False starts

Finding the right starting place for a story is hard. I *think* I found mine after about six weeks of drafting and searching. I thought it might be fun to share various opening segments. And in reverse chronology so one can see the development.

Welcome to the world of Jacqueline Saint-Ebène.

Current (119 words): 

Hoisting her pregnant older sister, a stroke victim with limited use of her right side, into the cabin of a Falcon jet had proven the most grueling challenge of Jacqueline Saint-Ebène’s career as a military doctor. By the time she cajoled Basilie’s uncooperative body up the stairs, Jacqueline thought her own arms might fall off. Somehow, Jacqueline managed to guide Basilie into the leather chair  across from the door and buckle her seatbelt for her. Basilie offered a weak smile, the effort as exhausting for her as it had been for Jacqueline, and muttered ‘maan.’ Jacqueline tucked her shoulder-length hair behind her ears as she met her sister’s gaze. 

“You’re welcome,” she said in their native French.

And before that (75 words): 

A reverberating boom and the random patter of metallic ran sprang them into action without anyone uttering a word. Limbs that had been packing boxes of bandages and medication immediately froze, dropped what they were doing and redirected their efforts toward prepping a triage area and arming themselves as first responders. Seconds later, the kind of seconds that spanned an eternity, an alarm sounded. Jacqueline Saint-Ebène’s beeper trembled. The message contained three letters:

“IED.”

And before that (65 words):

Limbs that had been packing boxes of bandages and medication immediately froze when a loud boom rocked the area. The noise itself wouldn’t be enough to worry the staff, but the random patter of metallic rain sprung them into action. Like a reflex. Seconds later, the kind of seconds that spanned an eternity, an alarm sounded. Jacqueline’s beeper trembled. The message contained three letters:

“IED.”

And once we get this far back, I’m not even sure what came first (134):

The sun blared across the desert, as the sun always did, a sea of beige hills and valley that extended forever. The din of the men, and the women, faded into white noise. Even the whir of incoming helicopters didn’t phase her. The large transport plane had landed. The wind kicked up a gentle spray of sand. The grunts trekked the crates into the cargo bay. One by one, the boys stacked and secured the pieces of her office into the plane. The transport plane would take the crates to the base in Djibouti where the field hospital would be stored until its next deployment and the staff would disperse for leave.

In Jacqueline’s mind, she hadn’t diagnosed enough STDs or treated enough friendly fire wounds to believe they would be going home soon. 

There was this (120):

In the middle of it, when the choppers landed and the victims rolled in, Jacqueline didn’t notice. Clamping arteries, removing shrapnel, bandaging children, she did not notice anything but the wounds. The death toll. The next day, by the bright glare of the Sahara sun, it hit her. She squeezed her eyes shut and blinked, thinking maybe the sleep deprivation had caught up with her. The patient, an Arab male in his early forties, had suffered a concussion and some contusions from the blast, and a broken arm that she had set. He woke as she stared at him, and he offered an uneasy smile, not uncommon for the Algerian natives who woke up in a French military field hospital. 

And I still like this (118):

Squinting against the sun glare that transformed the white edge of the target into a blinding mirror, Jacqueline fired the PAMAS-G1 and nailed the black silhouette in the heart. She shot the pistol again, this time striking the head right in the temple. She sighed, fired a third time, and hit the right shoulder. That bastard should stay down. She lowered the gun. Lieutenant Cavan leaned against the wall beside her, a smirk sneaking from his lips. She raised the gun, aimed at the target one last time, and castrated the fake son-of-a-whore for good measure. Cavan no longer smiled. 

“Okay, Doc Saint, so you can still shoot.”

“Told you I could,” she replied. 

This one was my first try (243):

The sun blared across the desert, as the sun always did, a sea of beige hills and valley that extended forever. The din of the men, and the women, faded into white noise. Even the whir of incoming helicopters didn’t phase her, unless it was a medical transport. Things remained quiet, too quiet for a deployment of this many men. The wind kicked up a gentle spray of sand.  

