Mary Lou Cheatham

In June, Barnes and Noble Booksellers hosted a book signing that featured 2012’s Frontiers in Writing conference presenters. I visited with authors Joe Trent and Mary Lou Cheatham, two of the event’s out-of-town speakers.

I was curious about Mary Lou Cheatham’s Secret Promise, because she worked on it during the short time she lived in Amarillo. Yesterday, I finally read a copy. Typical of the romance genre, the protagonist is lovely, and her romantic interest is handsome and athletic. But Mary Lou's inspirational story about a young woman in 1907 proves that creating steamy sex scenes is not a prerequisite to writing a romantic novel. As expected, it finishes with the required happy ending.

The deep South inspired the setting for Mary Lou’s Christian romance story as well as a cookbook she authored with Paul Elliot. The Collard Patch includes information about growing and harvesting the amazing cholesterol-lowering vegetable.

Learn more about Mary Lou Cheatham on Facebook, and two blogs: http://doyouknowhowgodlovesyou.blogspot.com and http://collardpatch.blogspot.com.

Happy Cat -- by KittyCat

When Mom and Aunt Pen talk on the phone, it doesn’t sound like they say anything that couldn’t wait til Aunt Pen gets home from vacation. In fact, it sounds like stuff that could wait if she never got home. Knowing Mom will ask, I listen to learn how Snookie, my tabby friend, is doing. Yesterday I got the best news. Snook’s coming home tomorrow. It’s been a lonesome summer without her.

There was more to do last year when she was gone.

For one thing, the schnoodle, Vondelle, just down the alley from us was still a puppy. She flunked puppy school twice. She went crazy barking and chasing anything she got her sights on, and a jillion things she simply dreamed up.

For sport, I’d jump up on the brick wall between her back and front yard. She’d come bounding across the yard, tearing up the new fescue sod worth a ton of money. On top of that I heard it cost three hundred dollars a month to keep it watered. New lawns don’t do so good in a drought.  Ha, ha—Vondelle’s backyard is just a big patch of dirt now. There were paw prints along her side of the wall where she’d stretch hoping we’d get nose to nose. Of course that never happened.

Another fun thing last summer was to watch a neighbor clean her black Mercedes. She’d get every bug and bird speck off it, make the whole car shiny, and then go in the house. I liked to step up on the back—I was careful not to scratch it—and walk over the top, slide down the windshield, take a few steps to the front bumper, jump off and run home. The car looked real cool—kinda like those back-to-front stripes kids put on their cars. But my paw prints, spaced just so looked fancier.

I never got caught, but both Mom and the neighbor figured it was me. Feeling guilty, Mom’s gonna put money in the neighbor’s bank. I’ll bet the neighbor wished all the Julian Blvd. folks had cats that liked decorating cars. This year, a white SUV replaced the black Mercedes. It wouldn’t matter if I wanted to climb on it, cuz it’s mostly in its garage.

Snook will notice how the cicadas are noisier this year. Maybe there’s more of them. I heard they lay eggs that stay under the grass for seven years. There’s gonna be a whole lot less seven years from now, cuz I’ve eaten so many I got sick a few times. Wings still wet, they come crawling up through the ground and with grass so thin, they’re easy to spot. I pounce. They don’t even get to find out if their pretty wings work.

I wonder if Snookie is as excited to get home as I am to see her. I’ve missed her so much, I’ll never again call her Snook the Snob. –Well, at least if she doesn’t act like one.

(c) 2012, Bernice W. Simpson

Two from Ten

"The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." --Mark Twain

Good writers bring together words that create pictures, stimulate thought, and stir emotions. "Powerful words harmonize heart and mind as if a symphony," said Toba Beta.

