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Joseph E Bird

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Can you handle the truth?

If you want to be better, you need someone who has the guts to tell you the truth.

Family won’t do that. Most friends won’t.  They want to encourage. They don’t want to hurt your feelings. They’ll lie to you and tell you work is wonderful, even if it’s not. But if you want to get better, you need someone who will tell you where you’re going wrong.

A few years ago I wrote my first novel, Counsel of the Ungodly.  It’s the story of Savannah Joyce, who fled big city life in Boston to set up shop in a small resort town in the mountains of West Virginia.  A new highway will bring more tourism to the area, but there will also be winners and losers as developers vie for prime real estate along the proposed highway. Savannah’s peaceful world is turned upside down and she realizes she can no longer run away from her past.

When I finished, I sent the book to Joe Higginbotham to take a look. Here are a few of his thoughts (along with my reaction to his comments).

JH: I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that Counsel of the Ungodly needs a lot of work. (Ouch.) The good news is that it’s worth it. (Ok, that’s better.)

JH: You’re opening paragraph needs a grabber. (Sure, I can work on that.)

JH: Your settings are weak. Each scene needs to answer the fundamental questions: what, when, where, who. (Seems like a lot of work, but ok.)

JH: Your dialogue is lazy. (Another ouch.) I think you’re trying to make your dialogue too realistic. Realistic dialogue is boring. Make every word of dialogue do one of two things: 1) Move the action, or 2) reveal character or relationship. (Ok, this is good. A lot of work to do, but good advice.)

JH: Your sentences, in places, are as meandering and indirect as the mountain streams of Hampshire County. (He was right. I still struggle with this.)

JH: I rejoiced when you finally killed Tim off. (Uh-oh. Tim was supposed to be a likable character.  The reader was supposed to be shocked and sad when Tim took the deep-six dive. JH had much more to say about why he didn’t like Tim.)

JH: I never liked Savannah. (Triple uh-oh. Savannah is the main character. She has to be likable. This is even worse than not liking Tim  JH had much more to say about why he didn’t like Savannah. My two main characters, and the reader doesn’t like them.)

You get the idea. Friends and family won’t tell you stuff like this so directly. JH had the guts to tell me not only what he didn’t like, but what he really didn’t like. Better Joe than a potential agent.

So I worked on the book and did the best I could with his suggestions. I entered the book in the West Virginia Writers Competition and it won first place. So yeah, I’m feeling pretty good about what I did. I sent Joe the revised copy.

JH: I calculate that this iteration of Savannah could not only beat 40 entrants from West Virginia, but another couple hundred form surrounding states. (Yes!)

JH: But you can and must do better. (I realize now that he was right. 100% correct.)

And then he followed that comment with three paragraphs of what I needed to work on with Tim, to whom he was finally warming, and Savannah, who in his mind, needed more clarification of her character and motivations.

Do you want to be a better writer? A better artist? A better song-writer? Find someone who knows what they’re talking about and ask them to be brutally honest. It’s the best way.

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If you want to be a better writer, read these books.

I’ve always read a lot. Maybe not voraciously, I’m too slow for that. But I’ve read a wide range of books. When I began writing, Joe Higginbotham gave me books. Books that he bought for the sole purpose of sending to me so that I could experience good writing.

He was a big fan of Kurt Vonnegut so he sent me some of his books.  Slaughterhouse Five. Breakfast of Champions. Vonnegut is so different, so unique, it’s hard not to be influenced by his work.

He also introduced me to one of my favorite authors, Chris Offutt. Offutt is from eastern Kentucky, close to my neck of the woods, and his stories connect with me for that reason alone.  There is also a simplicity and directness in his writing.  The characters in his stories are not overly complex and their journeys are not epic, but they’re real people. Joe mailed me three of his books, The Good Brother, The Same River Twice, and No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home.  I’m glad he did.

He encouraged me to be a better business person and said I should read Fierce Conversations, by Susan Scott, Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi, and Selling the Invisible, by Harry Beckwith.  I did. As well as many others that he recommended.

And the first book he said I should read – well, study really – was Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology.  Heavy stuff, man.

But that was Joe.  He knew what he was talking about and challenged you to be better. That’s a good friend.

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Joseph Higginbotham

From the Charleston Gazette-Mail is this:

Joseph Higginbotham, 62, of St. Albans, died Friday, June 2, 2017. If you are a family member or know the whereabouts of any family member of Mr. Higginbotham, please contact Bartlett-Chapman Funeral Home, St. Albans (304) 727-4325.

Joe was a friend for many years.

