Christine Coleman

Learning in the early morning stillness March 29, 2010

I’m not a morning person. Yet for eight years, my alarm clock has awakened me very early on weekdays (now, thanks to my Twitter friends, known as “stupid o’clock”) and I spend a couple hours before I go to my job on the real me – ideally writing.

Early morning is peaceful, almost reverential. Clear mornings like today are the best: a bright full moon overhead with tiny stars dotting the sky. This blog design was perfect for me, since it illustrates my morning time. Yet it’s more than just the sky. When the weather is warm and the windows are open, the sounds are from nature, with crickets and other insects singing their nightly songs. Traffic sounds can occasionally be heard, and sometimes a train whistle that carries all the way from the Mississippi riverfront. Now that spring is here, the lengthening days mean the birds will awaken and the sky will lighten earlier and earlier. Those elements energize me all the more.

During today’s early time, I’m clarifying all my thoughts from over the weekend about “Summer of ’94.” I re-read the latest draft, re-read all the blog comments and e-mails and Facebook responses about last week’s writing dilemma. Thank you for your feedback – it’s helped me. And I’ve come to some realizations about the story. I love Sara and her never-give-up attitude. I love that the first thing Sara does once her parents and brother leave after moving her into an apartment down the street from Wrigley Field is walk to the ballpark. It’s not a game day – which is why she moved in that day – but she has to see it for herself, revel in the fact she’s there, before she even unpacks a single box. I love how she totally breaks down crying hours into her first day on her new job when she finds out that Ryne Sandberg, her baseball idol forever, just up and retires on a Monday in June. I love her next-door neighbor Miriam. But that’s about it.

The flaws with the story are many, even after three rewrites. There’s too much going on – the changing post-college friendships with her college roommates, adjusting to a new job (that never seems as bad as Sara talks about it being), Kyle and his not-really jerkiness, the guy Ben at the train station who I threw into the latest version to prove to myself that she wasn’t interested in Kyle, the wisdom and experiences of Miriam, the memories of her Grandpa and – oh yeah – all the baseball stuff, with the growing labor disputes throughout June and July 1994 that lead to the strike in August. Whew …

“Summer of ‘94” is done. No more rewrites, no more anything.

But there’s so much I’ve learned from the process of writing its various drafts in these early morning hours. It’s time to move on now, take what I’ve learned and devote it to new writing projects that energize me. And maybe the entire thing won’t end up in the proverbial bottom drawer forever. An idea that came to mind last week was writing a series of shorts stories (after my friend Linda asked if I’d considered writing short stories, which I haven’t) that all have something to do with baseball. After more thinking, ideas for several stories developed – and I might as well use some of the insight and experiences I gained during my baseball stadium tour in 2008. (I have an entire blog on that here!) Maybe the first chapter of “Summer of ‘94” – which is one of the things I love – could be a stand-alone story. (That’s not a new idea, as an Iowa workshop instructor in 2004 who only read that chapter suggested it.) In addition to these ideas, I have many swirling around for a new novel, a different version of the National Novel Writing Month story from last November. I spent time thinking about and jotting some of those down over the weekend too.

So there’s plenty to look forward to in my early-morning time, and many new projects to start on tomorrow. And, as I hear the birds chirping outside, I realize the worst thing about this early morning time: how quickly it passes by.

A story from long ago March 26, 2010

Sincere thanks to everyone for your comments on my novel dilemma. Still pondering it all …

In the meantime, I was looking through some of the writing on my computer. Amazing the number of one and two paragraph “things” I’ve started through the years. (I have a plastic tub filled with notebooks that contain similar bits.) I also came across several stories from a children’s writing class I took in fall 1999. Re-reading these stories after such a long time was fun, because I could only remember bits and pieces of them. Here’s one of the stories I wrote — as it was the last time I edited it, on Dec. 6, 1999!

The Ghost of Jimmy Wilson

“Bye Mom! Bye Dad! Have fun at the party!” Valerie shouted as her parents walked down the driveway to their car. It was finally time for Valerie’s slumber party.

“What are we going to do first?” Ashley asked.

“Let’s call Joshua and see if he really likes Megan,” Natalie said.

“I don’t care if he does,” Megan answered.

“I know what we can do – tell ghost stories!” Valerie said.

 “OK,” Ashley replied. “Who knows a good one?”

 “Did you ever hear about Jimmy Wilson?” Valerie asked. “He lived down the road from here 30 years ago, next to where Joshua lives now.”

“Let’s go into the living room,” Ashley suggested. “And let’s keep the lights out – that will be better!”

“Look – there’s a full moon,” Megan said, looking through the picture window. “And look at those clouds getting closer to it! This is the perfect night for stories.”

The girls sat in a circle on the carpet in the dark living room, with both the moon and the streetlight outside the window combining to cast long shadows of the front yard tree across the room.

