Brooklyn and Ethical Characters

 I have to admit that I am not as discerning as many of my friends. Part of that is because, when I can, I choose friends who are smarter than I. When they’re smarter, I’m much less likely to get bored with the company or the friendship.

I carry that over to my writing critique groups as well. I want to work with better writers than I am so they can carry me along to the finish line of publication. So far so good! These people are also pretty amazing in book groups and as movie partners, as well.

I suppose it is not a surprise to those who know me that I went to see Brooklyn, a period movie, about an Irish immigrant. I am a real sucker for those kinds of tearjerkers. Even when I know I am being manipulated, the tears stream unfettered. Love it!

Now the fact that this movie was set in the 1950s, in my life time and yet is considered a period movie was enough of a shock. That brought on tears on its own!

Still, I settled in for a lovely transport to another’s life while in the company of a treasured writing crit partner. We both enjoyed the actors, the scenery, and the authenticity to the period (though we thought the heroine had too many clothes for her station in life).

The next morning, after our workout at Curves, we went for a pastry and coffee at the Basha’s grocery in the same strip mall. (I didn’t say I was without flaws.)

While licking my fingers of the cinnamon twist sugar, C.V. said something like, “I’ve been thinking about the movie, and the more I think of it the less I like the character Eilis. She was reared to have integrity, and she showed integrity early on, but her actions with both men were not ethical or moral.”

Wow! Deep. I was just enjoying the romance plot line, and dissing her for choices she made, but I never went that deep. I am far too forgiving of writers’ choices, I’ve decided. One can critique without necessarily being critical. Maybe that is a flaw of mine, too.

        

C.V. was right, of course. I, too, was uneasy with her actions and choices from mid-movie on, but I assumed it was an authorial decision to create a flawed character who finally did the right thing, even if for the wrong reasons.

But are we to that point where we expect our characters to have less integrity and we accept that as long as it turns out right, it doesn’t matter how she got there?

I attended a panel on anti-heroes at the Left Coast Crime conference recently. Authors on the panel posited that our definition of heroes has been influenced greatly by the more interesting anti-heroes in film. Think Tony Soprano, Dexter, Walter White. The lines for morality and ethics seems to have shifted.

Is that why I didn’t notice, or at least didn’t wholly disapprove, of Eilis’ actions as much as my friend? Has my sense of right and wrong been gradually eroding? How can I still like a character who doesn’t live up to the standards I set for myself?

Please respond below. I will be coming back to this topic to explore how authors are writing characters and what that means for readers.

"It is meet and right so to do."

I am only one.

Still I am one.

I cannot do everything.

Still I can do something.

Because I cannot do everything,

I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

         Edward Everett Hale (a Unitarian minister)

 

Mindfulness came up again in a weekly phone conversation with my long-standing, long-distance BBF. She thought it a brilliant idea to focus on a word and live out that word in every aspect of one’s life. For me, it is encapsulated in a poem I have tried to live my life by since I found it in high school. It appears at the beginning of this post.

That led me to the quote as the title of this post. As a former Anglican church member, I am using the title quote in a way not intended in The Book of Common Prayer. I do so because I believe that one should live out one’s beliefs and not just parrot memorized sayings. Thus the conscription of the quote.

 

Our conversation led to the Pope asking others to be more merciful and compassionate. One element of mercy is not to turn away from others in need. Uncomfortable as it might be, we must look for and at the needs that surround us. Recognizing them as human beings who are struggling, who need our love and support, is an important step leading to action.

That discussion led to numerous related strands such as the Pope’s recent comment on what the faithful ought to give up for Lent. He directed them to give up indifference.

Think about that! It would change the world if each of us gave up indifference.

We immediately went to applications of giving up indifference. She expressed concern about the homeless at freeway exits who ask for food. She wants to give them money; her husband fears it wouldn’t go for food.

I told her my husband and I saw a woman give bottled water to someone, and so we were inspired to carry bags in the car with an energy bar and a water bottle to hand out. It is something we can do. And it is meet and right so to do.

And so it is with our legislators. With Justice Scalia’s death this past weekend, I felt moved to write to them as part of that commitment made earlier to be more mindful. I am in a very conservative state, with mostly conservative legislators, all of who want to delay a vote. It is easy to say that I can make no difference.

