “sang in church and around the farm and was a dancing’ fool! No man could keep up with her or out dance her. She didn’t drink but had “high spirits.” He said he was hurt pretty bad when she married Bard. I asked why she married him and he said “because Bard told her that she needed somebody to take care of her…”

The takeaway to this is that sometimes you can know too much about a person to be able to share that with your writing public. Taking a step back and seeing them through another’s eyes is helpful. But my favorite thing to do is to fictionalize factual situations through imagined conversations and comments. You’ll know when your characters are  IN character by the way your copy reads from the printed page.  Are they in the room with you? Perhaps looking over your shoulder to see if you got it (them) right?

I frequently go to Cracker Barrel to write. There are dozens of people around, it’s very noisy, and I find that the act of “tuning out the people and the noise” helps me focus on the writing I am trying to get done.  A couple of years ago, one of the waitresses came over to my table and asked if anything was wrong with the couple she was serving. I told her that I had written a poem about them during their lunch meal.  Here it is:

HE LOOKS AT HER

He looks at her

Like my dog looks at steak.

He smiles at her,

Delighted to be in her presence.

His jaw, resting on his hand, is firm.

His smile is lopsided, a little goofy!

“I only have eyes for you”

Is the clear message he sends.

His eyes are riveted on

Her lips,

Her eyes,

Her face.

He listens to every word she says

With no distractions.

“I understand,” he says,

As he leans forward,

Eager to hear more.

He’s not lecturing,

Or explaining,

Or teaching,

Or telling her anything.

He is just enjoying her company.

Clearly, they are not married.

This poem was the impetus for my first book, written under a pseudonym, featuring many of the poems I had written and saved over a 30 year period. Many poems were on scraps of paper, some in those blank books that are supposed to inspire one to write, and a couple were written in lipstick on toilet paper! (We use what’s available when the Muse starts dictating!) That’s when I learned that I should carry a pen/pencil and small notebook or yellow Post Its with me at all times, in case of a writing emergency! I will get up in the middle of a good night’s sleep to write down whatever occurred to me, because I have learned that the Writing Muse does NOT strike twice for me! The takeaway from this is that you should write wherever you find inspiration. Chances are you can return to your special place many times and find it conducive to your need to write.

Sometimes reading an article will provide the perfect opportunity for you to express yourself.  Writing is a good way to get your opinion across without confronting a person who might have an opposing opinion. When I worked in Nashville, I became a fan of the Nashville Business Journal, whose editor at the time was Jeff Wilson.  So I combined a “fan letter” with an article written in response to his editorial on Voting.

I read with great interest your column: “Voting is the essence of liberty in the U.S.” in the November 7-11, 1988 issue of the NASHVILLE BUSINESS JOURNAL, and I must say it evoked some strong memories of my first time to vote. It was 1961. I remember the year because I turned 21 that January, graduated from Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, got married in May, and had my first job as a married woman. In my mind, being able to vote was just the icing on the cake of adulthood.  Our home was in Starkville, where my husband was a student at Mississippi State University, and I just about drove him crazy talking about finally being able to vote. But to this day I don’t remember who was running, whether it was a state/local/or federal election or what.  And here is the reason why…

I was working as a secretary downtown, and had decided to vote during lunch.  I remember walking up the front steps of our “new” courthouse building – which some had criticized for being “too modern” – and of going into a large room where two people sat in front of a table which held a wooden box whose hinged top had a slit in it. There were some sheets of paper with a single column of names on each, and some pencils over to one side of the box. “Hi!” I said. “My name is Nancy Baker and I’m here to vote!”

I don’t know what I expected, but it sure wasn’t what happened next.  One of the two people was a man who looked liked the character portrayed by Junior Samples of Hee Haw, including the bib overalls. He stopped chewing his toothpick, took it out of his mouth and pointed at the pile of paper. “Go to it, honey.” “Well,” I said, “I’ve never done this before and I need a little help.” His face lit up. “Sure thang, darlin’. Now here’s all you do.” He picked up one of the papers. “You take this here ballot, and you pick who you want to vote for, and then you get your pencil…(he picked up the pencil) and then…(he folded the paper and put it into the box)…you vote!” Then he and the woman sitting next to him just about fell off their chairs, laughing.

Well, it seemed simple enough, so I reached for a ballot, got a pencil, marked a candidate, folded my paper, and started to put it in the box. “What cha doin, hon?” the woman laid her hand over the hole in the box. “Why, I’m voting,” I said. More laughter! When the woman caught her breath, she said “Honey, you done already voted!” Then she pointed toward the door and made a waving motion with her hand. And I’m sorry to say that I just left.  I was so totally taken aback by what had happened that it took me a while to sort it all out.

So you see why I can say with you (though perhaps for different reasons) “‘I will never forget the feeling that evening. I remember it every Election Day, and every Election Day I commemorate that feeling with one simple act: I VOTE.'”

When writing this – in 1988 and today – I am back in that voting room. I can see the man and woman. I can smell his snuff and her body odor. I was definitely more educated than they were but I certainly was at a serious disadvantage as to what was going on.  These “volunteers” owned that voting box and they had the fate of every voter’s ballot in their hands. It was the first time I encountered The Game, and I have made it my business ever since to know what game I am in when I interact with other people, in public or in private. Secondarily, one must choose to play or not. When you have been “had” through ignorance or intimidation, what choices did you make? I fumed about this for years, until I wrote about it. Now it is part of my past and I can go forward. The takeaway is that it matters even more to always vote, no matter what.