In Jacqueline’s mind, she hadn’t diagnosed enough STDs or treated enough friendly fire wounds to believe they would be going home soon. Sure, she appreciated the end of the ugly stuff: the obliterated skulls, missing limbs and gushing bullet wounds that accompanied this mission. She had two more years left in this tour, and despite eight years in the defense medical corps, she had never seen this kind of violence. She would welcome the end of shipping corpses to the mainland, and the apologetic messages to the families of these perfect specimens of human  beauty, men and women bronzed by the sun, toned by the physical demands of soldiering and slim thanks to the activity and the heat. 

Yet, Jacqueline dreaded her next assignment. After leave in France, she would report to Réunion where she would handle gyn/ob care on base. She’d rather deal with the ugliness of interfering in a former colony’s civil war than stick her hand inside another vagina. That’s why she joined the health service in the first place.

Official start?

I've always billed my "Fashion and Fiends" books as a trilogy. Book one about the twenty-something American supermodel whose low self-esteem allows her to fall victim to supernatural domestic violence. In book two, her fashion designer boss must deal with grief, a failing marriage and responsibility for the supernatural mess that has engulfed their lives.

Those two manuscripts-- Manipulations and Courting Apparitions-- have been worked and revised and the first one shopped and rejected but only 10 times before I got distracted by my offspring and the pursuit of a second bachelor's degree.

The third-- a work in progress I call Absolution-- focuses on the fashion designer's wife who must end the supernatural goings-ons before the universe introduces something greater to do it. 

But there's a good six or seven months between Courting Apparitions and Absolution. Recent revisions have made it so that the baby we learn about in book one isn't born in book two but is somehow six months old in book three.

My psyche is distraught over this so I can imagine a reader might have the same discomfort.

In the meantime, for fun, I started a new story. Not sure where it was going. I mentioned it/the main character in this blog: Jacqueline, the French military medic. I have a mild fascination with French colonial history and French-Algerian relations so her service as a doctor in the military allows me to explore that. I thought of her story as a companion, not a true part of the trilogy, until somehow the time and the place begins to fall into that big gap I had.

My husband protested that Jacqueline had nothing supernatural in her story, but she does, as she is related to the characters in the other books and her assignment in the army involves the supernatural stuff her brother-in-law kinda started.

So, Jacqueline's story, currently called Recovery, has officially joined "Fashion and Fiends" as the new book three (or book 2.5 in my nomenclature). But starting a new book is often near impossible. It commences with huge blows of inspiration and motivation until you realize you started at the wrong moment, that you can't find the beginning, and you haven't done the research.

After about five previous attempts, and writing Jacqueline into book two formally, I offer this:

Chapter One

Hoisting her eight-and-a-half month pregnant older sister, a stroke victim who had lost the use of the right side of her body, up swing-down stairs to the cabin of a Dassault Falcon jet had proven one of the most grueling challenges of Jacqueline’s near decade as a doctor in the military health services. 

Ides of January

Earlier this year I made myself a sort of half-hearted promise that I would do something to move closer to my goals every day. One day I made a pitch to an editor (and haven’t heard back”, submitted a book review (and haven’t heard back), worked on some block posts, explored avenues for internships or a new job, expressed interest in changing my position at my current job, solidified a concept in the novel I finished this fall and revised the last three chapters to include it, and started a new novel.

I read a memoir. I looked at the other books on my to-be-read pile. Today I finally picked up book one of the Outlander series. I made it to approximately page 150.

I am working six days a week at Target. Yesterday was my regular day off and my next one comes on next Tuesday. I’m volunteering as cookie mom for my daughter’s Girl Scout troop and in a couple weeks my duties as a trustee at Mary Meuser Memorial Library resume.

I helped a friend register her car. Did laundry and dishes and did them again. Finished House MD and really want to do a review of the whole series. Which I loved.