We had so much in common; we had very little in common.

At one time we shared a common faith.
And he taught me.
He taught me about theology.
About church history.
About caring for other people.
He was a great mentor, teacher, friend.

Things changed.
I don’t remember how or why.
We were all young and when you’re young,
life is constantly changing.
He moved away.

After many years, he became
whatever happened to?
I found him living in Lexington.
He had married.
He had divorced.
He had changed.

Our views of faith had diverged.
He no longer believed
as I believed.

Nonetheless, our friendship persevered.
I was writing a novel.
So was he.
And he taught me.
He taught me about story structure.
About voice.
About having something to say.

He moved back to St. Albans.
I was involved in community development.
He had been involved in Lexington.
And he taught me.
He taught me about the dynamics of community growth.
About seeing things from a different perspective.
About looking beneath the surface.

He was always doing that.
He had a great analytical mind.
He could provide so much insight.
He could be funny.
He could be maddening.
But he would always be your friend.

In his last years, we had diverged too far.
Conversations became more stilted.
So we just quit trying.
Maybe we shouldn’t have.
He deserves more than an obituary
that says nothing.

While we wait,
I’ll tell you about
Joseph Higginbotham.

 

 

 

 

8

Galveston

pier for web

Heather is on her way to Houston to see her father, who she hasn’t seen in ten years. On her way, she took a detour to Galveston to try to find the pier that was the scene of her mother’s death. In Galveston, she is befriended by Lucas, a no-nonsense oil rig worker probably 20 years older than she is.  He helps her through a medical crisis and in their brief time together, they become close. In this scene, Lucas is driving her from the hospital to her car, where she will continue her journey to Houston.

Lucas drove a Jeep. Of course he did. The hospital was only a couple of miles from the shore and they rode silently, the only sound the buzzing of the tires on the wet roads and the flip-flap of the windshield wipers.

All necessary information was exchanged back at the hospital. The doctor had been in before Lucas had arrived, so she told him everything, as if he was her parent. It was comforting to talk to an older man, one who seemed gentle and kind and wise. Naivete had left her on a warm Fourth of July evening thirty years ago and she knew that Lucas had an attraction to her and that being with her was more than just an act of kindness. But that was ok. She had a similar attraction to him, despite his age. But she knew and he knew that their relationship, however brief it would turn out to be, was founded on something deeper than a superficial physical appeal. Even so, just as the setting sun can bring a moment of pleasure, or the taste of freshly baked bread can offer a passing contentment, so it is with the inexplicable feelings that simmer just beneath the surface when the ancient instincts draw one to another, despite all logic and reason. Sometimes it’s just there, not to be acted upon, but to savor in the moment and to store away as a memory for the lonely, hollow days that surely lie ahead. And as they stood in the rain and hugged, Heather knew that it was more than a courteous embrace that they shared. Maybe she could stay a little longer. Maybe she could return to Galveston when the business with her father was complete. When she kissed his cheek, she thought it was a real possibility. It wasn’t until she was driving along the Gulf Freeway that reality started to nibble at the edges of the romantic vignette that she had allowed her imagination to paint.

He had to be in his sixties and though he appeared healthy, heart disease or cancer or some other ailment was likely lurking around the corner. His future was short. Not that hers was any better, and she was already showing signs. Hers would be a lingering illness; his, one and done. Not a very promising future, for either of them.

She drove west, knowing she would never return to Galveston.

copyright 2017, joseph e bird

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Appalachian Spring

Larry Ellis posted this over at Home Economics. It’s a great description of where we live, in the heart of Appalachia.

At the end a character is introduced and then left standing there. The story of Jack Sampson is told in Larry’s award-winning novel, In the Forest of the Night.
_________________________________________________________

His ancestors settled in the central Appalachians without a thought for aesthetics. They came not for the beauty or value of this place, but only to escape from servitude and second-class citizenship in those cities to the north where their own forebears had landed as indentured servants. This new land to the south was steep, overgrown and not particularly amenable to the plow, but it was away from those engines of commerce and social institutions that had benefitted those to whom they were beholden and had just as certainly kept them a class away from full participation in the new nation’s economy.

The weather here was no more inviting than the soil. The winters were long and damp and made of days and weeks of snow so deep that travel was nearly impossible and in the summers the heat and humidity and insects were relentless. No one who had the luxury of considering the comforts a location might afford would have chosen to live here. There were no beautiful waterfronts and no rolling, thousand-acre spreads of black soil. All of life was closed in to narrow valleys and closed off to the flow of goods and information common to the new cities on the coast.

