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Thursday, 15 December 2011

Points of View and Different Realities

Welcome to the Sleigh Bells and Ink Wells Blog Hop, and thanks for stopping by.   Shortly after I was asked to participate, and before I had enough time to scramble anxiously for a topic that might titillate and inspire, a friend asked me a fascinating question: Have you ever wondered what a story would be like written from a different character’s point of view?

The more I thought about the question, the more interesting I found it to be. As a psychotherapist, I’ve spent a lot of time examining issues from alternate points of view, but in works of fiction? What an intriguing exercise. For example, what if Moby Dick had been written from Moby Dick’s point of view?

Rrrrriiiiinnnnggggg!

“Coast Guard. How can I help you?”

“Help!” (forceful panting noises, as if panting through a very large nostril) “These crazy freakin’ fishermen…they’re everywhere! They’ve been stalking me! And they’ve got harpoons! You gotta help me!”

Or, as suggested by a poster on a forum I sometimes visit, how about Three Little Pigs written from the point of view of the wolf?

“Little pig, little pig, you’re three months behind on your rent. As your landlady, I’m ordering you to pay up, or I’ll be forced to huff and puff and blow your house in. Times are tough all around. It’s either the money…or you. I’ve got a starving litter to feed.”

Kind of presents it in a whole new light, doesn’t it? What was Katherina really thinking in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew? Or what about Coyotito’s doctor in Steinbeck’s The Pearl? A despicable character, no doubt, but what could we learn – about society, bigotry, and even ourselves - from studying his point of view?

Some characters, like Billy May Platte of Appalachian Justice, work hard to share their thoughts. Quite often, Billy May woke me from a sound sleep or made me dash from the shower, soaking wet, to write down something she wanted to say. You wanted me to talk, so I’m talkin’, but you got to get to writin’.

Others, like Beth, the protagonist in the work in progress, are harder to get to know. It makes for slow writing, but I can only go
as far as the characters will take me. As long as the characters are willing, I want to make sure I represent their points of view, even if I don’t particularly like them. That seems only fair.

What about you? Are there any characters you’d like to hear from? A different side of a story you’d like to see represented? A new spin on an old tale?

While you ponder those questions, I hope you’ll check out http://SweetMusicOnMoonlightRidge.blogspot.com/
with Ramey Channel, the next stop on the blog hop. Happy hopping!

Melinda Clayton is the author of Appalachian Justice and the sequel, Return to Crutcher Mountain.

The full lineup of blog hoppers:

Smoky Zeidel  http://smokyzeidel.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/sleigh-bells-ink-wells-give-a-little-happiness/

Patricia Damery http://www.patriciadamery.com/

Debra Brenegan http://debrabrenegan.blogspot.com/

Malcolm R. Campbell http://KnightOfSwords.wordpress.com

T.K. Thorne http://tkthorne.wordpress.com/

Anne K. Albert  http://Anne-K-Albert.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Clark-Stern http://elizabethclarkstern.com/wordpress/

Collin Kelley http://collinkelley.blogspot.com/

Sharon Heath http://www.sharonheath.com/

Melinda Clayton http://AuthorMelindaClayton.xanga.com

Ramey Channell http://SweetMusicOnMoonlightRidge.blogspot.com/

Leah Shelleda http://www.leahshelleda.com/

Friday, 04 November 2011

Thoughts on writing

A couple of years ago, in the middle of studying for comprehensive exams and working on a grant proposal for a local agency, I decided it was time to write a book. I'd had an idea rattling around in my head for a while, and writing a book was on my bucket list before bucket lists became a "must have." So, I did. Write a book, I mean.

And it was fun - a lot of fun, actually. As I moved forward in school, passed my exams, and began on the endless journey towards the dissertation proposal, creative writing became a huge stress reliever. I'd click back and forth between writing sentences like, "The matched pairs t-test, also called the repeated measures t-test, will be used to analyze the data and the significance level, or p value, is set at p <.05," and writing sentences like, "After a minute I wriggled my way back out and stood, breathin’ hard in the cool, late mornin’ mountain air, pretendin’ my hands wasn’t shakin’ when I lit a cigarette and took a deep drag."