My friends and acquaintances tell me that they didn’t like House MD. Either the medicine got too repetitive or the whole thing felt formulaic. Having seen every episode I disagree. The core characters and the changing supporting characters explore so many everyday struggles. They make you laugh (we rewatched the ‘speed dating’ episode from Season Six tonight) but they also make you consider issues that effect the human psyche. House’s addiction to pain meds. House’s search for his biological father. Cuddy and her desire to be a mom. Taub and his marriage. 

That’s where I’m at.

And the new novel? It’s not really new. It’s the French medic in Algeria story except now I’ve completely gotten her and my existing protagonist intertwined. What I thought was a story that happened between some of my other stories with a cameo by some overlapping characters is now the next logical story in the sequence.

I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

Anti Amazon Law

I'm heading out the door to work but just saw this via Publisher's Weekly on Twitter:

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/10/the-anti-amazon-law-is-about-to-become-a-reality-in-france-but-its-not-a-bad-thing/

France is passing a law that won't allow Amazon, Fnac and other online retailers to discount book prices and offer free shipping. The history of the law, how it works and past efforts to protect brick-and-mortar bookstores was very interesting.

Everyday routine

Overwhelmed.

As a writer, my job is to be creative, dream things up and build worlds. As a journalist, my job was to provide people with the information they need from the right sources so they can live their lives in an educated manner. Yesterday my job was to try and hold my household together.

I have a part-time job at Target. I took this job more than four Christmases ago. The newspaper industry in my area had started its decline. I had seen the end of three newspapers (and I stayed with one of those until the end) and watched others I used to work for sell to a new owner. After leaving newspapers, I managed an after school program for a local non-profit and freelanced for the local daily. I decided I wanted to return to school and professional part-time work made that complicated. 

I graduated from Lafayette College in May 2013 with a second bachelor’s degree in International Affairs, with a keen interest in post French colonialism, Muslim affairs and contemporary politics. This accompanies my English language and literature degree from Moravian College.

I love working for Target. It’s not what I set out to do with my life, but it’s a good corporation to work for. I am hoping, in the next few weeks, that events at Target can provoke either minor or major changes for some of the struggles my family faces at home. I am also applying for professional jobs, as I have been for the last year. I have gone on interviews in Manhattan, D.C. and here in the Lehigh Valley. I honestly don’t know exactly what direction I want for the rest of my life. I hope when the right opportunity arrives I am ready.

This brings me to yesterday. My daughter had a day off of school for extreme cold temperatures. Yesterday was my day off. And I had a doctor’s appointment. I did three loads of laundry, with the wee one’s help; loaded and reloaded the dishwasher and washed the pots and pans; researched refinancing the house and talked with a mortgage representative; made breakfast for the child and I; fought with a frozen whole chicken and finally got it in the crockpot (we thought there was a bag of giblets in the chest. There wasn’t); got gas in the car; went to the eye doctor; picked up my husband from work; and started homemade chicken stock.

My day off was exhausting. Today, daughter has a two-hour delay which means my morning routine of household chores will then lead to taking her to school at 10:30. I will return home from my very frigid walk at 11. Need to have lunch ready for my husband and I at 12. At 1, I will drive him back to his office so I can have the car to drive to work later. Daughter gets out of school at three. I will walk her to Girl Scouts and then go directly to work. I will close Target Café, come home and have a similar day tomorrow and Friday.

And somewhere in all of this mess, I need to add time to talk to a different financial guy, update my resume, and apply for internships and professional positions. I’d like to pitch more articles and fiction projects to potential markets. And it would be really nice to write more than a sentence in my latest project.

I like my latest project. It gives me something completely new to think about, which allows me to look at the world in a new way. So, yes, I’m a little overwhelmed right now, but these moments force a person to prioritize and I keep realizing I am no closer to having a vision of what my priorities and goals are. I keep doing everything until something works. I need to streamline.