But that is giving in to indifference.

So I tweeted and e-mailed my federal legislators asking them to do the right thing, to vote on a new justice for the Supreme Court and not delay action for political reasons.

Vote yay or nay, but vote! The Senate is constitutionally required to select a new justice. Never have we had a delay of 11 months. That is unjustifiable on any grounds. The SCOTUS has work before it and the other justices deserve the respect of giving them a full court to do that work.

Why can’t we remove the partisanship and cooperate on doing the work of the people, all the people, not just those who voted for them? And I mean that for all flavors on the political spectrum.

A tsunami grows by gathering individual drops of water. The combined drops have enormous force and power. Be a drop of water. Call to other drops of water. Join together for change and to fight indifference.

It is meet and right so to do.

Never Make or Break a New Year's Resolution Again

I have absented myself from a good bit of social media engagement for many months. Personal and professional reasons caused me to limit interactions. But I'm back, with what I hope will be interesting and sometimes provocative posts about interactions among family, friends, and strangers. Titled "Romance Righter", these blog posts are about all kinds of love, including loving yourself, not just the romantic kind. So read on!

A dear friend and my bestest, long-standing crit partner and I were talking about making New Year’s Resolutions. I listed mine last year in a blog post. Sad to say, a huge number were (like most of Americans’ resolutions) broken. Some even shattered. Sigh. Same ole, same ole, right? Good intentions and the road to hell got more pavement laid down.

Sandy said she doesn’t “do” resolutions; she hasn’t done so for years. She was reacting to the negativity of the concept. Her point was that to make a resolution is to say “I must have stuff wrong with me if I have to identify ways to fix me. Ways, by the way, that I will likely violate and never resolve so what’s the point?”

Umm. She had a point.

Instead, Sandy chooses a word to live by for the year. A word that she reaches through meditation. A word that she can apply to the multiplicity of elements that make her, her.

In 2015, her word of the year was “Wisdom.”

In 2016, she chose “Harmony.” She will strive for harmony in the cells of her body, the balance of personal and professional activities, and in making choices that affect all areas of her life. She posts her word for the year beside the door leading to her garage so she sees it each time she leaves her home.

Is that brilliant or what?

Never one to be left behind when great ideas float into my path, I jumped on that right away. But picking a word of this import is not so easy. I latched onto a number of words, most of which were my former resolutions boiled down to one word. “Judgementaless” (huh?). “Write”. “Reduce”.

That kind of thing, and it just wasn’t working. I was stuck in the “broken me” paradigm. I wasn’t really getting the intent of Sandy’s progressive perspective. And then it came to me.

My 2016 word, posted in bold and large print next to my workspace, is “Mindfulness”.

The word reminds me (ha! See?) to thoughtfully consider my decisions and to be present in the moment instead of regretting the past or living in the future.

And you know that serendipity thing? The synchronicity thing? Once you latch onto a word, it's everywhere. It's amazing to me how many times I have encountered the term since January.

When I am mindful, I make eating decisions with awareness. When I am mindful, I make exercise decisions deliberately. When I am mindful, I choose to hold onto grudges or let them go. As a mindful person, I make choices about the balance between my professional-writing time and personal-connections time. It plays out in every aspect of my life so far.

And so far it is working better than my resolutions ever have. I chose to write about this, half way through February, because by this time most of us will have broken one or many more resolutions.

But with mindfulness staring back at me the whole time I am at my desk, I am more likely to take that break every hour so I don’t risk heart disease. With mindfulness in my sight, I am more likely to write when I am at my desk than get caught up in the social media blender. Mindfulness challenges me to consider implications of personal interactions and conversations. And even unspoken thoughts. I am more mindful of making judgments about people’s actions and motivations.

Am I perfect? Am I always mindful? Pshaw! You know that isn’t so, but each time I note mindfulnesses presence, I am reminded of what I promised myself 2016 can be. And I am more mindful than I have ever been. That’s good news for 2016.

What word would help you to move through this year more successfully?

Guest Post: "Poison Your Pretties" by Sandy Wright

I was fortunate to read Sandy Wright's novel, Song of the Ancients, in an earlier draft. Sandy belongs to one of my critique groups, and we worked through character development and plot points. The completed novel is a remarkable story of risk and reward, good and evil. If you are a paranormal suspense fan, this might be your brew.