Luckily, I never confused the two. Wouldn't that have been interesting?

Throughout the process of writing, I never really thought ahead; I just wrote until I finished telling the story. Even afterwards, when mailing out query letters, I didn't really think ahead. I just took each step as it came, which, as I think about it, seems to be a pattern with me. That's how I've done most everything in life. Finished with the BA? The MS is next! Done with that? An EdD is next! So when a contract came - the next step - I signed it. That's when it first hit me. Holy crap, people might actually read this! As crazy as it sounds, since I'd never really looked forward during the process, I'd never really considered that someday someone might read what I'd written.

With awareness came trepidation. I started questioning everything I wrote. Is this sentence redundant? Is that the proper adjective? Should I even use an adjective?  Is that too many characters? Are the chapters too long?  My stress-reliever stopped relieving stress, and I found myself stuck, too full of insecurities to write.

Until today - a gorgeous day, I might add - when on the way home from my sons' school, it hit me: I feel like writing.  And I'm going to write chapter 17 exactly the way I want to write it, even if that means there are too many characters. Proofing, editing, querying - all that can come later. Or not.  Right now I just want to write.

Wednesday, 05 October 2011

People often don’t know exactly what to say or how to respond to us when we’re faced with some sort of challenge. My family learned this firsthand with the birth of my brother Sam in 1980.

Although the 1980s don’t seem so very long ago – at least not to those of us who remember mall hair and parachute pants – at that time, attitudes towards individuals born with disabilities still reflected pre-civil rights era legislation (or lack of same). Students with disabilities were still segregated into self-contained classrooms regardless of age, disability, or need.

The suggestion to isolate Sam, to put him away and hide him from sight, was spoken by the delivery room doctor shortly after he was born. “Mongoloid.” “Retarded.” “Institutionalize.” We heard those words often during Sam’s first weeks with us.

While doctors ran tests and conferred and whispered, we battened down the hatches, so to speak, surrounding Sam, rocking him, singing to him, loving him, fiercely guarding him against the threats – real or imagined – we perceived.

Thirty-one years later, we still feel protective towards Sam. And he towards us. “I love my big sister,” he says to me on my visits home, laying his head on my shoulder. “I love my little brother,” I say back to him, laying my head against his.

Thankfully, we’ve come a long way, both in our legislation and in our attitudes, but waiting lists for adult services are long, and funding is always a challenge. For these reasons, my fabulous publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, and I have come together to donate $1.00 of the profits for every edition of Return to Crutcher Mountain sold during the month of October to the Tipton County Adult Developmental Center in Covington, TN.

You can learn more about it in this video.

Return to Crutcher Mountain is available through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.

Sunday, 02 October 2011

Contributing to a great cause!

Covington, Tennessee, referred to as the Heart of Tipton County, is not only the county seat but also the home of the annual Tipton County BBQ Festival, the Little Miss Cotton Boll Pageant, and the Tipton County Adult Developmental Center (TCADC).

TCADC is located on Highway 59 West, a rural two-lane highway that dips and curves its way through residential sections, soybean and cotton fields, and cow pastures. During planting season it isn’t unusual to find oneself stuck behind a tractor on the old highway; during harvest the sides of the highway are covered in white cotton, the bolls blown out of the many cotton trailers traveling to the gin on the corner of Highway 59 and Garland Drive.

If followed to the end, Highway 59 West drops straight into the muddy, roiling waters of the Mississippi River, a sight my brother Sam declared “freaky” when I took him to the drop off point several years ago during a visit home. Sam much prefers to stop at TCADC, his home away from home.