Outside the comfort zone

I finished Happenstance in the late morning yesterday and quickly drafted a review for Hippocampus. While I felt the book deviated from standard storytelling technique, in the end, the author (Robert Root) brought everything full circle and fully incorporated his title. Well done. And his message seemed much more thought provoking than I thought it would be. I try to connect with what I read and I found more of myself than I thought I would in this piece. If you want to know more, you’ll have to wait until the issue releases.

I also did something out of character for me and pitched a creative non-fiction piece to the editor of Hippocampus. It involves another writer, one I’ve known and respected for quite some time now, and I hope this gives me a chance to bridge our careers. The boldness of pitching a story idea without even knowing if the subject would say yes is, again, something out-of-character. It made me wonder if I could find something to pitch to someone every day. That is a lofty goal, but the change in thought process might prove to force me from my rut and perhaps bring progress. 

The child returned to school today and the husband to work. I don’t work until 4 p.m. It’s a wet day and all of my umbrellas are missing so after walking child to school I am enjoying a hot cup of decaf chai. I realized this morning that I only have six more months of my morning walk as next year my daughter will ride the bus. I’ve had the same routine for four years and the change may prove disorienting. 

My list of things to do is short, but it’s an unpleasant list. I already tackled the dishes and I think the laundry will wait. I need to decide what comes next. Work on my resume? Research refinancing the house? Deal with bills? Develop a long range budget? Organize the 2013 paperwork for tex season? The choices are undeniably dull. 

I could entice myself with tasks like “query an agent” or “pitch to a magazine” but my heart isn’t there either. Would writing be a valid choice or would that be neglecting more important household duties?

I have made dribs and drabs of progress on the Jacqueline/army medic story. A sentence here and a paragraph there. I think I sorted out the time frame last night. I think the story begins in early February 2003. Why 2003?

These initial novels take place in a certain historical context. My main characters have to be a product of post World War II France. My strong female character in the Fashion and Fiends trilogy Basilie d’Amille was a corporate raider in the 80s and had other business background that just wouldn’t work in the dot com and later economies. Later, my fashion model character has to come of age in the late 1980s because she’d be too curvy and athletic to be a supermodel post Kate Moss’ success.

Even their families couldn’t exist with a shift in time, the impact of various wars and international conflicts impacted these families in ways that created who they are.

But don’t worry, later stories can bring the families up to date. 

Happenstance

I’ve made significant progress on literary scholar Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance (University of Iowa Press: 2013). The book has grown on me, a bit slow paced but consistant in its contents and style. I am reviewing the book for the online magazine Hippocampus. My deadline approaches (January 20). 

With a past as a journalist, I put way too much effort and thought into reviewing books. I want to be fair, and honest, but it’s a lot of effort to write a book and when I don’t love the book… I don’t want to say anything that would hurt the author or publisher. I guess that’s a professional responsibility. Whatever I say reflects on me, and I want to find the strengths on any manuscript and look at what the book offers for the intended audience. For example, the biography of Jimi Hendrix I reviewed obviously was never targeted at someone like me for its demographic. 

I think that’s also the way I’ve tried to look at the world. What is the good in this situation? Who benefits? Why am I uncomfortable? 

But back to Happenstance… I’m three-quarters of the way through the text. I’ve noticed a pattern, or more maybe a theme. Root is looking at his childhood through relationships— primarily marriage and divorce— and I believe he is searching for how these marriages and divorces molded his life and influenced his own relationships.

Of course, it looks ridiculous to write that. Of course a memoir would develop in this way! Let me refine. The relationships… Mom and Dad and their divorce and subsequent remarriage… remain the characters that Root returns to again and again. There are isolated instances of topics that don’t relate to this theme, his first job as a pin boy or his love of the cinema, but uses the theme of his parents’ relationship(s) to build the story.

The book is more than half finished and he hasn’t reached high school. I am curious to see how and where it ends.