 

Why do writers write? And how do they find the inspiration to write about meaningful things? This is a question I have been asked to address many times and here is my answer: Writing is not a choice with us. We have to write! Our waking and dreaming moments are spent trying to make sense or beauty or catharsis out of our worlds. Sometimes it hurts to write, and sometimes it stops the hurt. Word Play is delicious! I personally enjoy arranging the words on the page as much as I enjoy writing them down. Writers see things in a different way. I invite you to check out my blog a couple of times a week to see how I process my world through my poems and short stories as I write them. I will tell you why I chose key words and try to explain the satisfaction I feel when I know that a poem or story is “done”. For example:

I am a storyteller.

I embellish what I say!

If I don’t like what really happened,

I’ll re-tell it my way!

So read my words carefully –

(The facts may be skewed in your eyes…)

But when you read my version,

You’ll understand my lies.

So, come sit beside me at my computer and watch me write a short story – a vignette, really – about something near and dear to every high school person’s heart – THE PROM! Unless you didn’t get to go, that is…

Prom (K)Night

June 13, 1999. THE TENNESSEAN. This headline grabbed my attention: “Grads who never went to prom get chance to dance the night away.” Writer Sue McClure  continued: “Anyone who missed his or her high school prom will have a chance to relish the experience of dancing the night away in a high school gymnasium under a spinning, sparkling silver ball when Retro Prom ’99 will be held in the old Spring Hill School.” Since I never got to go to my high school prom, to think I could go back and do it at the Retro Prom was almost beyond belief!

I was a junior at my high school when I found out I would be graduating in June.  I was a girl “nerd” who took English courses each summer because it was both easy and fun! My plan was to take the harder physics, chemistry and mathematics courses my senior year and graduate with my class. But the school officials decided that I had fulfilled all the requirements for graduation and therefore would graduate early, at age 17. Since I had no boyfriend, a date was assigned to me from the Senior Class. I got an engraved invitation in the mail, naming my escort and giving the place, date and time of the event. I – who had never even had a date – was thrilled to death!

Shopping for the perfect dress began in earnest. I finally found a teal blue strapless dress with a bouffant skirt that just skimmed my knees. It made my green eyes sparkle, mother said. But it wasn’t just the dress. It was THE PROM! The event warranted a trip to the beauty parlor, a luxury usually reserved for my elders. The beautician offered to do my makeup since I didn’t even wear lipstick! My mother kept saying “You look so grown up,” as she wiped her eyes. New shoes pinched my feet, but I was confident that I would break them in before the evening was over. Dancing was frowned on by my church, but this was THE PROM!, an occasion to celebrate. A lot of money (or so it seemed) was spent on getting me “all dolled up”, money my widowed mother could ill afford. But it was worth every penny because it was for THE PROM!

At last the big evening came! I was almost drunk with excitement, anticipating the wonderful evening ahead. I got dressed. And for the first time in my life, I got a glimpse of how I would look as a woman.  My shoulder-length reddish-brown hair was the perfect background for the beautiful opal earrings my aunt lent me. The matching opal necklace and bracelet were just the icing on the cake!  I felt like a queen all dressed in my finery as I went into the living room to await my date.

I sat down in the chair facing the front door. And I waited. I got nervous, just sitting, so I got up and paced.  After a while, the new shoes began to pinch my feet, so I sat back down. And I waited. And I watched the clock…I got up and moved to the couch, to await the sound of the doorbell which would be rung by a Senior member of the FOOTBALL TEAM, who would then whisk me off to a fairy tale evening of dancing, and maybe even of romancing!

My mother came in to the living room every fifteen minutes or so to check on me for the next couple of hours. But no phone rang to tell me of my date’s wreck or sudden illness.  When it finally occurred to me that my date wasn’t coming, I got up from the couch, took off all the “finery”, washed my face, and went to bed.

The next day, no one in my family even  mentioned The Prom. It was a non-event. Sunday I went to church where I saw all my friends. No one said a word. And Monday I went to school. And thankfully, things seemed to be back to normal.

But things weren’t normal for me. I buried my feelings of anger, rejection, and betrayal for years. Whenever the event would surface in my memory – which it did at the most unexpected times – I still felt so numb that I couldn’t even cry. It was a gash in my very soul that never got better, never healed.

Years later, after college, I met and married a wonderful man. Dancing was not – and is not – a priority for my husband, but the need to dance still burned within my soul. And, after reading the “Invitation to the Dance” article, I asked my husband to the prom – and he accepted!

And so began the flurry of pre-Prom activity! I found the perfect dress – cerulean blue with a filmy matching scarf. I found the perfect (comfortable) shoes. How should I style my hair? Should I wear eye shadow? Would there be pictures? Would my “date” bring me a corsage? As I looked at my husband, who wore his dad’s tuxedo and looked so handsome, I realized that a mature man was a way better date than a high school football player!

The high school gym had been transformed into a dance venue, complete with a sparkling spinning silver ball! There was a buffet dinner. And then the swinging sounds of a dance band took over. That’s when I felt we were truly at THE PROM! We danced, and danced, and danced! And when it was over, we were ready to leave.

I had been so excited, looking forward to an evening of dancing – and romancing – with someone assigned to me NOT by the Senior Class, but by a Higher Power. I was 100% sure that THIS date would show up and whisk me off to a fairy tale evening! And the best part was that I got to go home with my Knight in Shining Armor, after the ball was over.

As I wrote this, I carefully chose words that not only expressed my feelings, but also the feelings of a 17-year-old girl. I used exclamations to show excitement, and run on sentences to imply breathlessness – and, and, and.  I wanted to set the scene of a hugely hyped event with the attendant build up of emotions balanced by the dull realization that something was over before it began. I carefully avoided using the word “Why?” I do not think I could have written this piece had it not had such a satisfying ending. I summed this up with one sentence.  Can you guess which one it is?