A satellite office of the Helen R. Tucker Adult Developmental Center of Ripley, Tennessee, TCADC is located in a modest, one story brick building known to older locals as the Old Owen School, an elementary school closed decades before. After many years of neglect, a group of parents, determined to find a building to house services for their adult children with physical and developmental disabilities, spent eighteen months remodeling the old building.

Plumbing was reworked, walls were rebuilt and windows were replaced until finally the TCADC opened its doors with a clear mission statement: “…[T]o offer day habilitation services, vocational services, personal assistance, and residential services to adults with intellectual and physical challenges and/or developmental disabilities for the purpose of promoting independence, productivity, and integration into the community.”

What does this mean for my brother Sam? It means he has a place to go to meet friends and learn skills that will assist him with becoming more independent and integrated into community life. It means he no longer has to spend his days bored and lonely with little social contact. It means peace of mind for my parents, who, as they age, no longer have to worry Sam may lose the skills he fought so hard to gain in the public school system.

TCADC currently serves seventeen adults with physical and/or developmental disabilities. As in all human service fields, money is a constant concern. TCADC operates on a shoestring budget, with a payroll of less than $100,000 for a staff of six.

As a professional in the field of mental health and developmental disabilities, I hold centers such as TCADC near to my heart. As Sam’s sister, I am forever indebted to them for the services they provide my brother.

For these reasons, my fabulous publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, and I have come together to donate $1.00 of the profits for every edition of Return to Crutcher Mountain sold during the month of October to TCADC. As I said in the dedication at the front of Return to Crutcher Mountain: “This book is for my brother, Sam, who has inspired and influenced all of us more than he’ll ever know. This book wouldn’t exist without you.” Here’s to you, Sam.

Return to Crutcher Mountain is available through Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance, and through the publisher, VanillaHeartBooksAndAuthors.com

Friday, 19 August 2011

Robby and the "S" Word

I’m not good at keeping up with blogs. I’m not sure why I’m not, but clearly I’m not. Maybe it’s because it feels sort of like keeping a public diary. Anyway, today I decided to do something different. I thought it might be interesting to open Return to Crutcher Mountain and post an excerpt from wherever I happened to land. I must admit, I’m happy to have landed on one of Robby’s chapters, because I like the little guy.

Without further ado, here’s Robby:

Hi. Well it’s me Robby and I just had a stupid meeting with my stupid caseworker. Mrs. Jamison at church says we should not say stupid. She calls it the “s” word but it is not the real “s” word. I know that because Ernie says the real “s” word and it is s-h-i-t. I don’t say that word but I know how to spell it because Ernie wrote it on the back of the bus seat with a black magic marker. Ernie is a big bully on the bus and he makes fun of me but I don’t care because he is stupid. Ha! I said it again.

Mrs. Cortes has not found a place for me to go yet. She said for now she’ll have to pick me up tomorrow and take me back to the family that has too many kids already but I can’t live there for long. She said she’ll keep looking for a family that I can stay with until my mom is ready to come home. I hate all this stupid moving around. I wish I could just live here at the Lodge forever. The people are nice and there are lots of things to do and I have friends here and nobody is a big stupid bully like big stupid Ernie on the big stupid school bus. Ha! I said a lot of stupids! Ha ha!

Mrs. Cortes took me back to the Lodge in time for lunch and then she went to see Dr. Wright. She said she had to check in with Dr. Wright but I know she went there to talk about me because that is what Grownups do. They tell you something stupid (ha!) but then they go and talk about you with other Grownups and try to Come Up With A Plan. I hope they Come Up With A Plan soon because I have to leave here tomorrow.

Stacey was glad to see me when I got back and so was Joseph and so was Anthony. Marcus looked glad to see me too but Marcus looks glad to see everybody. That is one good thing about Marcus. He always makes you happy because he always looks glad to see you.

Then Mr. Paul and Ms. Janice took us out to the horses and it was so cool! I love it here and I don’t see why I can’t live here instead of going to some stupid Foster Home where I can’t even stay. That’s just stupid.

Return to Crutcher Mountain is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Smashwords.