If you write enough novels, the question will come up: Shall I kill a favorite character or let him/her live?

There's always a risk. George R. Martin has offed so many of his characters that some people now refuse to follow the series in books or on HBO. He lost another batch of followers when he ended this season with the cliff-hanger group execution of the Night's Watch Commander Jon Snow. I loved Jon Snow, and am firmly in the camp that believes we haven't seen the last of him. Since Martin has given HBO permission to write their scrips ahead of his books, I'm clinging to hope for the series at least.

But there's no denying a death ratchets up the tension, especially if the victim is a beloved character in which the reader is emotionally invested. Does that sound cruel? Maybe, but the more closely you know a character—the more believable and developed a character is—the more you want the responsible party to pay for that character’s death.

Consider Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series. The death of Harry’s much-maligned godfather not only redeemed him, but made readers turn more strongly against his killers. It showed, rather than told us, the antagonist’s capacity of evil, which further aligned us with the main characters. Of course, when Professor Snape killed beloved Headmaster Dumbledore, the majority of readers closed The Half-Blood Prince heart-broken and deeply hating the surly potions master.

I didn't. In fact, that book spurred me to write my own novel and create a character who, like Snape, battles his own darkness while fighting the good fight.

Enter Nicholas Orenda. His life as a magical bounty hunter, chasing the most adept of the world's dark magic practitioners, has turned him cynical. In the scene from Song of the Ancients, he is suspicious that the protagonist, Samantha, is actually in cahoots with the bad guys. Because I always think it’s fun to add an exotic poison to a story line, Nicholas decides to find out by giving her wine tainted with the poison Aconite, found in the Monkshood plant:

I watched his long fingers curl around the bottle. His movements were practiced, but his hand trembled slightly.  He uncorked the bottle and poured the rich red liquid into two glasses, offering one to me.

     “To fate.” He toasted with a tight smile.

     I brought the glass to my lips and let the wine settle in my mouth. It tasted of raspberry, chocolate and oak, as well as something slightly bitter.

     Nicholas looked ill. He set his glass down without tasting it.

     “Do you have plans for New Year’s Eve?” I handed him the gallery show card. “You said you’d like to meet Standing Bear.”

     He read the card and looked at me. “Is this a peace offering?”

     “Of sorts.”

     “I accept.”

     He seemed genuinely accommodating. For the time being, it appeared we were to act civil with each other.

     I began to relax and took another sip of wine. The alcohol was hitting me hard tonight. Already my face felt slightly numb. “Would you like to study first?”

     “Yes, let’s.” He seemed distracted. “You said you have your Materia Magicka completed?”

     I nodded. “I got it done while I was house-sitting.” Nicholas had suggested I do the research systematically. “I have them alphabetized.”

     “Then let’s begin with ‘A’.”

     I took a sip of wine and pulled out the first card. “Acacia. You can use the flowers or burn the wood to stimulate psychic centers or for money spells.”

     Nicholas nodded. “It can be used for protection as well. A sprig of the tree over your bed wards off evil.”

     I made a note of his comment and continued. “Aconite. It’s a poison, also known by the common names of Monkshood and Wolfbane. The entire plant is poisonous, especially the leaves and roots.”

     “If ingested?” he asked.

     “Yes, or from contact,” I added.

     “Reaction time?”

     This was harder. “Fifteen minutes to as long as a few hours.”

     “Very good. Antidote?”

     Uh oh. I hadn’t catalogued antidotes. I looked at the asterisk I’d put on the card beside the poison symbol. I had meant to go back and make additional notes on the poisons.

     “I don’t know.”  I had some trouble getting the words out. My mouth was numb and my lips felt swollen. I lifted my wine glass and looked at it. Still nearly full. I set the glass down, sloshing most of its contents onto the table.

     “Then I believe we will both learn something tonight.” He leaned in to peer at me, his nose only inches from mine

     I was beyond caring what he did. My face was now completely numb and a tingling sensation had taken over both of my arms, as if tiny insects were crawling on them. My skin was cold and clammy and my pulse was irregular and v-e-r-y slow.  I wondered for a brief moment if it would stutter to a halt.