“This isn’t a story – it really happened,” Valerie began. “Jimmy Wilson was 13 years old at the time, just like us. There were fewer houses out here then, and his house was the last one on the lane. All this area was just woods, like it is across the street. Jimmy’s favorite place was the pond – the one where we ice skate. His mother always told him never go to the pond by himself – she was worried something could happen and no one would hear.”

The girls were already engrossed in Valerie’s story, sitting cross-legged with their elbows on their knees, heads resting in their hands and eyes wide. A breeze outside made the tree shadows dance across the floor.

“It was an October night, like this one, with a full moon and a breeze. But the temperature was warm, and it was very hot inside the house. Around midnight, Jimmy still wasn’t asleep because it was so hot in his room. But there was one place he knew he could cool off. He got up and tiptoed by his parents’ room – they were fast asleep. He tiptoed down the hallway then out the back door. He ran to the woods and down the paths to the pond. It looked pretty in the moonlight and felt so cool with the breeze. He knew better than to go swimming alone, so he climbed a tree next to the pond instead. Jimmy sat on a lower branch, swinging his feet and enjoying the night air.”

Valerie paused. “Keep going!” Ashley said.

“Just then the breeze shifted and a strong wind started to blow. Very quickly, clouds piled up in the sky and covered up the moon. Jimmy liked watching the clouds, so he sat on the branch looking at the sky. He didn’t realize how dark it now was and how hard seeing the path home would be without the moon. He felt scared, then realized that was silly. He’d been down the path hundreds of times – he could find his way in the dark. Suddenly, a lightning bolt flashed nearby and a huge crack of thunder rang out through the sky. It startled Jimmy. He yelled, but his cry was muffled by the thunder. At the same time he jumped up and the sudden motion caused the branch—”

A bright lightning flash lit up the room, followed by a crack of real thunder that rattled the windows. The girls screamed. “No way – I can’t believe there’s really lightning and thunder,” Megan said.

“This is getting way too creepy,” Natalie whispered.

“No, it’s not,” Ashley said, her eyes wide with anticipation. “What happened next?”

“No one knows,” Valerie said. “The next morning, Jimmy’s parents saw his empty bed and knew to look in the woods. When they got to the pond, they saw a broken branch and a torn piece of Jimmy’s pajamas on the ground. But they didn’t find him. They searched the pond and all the woods but his parents never saw him again.”

“That can’t be true,” Natalie said. “People don’t just disappear.”

“His parents never saw him again, but that doesn’t mean others didn’t. He usually appears on nights like this  – where there’s a full moon, clouds in the sky and a breeze. He’ll start out walking through the woods by the pond, this white figure dressed in pajamas. He walks around, trying to find his way back home, confused by the new houses here. Once my Dad saw him next door, looking in the Miller’s window.”

“We HAVE to turn the lights on!” Natalie yelled.

“Wait, what was that?” Ashley asked, looking down toward the carpet. “I mean it – look at that shadow!”

The girls looked at the floor. Even though the moon was now behind the clouds, the streetlight allowed them to make out the obvious shadow of a boy mixed in with the tree branches.

“Oh no, what do we do now?” Valerie whispered.

“I’m really, really scared,” Ashley said. Natalie was too terrified to speak.

“I’ll go look out the window,” Megan said, trying to sound brave.

“Look out the little window on the door instead,” Valerie whispered. “That way, he — I mean, it —, I mean no one will see you.” Lightning again flashed outside.

Megan took a few steps toward the door.

All at once there was another clap of thunder, a pounding on the door and a continuous ringing of the doorbell. The girls screamed, and Megan dove back to her circle of friends on the floor.

The pounding continued, followed by a voice from outside the door. “What are you girls screaming at?”

The girls were quiet but breathing heavy from their fear.

The voice outside continued. “Hey, come open the door!”

“Wait,” Megan whispered. “That sounds like Joshua. I’ll go see.”

“Be careful . . .” Natalie whispered back.

Megan rose again and tiptoed toward to the door. Once there, she peeked out through the window then slowly opened the door.

There on the porch stood Joshua, trying to look in the door’s window himself.

“Joshua!” Megan said, breathing a sigh of relief. “Come on in. Hey, have you heard the story of the ghost of Jimmy Wilson?”

When do you give up on a novel? March 24, 2010

Writing a novel is, not surprisingly, hard. Figuring out what to do with a novel you’ve written and rewritten several times is even harder. That’s where I’m at right now, with a question creeping into my thoughts: can I just let this novel go and move on to something new?