How do you learn to use the right words--words that harmonize? First, collect. circle, and later clip words in context from yellowed paperbacks, magazines and newspapers. Then use them. But not as you did in school by order of teachers of tedium: "Use the word in a sentence that indicates you understand the word's definition." There is a better way:

Learn Words through Play 

• Collect words in context. No time just now? Then borrow from my collection. Today's ten examples, listed alphabetically, all begin with the letter T--one letter to expedite checking definitions if you need to. 
• Scan the word preceding each selection. By itself a word is like an elm tree in winter, its branches dark and tattered against a grey sky. In context, words take on color like the leafed-out tree, its green variegated by sunlight.
• Notice how the word is used in each selection. Did the context increase your interest in the word? 
• Mark the selections you like, and note why they deserve a happy face. 
• Choose two or more words, and use each in a sentence or paragraph. Call on your muse and have fun. Think of each as a splash of color in a painting. The activity's purpose is to practice writing well, and not to exemplify a word's definition. 
• For feedback, take your selections to your critique group. 

Tacit

• "Somehow the workers always seem to be able to find ingenious ways of evading or even sabotaging the plan. Sometimes, in fact, these evasions take place with the tacit connivance of the foremen, who are no fonder of the restrictive controls on them than the workers are of theirs.” -Unknown
• "The pistol was used in self defense, but when the prosecutor does not pursue the issue of carrying a concealed weapon, the DA's office is giving tacit approval for vigilante behavior." -Unknown

Taciturn

• "Their imprint endures in neat coastal villages, carefully cultivated fields, ... and taciturn men of the sea like Carl Darenberg, Jr., who talks in slow tempo of the fortunes of sportsfishing." -Unknown
• “I picture McCrae, the whimsical but principled free spirit, and Call, McCrae’s taciturn and granite-hard best friend and partner, riding through these dusty streets before leaving Texas on a grand adventure….” –Suzy Banks

Taxonomist

• “They are known to be gregarious, exceptionally intelligent primates, and the only apes whose society is said to be matriarchal … and orgiastic: they have sexual interactions several times a day and with a variety of partners. While chimpanzees and gorillas often settle disputes by fierce, sometimes deadly fighting, bonobos commonly make peace by engaging in feverish orgies in which males have intercourse with females and other males, and females with other females. No other great apes—a group that includes eastern gorillas, western gorillas, Bornean orangutans, Sumatran orangutans, chimps and, according to modern taxonomists, human beings—indulge themselves with such abandon." –Paul Raffaele, Smithsonian11/06

Teem

• “They point to an Islamicized Europe, where mosques teem and churches go empty; where the Islamist position on almost every critical issue is either adopted or tolerated”. - Dr. Richard Benkin

Telescope

• “Then Kristin's talk paused, and Elsa looked up to see her holding a dress she had just taken from the telescope. The dress was cheap, too-much-laundered, and the instant defensive words jumped to Elsa's lips…” -Wallace. Stegner The Big Rock Candy Mountain
• “Mrs. Switzer was trying … to get all of Daisy’s things into the battered telescope that lay on the bed.” Ruth Suckow
• “She tried hastily to put on the cover of the bulging telescope and to fasten the straps. One of them broke.” Ruth Suckow

Termagant

• “For almost sixteen years, Sandy dominated my marriage like a termagant mother-in-law, and now that she is no longer there to edge between us as we walk, Gerdi and I hardly know what to do with our new-found freedom.” - Dayton O. Hyde, 1968
• “Washington’s mother ... was a termagant and a Tory, though his wife was a jewel of affability and charm who endured the rigors of winter encampments with her husband through the war and sustained him through periods of ravaging pessimism.” –Fawn M. Brodie

Thrum

• “As he ate, a seagull landed on the thrum cap and eyed him quizzically. ” D. Preston & L. Child
• “Then, as if a herdsman had cracked a whip, wildebeest, zebra, gazelle and antelope sweep over the plains, and for a few weeks the Serengeti thrums with hoofs pounding against hard earth. These are sounds our hominid ancestors would have heard. … a scene they may have watched from a hillside overlooking the plains.” – Virginia Morell, Smithsonian ‘06
• The thrumming pulses in her brain had begun to leak into one another like spies whispering secrets but she was still on her feet and … her enemies had not triumphed.” - Joyce Carol Oates

Tonneau

• “Edna Duvalier clambered into the tonneau, scowling and fanning herself impatiently.” -Scott Zesch/Alamo Heights
• These were the days of extra fuel carried in a can, of rear-door tonneaus, acetylene lamps, and rims which were not demountable. The filling station, where it existed in its rudimentary form, was still the mere adjunct of a garage whose weightier business lay in repairs to motors.” -Charles Merz