The Freedom of Bad News

I’m an optimist, though people find it hard to believe because I always assume the worst. I always think scenarios through to the worst case scenario. I truly think things work out for the best, but in order to reassure myself I have to know how I would handle the worst case. This makes me a handy companion in a crisis. Whether its storing bottled water and having non-perishable food on hand for a hurricane or merely taking a bar of soap from a hotel in Paris when leaving for Africa just in case… I like preparation.

I received some potentially bad news today. It made me realize that even though in my head I’m planning what I would do if we have to sell our house, that I’m not afraid of that happening. Bad news and even bad things provide new beginnings and often these are the new beginnings that push us out of our comfort zone. We have to change to respond to bad things. We can’t maintain the status quo.

And there’s a freedom in that.

There’s a freedom in knowing the worst case isn’t so bad. Or that you faced the worst case and survived. Or that you outwitted the worst case scenario and made a better scenario. Can bad tidings perhaps be synonymous with hope?

Sometimes the universe kicks us in the butt. Sometimes it’s a nudge. Sometimes it’s a flamethrower.

The uncertainty is certainly more unnerving than the worst case or best case scenario. But what can we do? We live. We try. We embrace the good moments. 

Onward ho. 

Snowy day

January 3, 2014:  7 a.m. on a snow day

Yesterday’s progress toward unspoken goals focused on a paragraph or two of my Jacqueline story (and sharing the opening with a friend because after five or six drafts I may have discovered a chapter one idea I like) and reading a few more pages of Robert Root’s Happenstance.

And watching several episodes of House MD in the evening while doing laundry and watching the snow fall.

So now it’s 7 a.m. My husband and daughter have a snow day, but I working retail, do not. A colleague has already mentioned that she has no transportation today. Her evening shift is mine for the taking. I had volunteered for a noon to 5 p.m. cashiering shift, and who knows if the person scheduled to do the mid shift in our café will make it. A heap of snow makes everything helter skelter. 

I need to decide if I am working my existing shift, my colleague’s shift, both or a combination of the two. After we start shoveling, I’ll need to call and see what’s happening.

In the meantime, here’s hoping that the child sleeps in and perhaps I’ll allow myself a few more paragraphs of the Jacqueline story before I try to negotiate our checkbook (it’s pay day!) and dig into the cat box. 

And yesterday I finally listened to a track by Maj Trafyk I downloaded. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s okay. Chances are that if you’re an anglophone you never will. I discovered him while searching iTunes for a French translation of Frosty the Snowman. Struggling to hear and understand the French words reminded me of the roots of my affinity for obnoxious French rap. 

My honors thesis at Lafayette College looked at the stereotypes regarding Algerian Muslims created by the French during the colonial era and how those stereotypes still exist in contemporary times, especially as the French legislate the presence of the veil in their society. I examined some of the political statements made by Diam’s in my work. I would love to continue my research with Todd Shepard at Johns Hopkins. I think French rap music makes a lot of statements on the disenfranchisement of “immigrants” in French society. This is what I thought about during my shift at work yesterday.

I see that some of my friends are reviving old writing projects or picking up books they’ve meant to read. Two friends of mine are currently reading my latest revisions of my manuscript(s). Pins and needles time for me.

Enough babbling for now… 

Choices and discussions

After nearly two weeks away from the daily grind, I find myself rediscovering my morning routine. For instance, why do I drink so much tea on days that my daughter has school but have no desire for tea when she doesn’t?

Answer: It’s cold out there. By the time I get home from walking the neighborhood kids to school my legs burn with cold and my nose runs making tea warm and very delightful. Today it is 32 ounces of Traditional Medicinal Organic Rose Hips. 

The Northeast is anticipating a snow storm. I wouldn’t be surprised if my region gets a foot of snow tonight. Of course, storms being what they are I also wouldn’t be surprised if we get four inches. My neighbor has already informed his son that school will be canceled tomorrow. That’s a tad premature.