Those who came to escape the cities paid no heed to the hardships the land and the weather imposed, but lived their short lives together on subsistence farms, learning how to hunt and what to gather in the vast forests that surrounded their villages.

The generations brought change, of course. When those in the north learned that this land was rich in coal, oil and gas, industry came to Appalachia and the tiny villages became small towns and small cities and some made enough money to move themselves back into the mainstreams of commerce and society in the cities of the eastern plain..

It was, and is, an unromantic place. There are no ancient gardens or master artworks on display. There are no homes of famous artists or statesmen and no classic myth to fill the air with mystery.

But in the spring, something happens that no one who settled here saw coming and no one who has not lived here knows of or could even imagine. There are days in April when the scent of the blossoms all over the forests – the tulip poplar flowers, the lilac buds, the honeysuckle, the white blooms of the apple and plum trees, the new buds of the sycamore and the birch – all are lifted from the mountainsides in the softest breezes and the new warmth of the spring sun dries the stones on the edges of the creeks and branches and sends into the air cleansing mineral aromas and the trees on every hillside unfold in new green and soft rains fall and the forest floor thaws and releases the essence of the earth into the air. There are a thousand varieties of tiny plants that sprout under the canopy of the forest in these days. Only the Shawnee knew them. Only the Shawnee had given them names. They are tender and live only for days and in those days they release their own perfume, each a different, subtle taste. The clouds part and the grey of winter disappears and the sky is clear and high above the hawks soar and wheel on the gentle, warm thermals. The sun glistens on the rivers and those rivers run for those few days green and blue like the purest emeralds and sapphires. It is a season all its own, hidden from those who give names to such things, and in those few days the romance of this rugged place is enough to fill the longings of men’s souls and to ignite in their hearts even deeper longings.

It was in this time, in the middle of these days, that Jack Sampson fell in love.

Copyright 2017, Larry Ellis

2

The garage.

I recently attended the Design and Equipment Expo in Charleston and met a local photographer, Emily Shafer, who specializes in industrial photography. She has a creative sensibility and transforms ordinary images from the blue collar world in to works of art. Like a set of greasy Craftsman tools.

The next day I walked across the street to the mall and saw signs outside the Sears store announcing its closing. I went in and browsed a little, but there wasn’t much left. Empty shelves where the Craftsman tools used to be. With all of that, I couldn’t help but think of a scene I had written in my novel, Heather Girl.

Heather is traveling to Texas to see her father, who has just been paroled. She stops for gas in Montgomery, Alabama and has car trouble. A man and his son are watching (and eventually offer to help). As she’s trying to figure out what the problem is, she remembers learning about cars in her father’s garage.

She turned the key and the engine turned slowly a couple of times but didn’t start. She turned the key again. Same thing. And again.

She popped the latch on the hood and got out of the car. The boy looked up, then looked away. She opened the hood and looked at the battery.

Always start with the battery.

Her father’s voice. What was it now, thirty years ago?

Easiest thing to check, easiest thing to fix.

The smells of the garage came back to her. Warm, oily smells. There was a gas heater on the back wall and in the winter, there was always a hint of unburned fumes, but most of the time it was tools and parts and greasy rags that made the garage feel heavy and comfortable. The same garage that now is more of a storage locker. Her father’s tools went with him when her parents moved across town, then were sold when they moved south to escape the cold winters of the mountains. She and Robert bought the family home.  Robert took over the garage as his own workshop, complete with a table saw and other carpentry tools. His tools are still there, but are never used. Boxes of boys’ forgotten toys and yard sale finds make it nearly impossible to even see them. She keeps the lawnmower by the door, along with a few garden tools, and every spring makes the same promise that she’ll never keep to throw out the junk and put some order to the mess.

Despite everything, she found it hard not to think back to when the garage was truly a place for parking the family car, and for the weekend project of rebuilding the brakes or cleaning the carburetor or putting in a new radiator. Her dad had a natural genius for such things, part of the reason he was a good engineer. She loved being around him when he was working. It was when he seemed most content. Anything could be fixed.

She learned by watching, and when it became apparent that her brother Wayne had more interest in music than cars, she became her father’s tomboy grease monkey. She never learned enough to really diagnose a car’s problem, but she could change the oil, put in new spark plugs, and even tinker with the timing. She also learned why he enjoyed that kind of work so much, aside from the peace of the garage. Parts that didn’t work properly were thrown out, never to be seen again. Repair manuals didn’t lie. And the tools were always faithful.