I’ve always loved the idea of “Summer of ’94,” and the description I wrote of it for a writing workshop several years ago still applies after several drafts:
Naïve and innocent Sara Sanders moves to Chicago after college graduation to start her first job and be near the ruling passion of her life, the Chicago Cubs. Real life hits hard as Sara endures the sudden retirement of her baseball idol, the changing friendship with her two best friends from college, a job she doesn’t really like and a boss who annoys her, plus the possibility of a baseball strike that threatens the one comfort she does have. Ultimately feeling betrayed by everything around her once the baseball strike occurs in mid-August, Sara struggles to figure out what she needs to do now.

I want that description to still apply, anyway. The biggest problem after the first draft remains the problem after the latest one: the story is more like “Bridget Jones Moves to Chicago” instead of being reminiscent of “Field of Dreams” and “The Catcher in the Rye” like I’ve always envision. From the start, I intended for Kyle, the boss, to be a jerk and for he and Sara to clash. He’s the baseball realist to her hopeless romantic, the one who should be smashing all her illusions about what the real world she’s been waiting for really is like. Except that’s not the case. Oh, sure, Kyle will occasionally say sort-of jerky things. But the way he ultimately acts toward Sara, the interaction between them, completely backs up what I learned at Bret Anthony Johnston’s writing workshop: any time there are a man and a woman interacting in a story, there is automatically sexual tension. Further, Sara and Kyle – though I won’t let them admit it – are really interested in each other. I tried to write everything possible to get away from that obvious point. Yet it dominates the story. And that’s fine, but it’s not what I want the story to be. It’s supposed to be about Sara’s interest in baseball.

Or maybe I don’t know what I want the story to be any more. Maybe I’ve added too many other elements into it. Only one person has ever read any of the drafts, my friend Linda a couple years ago. She had wonderful suggestions about what was missing, and I’ve added those parts in. Yet I’m still not thrilled with it. There are still many holes, many problems.

I’ve learned much in writing and rewriting these drafts. I’ve become a better writer. At times, I’ve put this novel aside and started on others, and it’s all been an education. The idea of shelving “Summer of ’94” for good seems surprising – I’ve put so much effort and energy into it, for many years now. Can I really abandon it?

Trying to answer that question also is where I get stuck. There are no rules for doing this, and I’m very much a by-the-rules person. (All those years of Catholic school, where I actually listened and believed what I was taught, had an impact.) I do better when there’s a step-by-step process – looking up the “Couch to 5K” program whenever I start running again, for example, or joining Weight Watchers when I originally wanted to lose weight. Do this, get these results, move forward.

I followed what I knew was the process for writing a novel – sit down and write and write and write, read through the whole draft, figure out the flaws and rewrite. And, as there are rules for the publication process, I know I need to have a version that I am really confident in before I can look for an agent. But what about when you’re not confident, even after several drafts?

How do you know when it’s okay to say to yourself “This story just isn’t going to work” and move on to create something totally new and different that will?

Welcome! March 12, 2010

Welcome to my blog!

Writing is something I’ve done for as long as I can remember, starting with stories and poems in second grade. Those continued through the years and, when older, translated into working on the newspaper and yearbook in high school and majoring in journalism at Northern Illinois University. Most of my jobs have involved writing — currently at work, I write everything from magazine and newsletter articles to blast e-mails and Facebook and Twitter posts.

Yet it’s creative writing that fulfills me the most, and it’s something I’ve focused on for 11 or so years. I started with a children’s writing class taught by a local author, then discovered the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. I’ve attended a couple of weekend workshops and several week-long ones, and the full weeks were the best — the opportunity to get away (all of 60 miles) and focus completely on creative writing. Two workshops were the most influential: a beginning novel writing course taught by Elizabeth Strout, after which I wrote my first novel, and a character course with Bret Anthony Johnston. There are so many lessons I learned from Bret. The one I put into practice most often is that a writer needs to be stubborn, dedicated and disciplined. I try. (Although lately I need to try harder.)

My first novel, Summer of ’94,  is something I’ve written and rewritten three or four (don’t really know for sure) times now, and am currently working my way through again. It focuses on my other love besides writing: baseball. It will disappoint all my Cardinals fan friends to know this novel focuses on a recent college graduate who’s a die-hard Cubs fan — please don’t hold that against me. I grew up a Cubs fan, but have since realized the error of my ways and converted. Besides, think back to what happened to baseball in the summer of ’94. That too is part of the story. Anyway, in addition to Summer of ’94, I’ve also written substantial portions of two other novels. One still interests me enough to complete, somewhere down the road. Last November, I wrote a novel during National Novel Writing Month. (Yay, I was a winner!) While the draft I wrote won’t go anywhere, it’s given me some ideas on a new story to work on next.

Yet with all the current reading and revising of Summer of ’94, I wanted — actually, needed — another outlet for writing regularly. Thus, this blog and the chance to push myself more and be creative. I hope you enjoy reading it.