Trenchant

• “While admirable biographical and critical studies appear from time to time, and here and there a whimsical or trenchant discursive essay like those of Miss Repplier or Dr. Crothers, no one would claim that we approach France or even England in the field of criticism, literary history, memoirs, the bookish essay, and biography.” –Bliss Perry
• “On Jargon … gives trenchant and amusing examples of that disregard for the primary meaning of words to which all writers are liable, whether they are freshmen in college of practicing journalists.” –McCullough & Burgum
• “Though The Devils is quite possibly the most violent of Dostoevsky's novels, it also brims with buffoonery and trenchant social satire.” - Vance Adair

Truncheon

• “He had a selection of weapons laid out on the old pine table: a wicked-looking knife that he claimed was SS equipment, a Walther P38 automatic pistol of the kind Flick had seen German officers carrying, a French policeman's truncheon, a length of black-and-yellow electrical cord that he called a garrote, and a beer bottle with the neck snapped off.” -Ken Follett
• “Police used truncheons and plastic shields to disperse protesters along the narrow streets…” -Unknown

Keep what you write in a notebook or binder. If you like to write, you'll enjoy comparing your early efforts to later work.

 

Bad News and New Rules -- by KittyCat

Mom forgot something when she said folks should read the newspaper. I have another reason—well at least if you read our newspaper: restaurant reports.

Mom and Dad used to own a tiny b-b-q place. They say you get your real business license from the public. How so? It’s like this—treat your customers like family (and you’ll knock yourself out to give your family the very best, right?) and they’ll come to your table.

What if health workers who think up rules, make forms, and have other workers go around and fill them out thought that way? There’d be less folks working for the government. Ha, ha. Get axed from that cushy deal, and a body could end up working in food service. –In the kitchen. Cuz bossy people would make lousy waiters who wouldn’t get good tips. 

“Watch out for all those germs,” Mom said. She’d been reading restaurant reports to Dad. “Like the ones that escape when a food handler puts on rubber gloves.”

Ha, ha. Get this: food service people are supposed to wash hands before putting on rubber gloves. I didn’t hear anything about maybe dipping the gloves in germ-away water after they’re on. Sounds like it doesn’t matter if the gloves are dirty—just so long as hands inside them are clean.

I guess if you’re in a hurry, you don’t get marked up if your hands aren’t dry when you put them inside those gloves. It’s not like wearing sweaty socks, is it? Guess there’s no such thing as itchy bumps between your fingers that you can pass on to others. I’ll have to ask my smart tabby friend, Snookie, but I’ve never heard of athlete’s hands.

Another thing you gotta watch for is what’s called “sanitation solutions”—they gotta be just right. And I know a bit about that. Mom uses bleach when she cleans the kitchen. She says it’s a teaspoon of bleach to a gallon of water. But I’ve never seen her measure it. Uh oh, come to think of it, I don’t think she washes her hands before she puts on those yellow gloves.

Some places get bad marks cuz they aren’t sanitary at all, but others are too sanitary. That means when somebody wipes off your table, and it gets too clean, that’s bad news.

Well, that makes sense, cuz I heard a guy on TV say kids get sick easier these days cuz their moms don’t let them get around enough germs. And no fooling, hair can fall out if washed too much. Ha, ha—I’ll never have that problem. Don’t believe it? Just come and try to shampoo my hair.

Another no-no is dinted cans. I like that one, cuz Mom can buy dinted cans at a cheap food place, and use the money she saves to buy treats for me.

I’m glad I’m just a cat. All those rules—how does a person keep up? And I hear all kinds of rules are  made all the time, and more of all kinds of police, including food police, get hired to make sure nobody gets away with anything someone else thinks is not so good.

But ya know what? I heard while alley cats got by just fine, a bunch of nice family dogs and cats got real sick and died a few years back. So I don’t get it. It’s against rules to have a dinted can of American-grown green beans in your café, but rat poison in cat food is just fine. –That is, so long as it comes here from another country. 

A Greater Sense of Place

When we begin to weave a setting into our prose, our first thought of the scene is usually visual. But if you have started a collection of scenes you've found in writing, you've probably noticed how experienced writers appeal to your five senses.