If she had one of those old crescent wrenches, maybe the big one that had been used so much that the brand imprinted on the handle had worn away, she could tighten the nuts on the battery terminal. Though she knew that wasn’t the cause of the problem. She looked at the engine and tugged at the battery cables. They seemed tight. Not much corrosion. More than likely the battery was dead.

copyright 2017, joseph e bird

6

Writer’s Log – You think you know your characters?

I’ve been writing about Heather for a couple of months now.  You remember Heather, the woman with the two boys, living alone now that they’re out of the house. She studied Avery’s photographs in the coffee shop until she learned that her father was being let out of prison.  I thought I knew her, too.

But when she leaves for Texas to get her father settled in with her brother, she takes a detour to stop and see her ex-husband three states away.  I didn’t know she was going to do that until she started driving. And on the way there, she reveals a little something about herself that I didn’t know. Something a little disturbing.

How can I not know these things?  She’s an invention of my imagination.

There are fiction writing gurus who will tell you to plan your characters meticulously, to know their history, their families, their personalities, their moral standings, even which toothpaste they prefer. I can see the advantage to writing that way. There is less likelihood that your character will do something, well, out of character. These same gurus will also advise you to allow for the possibility that your character might surprise you along the way.

In my previous work, I’ve tried to outline my characters as much as possible. With Heather, as well as the other characters in my story, I’m completely winging it. It’s kind of like I’m along for the ride. What better way to get to know Heather than to spend three days in the car with her?  So, yeah, I was surprised at what I learned.

Then there’s her ex-husband.  I had some thoughts about what he might be like.  Some thoughts about why they weren’t together anymore.  But Heather hasn’t really told me anything about all of that yet, not even in the four hours it took to get to Charlotte.

It wasn’t until they were face to face that I started to see some things.

The front door opened when she was halfway up the sidewalk.

“I’ll be damned.”

He was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt and looked like he hadn’t shaved for a few days. His once-blonde hair was mostly dark brown now with just a little gray around the temples. It was long and unruly and made her smile. He was aging very well.

“Hi, Robert.”

“And out of sky she fell, like an autumn leaf floating on a cool October breeze, my beautiful Heather Girl.”

He was off the porch and had wrapped his arms around her before she made it to the steps.

“It’s so good to see you.”

His voice was almost a whisper, but not quite. A true whisper would have been out of place, maybe a little threatening, a normal voice would have lost the sincerity. It was the perfect intonation, the kind of thing that came natural to Robert Scott. She had no choice but to believe his words.

And so on.

Robert is as much of a surprise as Heather.  I’m glad I didn’t plan these guys out. I really think it would have stifled the creativity.  All of this may be a complete train wreck before it’s through, but I sure am having fun writing it.  Which for me, is the whole point.

5

The Stolen Child

Author’s Notes:  This an excerpt from my novel Song of the Lost. It’s the story of James and Katherine who struggle for the lives while lost deep in the forest.  Chloe is Katherine’s estranged daughter who lives on the streets of Nashville. Although mentally challenged, she has occasionally expressed a latent musical genius.  She has been befriended by Brad McNear, a country music star in Nashville. In this scene, Chloe is hanging out a public library.

Chloe had two hours before the library would close and she went to her usual place, a table near the newspaper racks across from the reference desk. She wheeled her cart beside the table, took off the blanket, set her brass compass on the table, and took out her book of poetry. She had read the poems so many times that their rhymes and rhythms had shaped not only the songs which seemed to emanate from her spontaneously, but also her everyday speech patterns. She would have been regarded as special and lovely simply on her own natural countenance, but to those who took the time to talk to her, her poetic expression created an aura of special knowledge or prescience. In the sense that they conferred wisdom and understanding upon her, it was, of course, unwarranted. But in realm of simple clarity of truth, there was no one like her. For these reasons, Chloe Nielsen attracted people of kind and gentle heart.

Georgia Taylor, one of the librarians, was such a person.

“Hi, Chloe,” she said as she approached her table. She sat down beside her holding a book, which drew Chloe’s eyes. Its binding was old and worn, with frayed strings which at one time helped form the cloth that was glued over the cardboard cover. Along the spine in gothic letters that had faded into barely visible shadows was the name of the author: YEATS.

“Hi, Georgie,” Chloe said.

“It’s late for you to be here, isn’t it?”

Chloe nodded, then reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the pass to the show at Willie’s. She handed it to Georgia.

“Oh. This is to Brad McNear’s show tonight. Where did you get this?”

“Brad gave it to me.”

Georgia leaned back in her chair. Her look was quizzical. “Do you know Brad?”