So, I have several options for the two hours before I head to work. Not including the obvious. I will need to eat a meal. As I enjoy my tea, I ponder… Do I reply to a recent email from my high school peer JM Cooper who is progressing with her MFA in YA? That is the most compelling option, but the email would require the answers to various “how are you” and “what are you writing?” questions. Not sure I know the proper response.

Do I continue reading Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance? I have a review of it due on January 20 for Hippocampus Magazine. I feel like I should remember this guy from my undergraduate career as an English major. The book has yet to excite or bore me. I’m in the vicinity of page 50. Thus far, he has approached his life as one might expect of a literary scholar. He examines family photos and interprets poems and letters written by family members. This technique leads me to believe he is looking for answers, or perhaps even order, to his life more so than setting out to tell a story.

In my little side foray as a book reviewer, I have discovered that I only enjoy memoirs that have some sort of larger message. Sheridan Vorsey’s Resurrection Year gave insight into the intersecting and conflicting emotions that come when Christians face infertility. Kylie Jones’ Lies My Mother Never Told Me resonated with me because 1. I’m a francophile 2. I’m an English major and her father is a famous novelist and 3. It addresses alcoholism and growing up as a child of an alcoholic (something I share). My all time favorite memoir is by Ted Morgan, a journalist conscripted by the French during the Algerian War. He combines the horror of war, the skills of a journalist and the everyday realities of love and sex. 

The final option for this morning is to work on my new novel. It’s connected to my Fashion and Fiends universe but features new characters. It occurs after my first manuscript in the series and overlaps the second, bridging the time gap to the third. I have chosen the youngest sister of Basilie Saint-Ebène d’Amille as my protagonist. Basilie is a main character in all of my Fashion and Fiends novels. The third manuscript is “her” book. 

But for now I turn to Jacqueline Saint-Ebène. Born in spring of 1968, eleven years after her eldest sister, Jacqueline became a doctor. An Ob/gyn to be exact. While she appreciates the complexity of the female reproductive system, especially as she has seen several of her older sisters struggle with pregnancy and fertility issues, Jacqueline quickly discovers that she doesn’t want to spend the next twenty or so years with her hands inside other women’s vaginas. Out of boredom and perhaps as an act of rebellion, she joined the Army Health Service. After an initial tour in Djibouti, she re-enlists for eight years. My story picks up with her when she’s serving a deployment in/near Algeria during the Algerian Civil War. She mysteriously receives transfer orders to Paris, where she will examine a pregnant veteran who served in the health corps in 1978. The orders seem strange and yet logical when her boyfriend, a health corps psychiatrist, joins the team and they are asked to investigate other veterans connected to a certain mission in 1978. One of them is Jacqueline’s brother-in-law, Étienne d’Amille. 

Which will I select?

Happy 2014

With a variety of goings-ons, I thought this blog might end (and a rightful assumption that was since my attention to this space has always been sporadic).

2013 brought with it much closure... I graduated from college for the second time. I ended my volunteer commitment as newsletter editor for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, which also allowed me to step away after five consecutive years on their board. 

I still maintain my relationship and service as a trustee at my local public library. I am still reviewing books for Hippocampus magazine.

My online portfolio (angelackerman.com) has developed and has received consistent web hits, but my friends have lamented that it's not as quirky as I am. I am contemplating this. 

I have survived a fourth Christmas season at Target, which is no minor feat. I feel no closer to "what I want to be when I grow up" (whatever that is/whatever that means).

I need to be more dynamic in reaching my goals, or perhaps more clear in setting them. Bring more energy to my web presence. Pitch more fiction and non fiction pieces for publication.

Continue to enjoy my family. That is one thing I haven't lost sight of. I started working at Target for the flexibility to finish school and to "be there" for my daughter. Soon, she won't need me. Not in the same way.

Academically, I need to work toward an application to Johns Hopkins. They have a Ph.D. program that fits my honors thesis from Lafayette.