    But my mind was perfectly clear as I watched Nicholas.

    He looked at his watch and then put his fingers under my chin and looked into my pupils. “How are you feeling?”

     I wanted to answer him, but my mouth wouldn’t form the words.

     “It would appear the reaction time for ingested aconite is closer to the fifteen minutes you quoted.”

     I wanted to scream for help. All I could do was stare at him with wild eyes.

     “A one to fifty drop ratio of aconite is sufficient. When taken orally, as you did, it first stimulates and later paralyses the nerves. The initial tingling gives way to long-term anesthetic action. That is why your tongue and then your face became numb.”

     He shifted slightly in his chair and lifted my arm, pressing his thumb to the pulse point on my wrist. “Aconite acts on the circulation, the respiration and the nervous system. The pulse slows, possibly as low as forty beats per second. Blood pressure falls and breathing becomes slower as the respiratory system is paralyzed. Death is usually due to asphyxia. Interestingly, as in strychnine poisoning, the victim is conscious and clear-minded to the last.”

     He let go of my wrist. It flopped, useless, onto the sofa. “But you know all of that, don’t you?” His tone was pure ice.  “Were you afraid I wouldn’t try the bottle you left on my doorstep, so you brought a second one just in case?”

    He put his lips to my ear. “I want to know why you are trying to poison me. I want to know what Nuin and his cronies are planning. And I especially want to know your part in his little scheme.” He enunciated each word with deliberate slowness, but his matter-of-fact voice told me everything I needed to know.

 I was going to die.

Aconite is a plant indigenous to many parts of the world, including most of the United States. All

parts of the plant are poisonous, but the root is the most toxic. A half tablespoon of a tincture of aconite root placed in a bottle of wine or whiskey is enough to kill a large man. A tincture is an alcohol extract of the material. Placed in a drink, the alcohol goes unnoticed. Even with today's advanced CSI testing, Aconite has been called “the perfect poison to mask a murder.” It can be detected only by sophisticated toxicology analysis using equipment that is not always available to local forensic labs, and then only if poison is actually suspected. 

Fans of the Harry Potter series will recognize it as Wolfsbane, the plant Professor Snape brews to help Remus Lupin when he transforms into a werewolf at the full moon. Legend is it got that nickname because Greek hunters used it on poison arrows to hunt wolves.

Poor Samantha forgot to research antidotes, but it wouldn’t have done her much good anyway. The only known antidote for Aconite is a purgative, like Ipecac, itself a poison which causes nausea and vomiting. Lucky for her, she only took two swallows of wine. And does Ipecac sound familiar? Check your medicine cabinet, you might have the syrup.

I confess I’m fascinated by the plant world’s criminal elements. There’s something so cold about poison. It seems exotic and foreign, yet many of these dark villains are growing in our own back yards, pastures and roadsides, or included in everyday remedies sold over-the-counter.

Next blog, we’ll move to the B’s and I’ll tell you some stories about Belladonna, the deadly Black Nightshade still used in eye drops, which grows like a weed in Arizona.

Until then, don’t eat any berries off unknown bushes. And never be the first one to taste the wine.

***

Sandy moved to Arizona 17 years ago and fell in love with the southwest desert, including its Native American influences. After a trip to Sedona, the germ of a novel was born.

“I love to take ordinary characters and put them in extraordinary situations that change their view of the world.”

Her first novel, Song of the Ancients, introduces witchcraft and shamanism seen through the eyes of an ordinary woman.  Readers interested in witchcraft—or just a dark, eerie tale—will enjoy this paranormal suspense, written by a real-life Wiccan High Priestess.

Winner of the Pacific Northwest (fantasy), On the Far Side (paranormal) and Orange Rose (paranormal romance) contests, Song of the Ancients was published in May 2015, and is available in both print and ebook.

To order Song of the Ancients:

Print: http://www.amazon.com/Ancients-Ancient-Magic-Sandy-Wright/dp/0986227854

Ebook: http://www.amazon.com/Song-Ancients-Ancient-Magic-Book-ebook/dp/B00XZ8HL8I

For more information visit:

Website: www.writerSandy.com

Group blogs: Readerlicious.com

                      DesertMuses.com

Facebook: Author Sandy Wright

Twitter: @sinazAZ

Guest Post: "Love and Murder" Series by Brenda Whiteside

I am delighted to welcome Brenda Whiteside back to share her latest work with you. I am eager to read the first in her new series. Read on to find out why!