Chloe nodded. “We play music together sometimes.”

“You play music with Brad McNear.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement of implied doubt.

“Sometimes. He recorded my song.”

Georgia could no longer feign her belief. “Are you making up a story, Chloe?”

Georgia had heard Chloe play and sing, but she had never witnessed her genius – only the three-chord cover songs that eventually disintegrated. She had never known that there was more. She gave up her pursuit of the truth.

“Well,” she said, “if you’re going over to Willie’s, be careful. The hustlers will be out trying to take advantage of the tourists. They prey on the vulnerable.”

“I know,” Chloe said.

Georgia looked at the ticket. “The show doesn’t start until eight,” she said. “You’ll have to be out of here by six. Where are you going to go until then?”

Chloe shrugged.

“Have you eaten?”

“I ate lunch at St. Mark’s.”

Georgia thought for a moment, then went to her desk. When she returned, she put a folded twenty-dollar bill into Chloe’s jacket pocket.

“There’s a sandwich shop between here and Willie’s. They’ll make you whatever you want. Get you a cup of coffee, too.”

“Can I have tea instead of coffee?”

“Of course. Just stay there until you can get in the club. They won’t care as long as you buy some food.”

“Ok.”

Georgia smiled, then slid the book in front of Chloe. “I thought you might enjoy this. I know you like poetry. This is William Butler Yeats. One of the great poets of the twentieth century. I’ve had this since I was a child. It means a lot to me. I want you to have it.”

Chloe ran her hand over the worn cover, tracing the edges with her fingers. She opened the book to a random page and felt the yellowed paper. She followed the words with her eyes, her lips moving as she did.
Georgia patted Chloe’s hand. “I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.”

“Thank you, Georgie. I will.”

Georgia went back to her desk; she had work to do before closing. Chloe opened the book of Yeats poetry to page one. She read the half title, the title page, the colophon, the table of contents, and the forward before stopping at the first poem, The Stolen Child. She glanced at the verses that seemed so long, with words that were strange and unknown. She read the first few lines, stopped, and read them again. The meaning wasn’t clear. What was this poem about? A lake, herons, rats? She read more, grasping a phrase here and there but failing to put it together into anything coherent. Until the last line of the first verse.

the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.

That, she understood.

She spent the next hour pouring over the book, reading verses and even single lines at random. It wasn’t easy. But there was something in the difficulty that was beguiling. She doubted that she would ever understand it all. She knew she would never stop reading.

It was almost six and Chloe was the only one on the main floor. She looked up at the desk, looking for Georgia. She wanted to thank her again for the book, but she didn’t see her. Chloe packed up her cart, putting her book of Yeats underneath her book of Frost, then covered them both with her thin blanket. She walked around the first floor, looking behind the stacks for Georgia, but there was no one. She started for the double doors at the front of the library and walked by the main desk.

She almost missed it. It was just another book among a dozen others to be re-shelved. But her mind filtered the blur of images so that the one book stood out and caused her to stop and turn around. She took a step back to the desk, and stared, her mouth open.

The elevator door to the right opened and Georgia exited pushing a cart. Chloe didn’t move or otherwise acknowledge her presence.

“What is it Chloe?”

“Katherine,” she answered. “That’s Katherine,” she said as she pointed to the back of the book jacket.

“Yes. Katherine Loudendale. That’s a new bestseller.” She turned the book over, revealing the cover art of the blue sneakers. “In the Forest of the Night. The story of her survival in the forest.”

Chloe turned the book over. “Katherine. My mother.”

“Katherine Loudendale is your mother?”

“Yeah.”

Georgia stared at Chloe. Anyone would have recognized the look as incredulity, but Chloe was oblivious.

“She got lost in the woods,” Chloe said.

“It’s been on the news,” Georgia said. “She was on The Shelley Show.”

“Dad got me a compass so I wouldn’t get lost.”

Georgia put her arm around Chloe. “Do you want me to take you back to the shelter?”

“No, I’m going to go hear Brad McNear.”

“Maybe I should just take you home.”

“I should go.”

“I’m worried about you Chloe,” Georgia said, but she didn’t say why.

“I’m ok, Georgie. I’m not sick that I know of.”

Georgia sighed, then hugged her from the side. “Please be careful. And go to the sandwich shop and get something to eat, ok?”

“I will. Thank you for the book.”

“You’re welcome. Try to get some rest tonight.”

“Miles to go before I rest.”

“Robert Frost,” Georgia said.

 

Coyright 2015, Joseph E Bird

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