In July, I shared miscellaneous selections of my "Scenes" collection with you. Following are more from that file, this time sorted by sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch.

Sight

• "It was a two-story weatherboard place with a porch running along the front and side." -Stuart Harrison
• "Just as he said, the pavement ended, but the road, now narrow, potholed and dusty continued to link a few estates and one little-known lodge to civilization. 'A perfect place for a tryst,' she thought." -Bernice Simpson

Sound

• "Except for the relentless chorus of cicadas, the veld was silent." -Unknown
• "The crooked channel, like a voluted thread of ink, the pirogue moves steadily to the paddle which both entered and left the water without a sound." -William Faulkner

Taste

• "They were sitting at a booth in the corner, and the waitress, harried by the lunchtime crowd, dropped off a pitcher of sweet tea and two glasses of ice on her way to the next table." -Nicholas Sparks
• It had to be the most beautiful place in the world--old-style homes on winding streets, outdoor markets, flowers everywhere--all of it made better with each sip of wine. It tasted of a touch of honey, a hint of apricot blended with the grapes, sweet and delicate." -Unknown

Smell

• "The honeysuckle fragrance wafting through the open window, and the seagulls' calls to each other lulled us to sleep." -Unknown 
• "The have their ghastly origins in the rank miasma of the tarn." -Unknown

Touch

• "Our Land Rover wallowed through a maze of ravines and gullies while the sun stood scorchingly overhead." -Unknown
• "The shell in my hand is deserted. It once housed a whelk, a snail-like creature, and then temporarily, after the death of the first occupant, a little hermit-crab, who has run away, leaving his tracks behind him like a delicate vine on the sand." -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Sensory details do not need to dominate a scene to be effective. Note the last example. Take out "in my hand" and the scene loses its drama. I'm not sure scorchingly is a true word, but without it, would you feel the sun burning, or would it merely be warm?

Desiree -- by KittyCat

School starts soon, and I keep thinking about a little girl who came by last spring with her mother.

From a neighbor’s tree, I saw the woman first, and since she carried stuff in a folder, I figured her for a sales person. I had to join them. I love it when smooth talkers try to corner Mom with their pitches.

Since the neighbor had moved his pickup I'd used to reach a high branch, getting out of the tree was trickier than sneaking up on a mockingbird’s nest. And about that dangerous. By the time I reached our porch, I’d missed introductions. Real friendly, Mom offered the woman a chair while talking. “... a real sweetheart, attended there before she moved to Dallas. Do you know her?”

“Our church has grown so, one can’t possibly know everyone.” said the woman.

Right off, I was thinking this is gonna be good. The visitor had real nice fingernails—even and painted smooth. Dressed expensive, too, she looked like an older version of the all-fixed-up gals on Fox News. But she smiled from the teeth out, and I could can tell by her voice she was gonna talk down to Mom, maybe cuz about then the mailman handed Mom the Methodist newspaper.

I decide to keep score. Lady one, Mom zip. Course that wasn’t completely fair—I could tell by her face Mom didn’t know they were playing the one-up game. 

A girl got out of the car and came up on the porch.

“My daughter, Desiree,” said the lady. “Say hello to Mrs. Simpson, Darling.”

By then I was sitting in my chair, and Desiree came toward me. Mom said I wasn’t the cuddly type, and could scratch.

“And they do shed, Dear,” the lady said.

I could tell the little girl was sad, so I wudda let her pat me, but she backed away. I guess Mom could tell Desiree was sad, too, cuz she paid special attention to her. Asked if the kid would like a soda—nixed by her mother as bad for teeth, and when offered ice water, the mother said they carried bottled water in a cooler.

The woman turned to business: an invitation to hear a speaker at their church. To Mom’s polite refusals, the woman threw out digs kinda saying a real Christian wouldn’t want to miss out on her offer. Free. Limited seating. She didn’t tell about the arm twisting to buy a book, a CD, and that after expecting a twenty in a collection plate.

Meanwhile, Desiree sitting in the chair by mine poked at a fancy phone. I could see tears come to her eyes, and she ran out to the grass looking at the phone like she saw a monster.