I enjoy writing about characters with experience and a few years to their credit. Their perspective on so many things has more depth and lends a richer outlook to the story, especially when it comes to the romantic side of a romantic suspense.

In Book One of my Love and Murder Series, The Art of Love and Murder, Lacy Dahl is forty-three. Her husband is deceased and she has two grown children. On a quest to discover more about her biological parents and the suspicions surrounding them, she meets Sheriff Chance Meadowlark. The sheriff is forty-one and a widower, his wife murdered.

The attraction begins. And since they’re a little older, physical descriptions are, well, like this:

She didn’t think she’d ever seen such a beautiful male body. Not perfect. Like the scar flawed his face and made it that much more handsome, his mature body, strong and hard and not perfectly defined like a young man, took her breath away.

Then there’s the actual physical activity…there can be tense moments for two people jumping in after time away from a relationship. Or there can be lots more relaxed fun:

When his mouth trailed wet kisses to her stomach, she released the hold she had on him, threw her hands to the bed and laughed.

He stopped, came up on his hands and leaned over her. “What?”

“Damn, this feels so good, so right.”

But don’t think because they’re not twenty-somethings, there are no more discoveries to be made. No matter the age, there’s adventure, discoveries, romance, and suspense.

Blurb:

Lacy Dahl never questioned her past until the deaths of her adoptive parents and her husband. A husband who wasn't what he seemed. Her research uncovers secrets about the mother she never knew; secrets that dispute the identity of her father and threaten her life.

Sheriff Chance Meadowlark is still haunted by the murder of his wife and the revenge he unleashed in the name of justice. When he meets Lacy he is determined not to become involved, but their pasts may make that impossible. As they move closer to the truth, saving Lacy may be his only salvation.

Lacy begins to think the present is more important than her past...until Chance's connection to her mother and a murder spin her deeper into danger and further from love. Will the truth destroy Lacy and Chance or will it be the answer that frees them?

Buy Links:

TWRP

http://www.wildrosepublishing.com/maincatalog_v151/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=726&zenid=d06039eba05c5b010fb8a707eecd4259

Amazon

Brenda spends most of her time writing stories of discovery and love entangled with suspense. The rest of her time is spent tending vegetables on the small family farm she shares with her husband, son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. Together, they’ve embraced an age-old lifestyle that has been mostly lost in the United States - multiple generations living under one roof, who share the workload, follow their individual dreams and reap the benefits of combined talents.

Visit Brenda at www.brendawhiteside.com.

Or on FaceBook: www.facebook.com/BrendaWhitesideAuthor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/brendawhitesid2

She blogs on the 9^th and 24^th of every month at http://rosesofprose.blogspot.com

She blogs about writing and prairie life at http://brendawhiteside.blogspot.com/

Spring Cleaning for Writers

An earlier version on this post appeared on Write on Sisters a year ago.

Here in Arizona, spring isn’t as well-defined as it might be in your part of the world. Here, we call it spring when our temps get above the average 70 degrees of winter. For those three days, before the 100’s begin, we have a version of spring. (Only kidding about the three days. Lots of years we have several days.)

This year, a very unusual year, no doubt due to global weirding, we had weeks of really great spring weather. We kept the doors open in the daytime and shut them at night. Just lovely!

Think about it. What is spring anyway, but a time of flowers blooming in warmer air. So what does one call spring in a locale where there are flowers all year long? Okay, so maybe there are different winter flowers and summer flowers--ones that can take blast-furnace temperatures. Still . . .

As a child, spring in the Midwest meant SPRING CLEANING. Big time. The venetian blinds came down, the rugs came up, and the house smelled of Pine-Sol and lemon paste wax. It was grueling work, scrubbing hardwood floors and wiping baseboards. No surface escaped my mother’s attention--which meant the attention of my sister and me. My brother escaped the yearly ritual because back in the day, boys didn’t do housework.