Using high-sounding words, the lady told Mom how much better Desiree is than other kids, so she didn’t get invited to a big birthday party. What? I was really surprised to hear how smart she is, cuz every time Mom asked Desiree something, her mother answered.

In a minute the woman was back to her church rattling—she scored at least 5 in the one-up game by now, and Mom acted like she didn’t notice. As if still listening, Mom got scissors and a plastic bag from her yard-stuff drawer, and dipped a paper towel in my water bowl. I followed as she stepped off the porch to the flower garden, cut two of her favorite irises, and took them over to Desiree. “Thank you for visiting us today,” Mom said.

The lady took the “leave” cue. “Tell her thank you Desiree,” she said just as the kid was about to.

“Perhaps...” Mom got the woman’s attention while Desiree ran ahead to the car, “... if Desiree were allowed to speak for herself more often, her social side might have a chance to grow."

Touchdown! As the lady walked away from us, I rubbed Mom’s leg in approval.

Ten Reasons to Read Your Newspaper

Our local paper, now owned by a conglomerate, is not the paper I enjoyed with a cup of coffee, in a sliver of “me time” years ago after work. After. That’s right. The Amarillo Globe published a morning and afternoon paper back then. And it was family owned. Greater than a typical mom—and-pop business, it was, nevertheless, a family enterprise where numbers of second-generation Whittenburgs cut their working teeth.

I no longer subscribe to the Amarillo Globe-News, but it’s not because it did away with the book section as we knew it when Mary Kate Tripp edited it. I simply refuse to step off my porch in sleepwear, and delivery people refuse to throw the paper past the edge of our driveway. The solution: we share a subscription with a neighbor.

A great read? Well, maybe not. Worth reading? Definitely, and I’ll back up my assertion with ten reasons.

1.       Stay informed. It’s a fast way to keep up with the community—from what’s for lunch at school to the latest business and social events news. Unlike being fed what a television station wants me to know, and suffering through a dozen commercials before I get the story a tickler promised me, I can scan headlines to choose stories I want. If reading is interrupted, it’s easy to go back to the place I left off—much easier than finding the correct button on a cluttered remote.

2.       Gain word power. It’s the best place I can think of to build your vocabulary. If you find an unfamiliar word, simply clip it with context. You’d feel guilty doing that to a library book, wouldn’t you? Put the clipping in a file. You can look it up later.

3.       Writing lessons. You may not call yourself a writer, but most of us must write sometimes. Journalists write tight—that newspaper column represents dollars. The only writers allowed excess words are those who pay for the privilege in advertisements. If you want to improve your writing, read and learn.

4.       Exposure to a variety of writing styles. If you hope to sell your writing someday, the newspaper is a good place to explore writing style, and hone your own. For example, compare pieces written by Karen Smith Welch, Lee Wolverton and David Horsley. How are their writing styles different from each other?

5.       Be healthy. Speaking of David Horsley, he’d never call it that, but he writes a wellness column. He finds healthy humor in just about everything. Read his column, and laugh. It’s good for you.

6.       Be healthier. Need a smile every day? Read the comics.

7.       Get published. Do you have strong opinions? Express them in letters to the editor. Yours could appear in print.

8.       Find writing topics. The Globe-News makes a handy source for writers stumped for a topic. Simply pick an article and put a spin on it. The journalist who wrote the article that grabbed you might even be willing to share unused research with you, especially if you’re a student. 

9.       Learn what’s on sale. A recent Fiesta Foods ad featured milk for $2.00 a gallon, and another promoted jalapenos for 50 cents a pound—nice fat ones easy to stuff with cream cheese. So-o-o good.

10.   Save with coupons. Using a coupon, I paid just over $4.00 for the dry cleaning of my Easter suit. What I saved could pay for a day’s paper.

I have more reasons to read our local newspaper, but that’s the promised ten. Once read, however, passed on to the neighbor who additionally cuts it up for words, coupons, and even columns to save, the paper is good to catch vegetable parings. You knew that. Did you know this?—you can recycle parings and paper in your compost pile, and use it next year to dress your kitchen garden. There. Didn’t I tell you David Horsley’s words are good for your health?