SPRING CLEANING is an odd rite. Funny, I thought, even then. For most of the year, Mother wasn’t what you’d call “house proud”. Our place was not a magazine spread. It wasn’t really dirty, but on a farm, you’re hard pressed to keep the dust and mud from accumulating on surfaces. Dust was pretty easy to ignore. Mud was regularly tracked in along with other malodorous substances, but mostly that got cleaned up right away.

But for about a week after SPRING CLEANING, our home was a joy to live in. Then, as life would have it, we lived in it, and it showed. Sigh! All that work for … what?

Isn’t that metaphor for life? We occasionally clean out the detritus of daily life from our minds, or sweep it into a corner for later disposal. Still, more accumulates, piles up, and overtakes the surfaces of our lives. We clean again, making space for more waste to fill the spaces just cleaned up.

Oh, dear! That sounds all melancholy and such, but I don’t mean it that way at all. As a writer, I love the accumulation of new junk, dirt, stuff. That’s more to write about. And for a writer, spring cleaning is just one way we sweep away and wash down our experiences as we transform them into our novels, short stories, and plays.

All writers draw upon those past experiences, odd characters, sights seen to bring truth to our work. What we remember we can use to enliven and enrich text. So digging through the junk on the lookout for treasures is rather exhilarating.

I’ve pondered why some parts of my past and some people are so vivid and other parts and people, if remembered at all, are shadowy or even forgotten.

We remember best what we emotionally connect with. Everyone recalls where they were and how they felt on September 11, 2011. Images, emotions, and reactions all remain sharp in our minds. Similarly, JFK’s assassination and the Challenger Shuttle explosion were sharp, jagged times we recall easily.

Fortunately, most of my life is not that traumatic. I am blessed with a happy life filled with many loving friends and family. I have more good memories than bad.

I can clearly see every bit of the day my first son was born. The palpable joy of holding this precious new life in my arms after getting to know him so well in the womb will stay with me forever. I loved laboring. I remember those sharp thrusts and pushes. I revel in the memory of the experience just as I did in the actuality.

There are teachers I adored (and not) whose personality quirks are imprinted in my mind. Mrs. McNamara who was always tugging up her bra strap with no awareness she did it. Mr. Sylvester’s facial tics when he was nervous. Mr. Hill’s nervous laughter as we jerked our way around the parking lot in Driver’s Ed.

How can these experiences not show up in our writing?

So I “spring clean” my mind periodically, searching for sights, scents, and sounds that I might recycle into a new personality or scene. But I also search for the emotion behind the memory, because the emotion is why I still hang onto it. And if I can convey the emotion, maybe my readers will connect as I do.

In this blog, I post about my writing and a bit about life and relationships. Because, really, when you think about it, for an author, they are often indistinguishable, intermingled, and intertwined.

Words to Live By

Back in the day, another life, a different career, I was a university professor preparing undergraduate and graduate students for their teaching careers. I taught them how to teach reading, writing, listening, and speaking to pre-K through eighth grade students.

I began each class with an introduction to me that included the quotes I used to guide my life and decisions I made, specifically as it related to education and teaching. I challenged them to write in their class content journals the words they chose and to explain why and how those words influenced them as teachers/future teachers.

I was disappointed, most of the time, at the lack of reflection their choices showed. Most of them had clearly never considered guiding words beyond their sacred texts. Not to diss sacred texts, but there are other sources as well. But if the choice were words from their holy books, I expected more than “These words are true.” I would push back with, “Why these words in particular? What truth do they speak to you? How does that truth play out in your teaching choices and decisions? Personalize this so it is not so generic.”

Orally, I modeled what I expected from them. I spoke my words (as they were displayed) and told how my quotes guided me. How I was not perfect at living up to my set of guiding words, but that having a moral compass reflected in my guiding words meant that more often than not I acted in concert with them.

Here are the quotes, that even now, years away from my former profession, I resonate to:

I am only one.

Still, I am one.

I cannot do everything.

Still, I can do something.

Because I cannot do everything,

I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

         Edward Everett Hale

Treat every child as if he already is the person he is capable of becoming.

         Haim Ginott

Even if I knew certainly the world would end tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree today.

         Attributed to Martin Luther

What words guide you in navigating the rapids, shoals, and still waters of life?