I would say that I keep a novel going all the time, but there is a moment between books where I'm searching for another.
I read, not because Steven King said, "If you don't have time to read, you don't have time to write,' but because I love reading. And selfishly, I want to have beautiful phrases running through my head as encouragement, and with the hope that they will teach my brain how to write decent phrases and descriptions.
I don't tend to be flowery with words, and poetry boggles my mind, like someone writing music—how in the heck do they do it? That Dolly Parton keeps perking them out. "I write the songs that make the young girl's cry," Oh, that wasn't her song. Bruce Johnson (1975) wrote it. And in 1977, it won a Grammy for Barry Manilow.
At first, Manilow didn't want to sing the song, for unless you really listen to the words, it sounds like an ego trip for the lyricist.
"I Write the Songs," wrote Joanna Landrum, "isn't just a self-aggrandizing anthem for the gifted songwriter; it's a poetic ode to the universal power of music. At its core, the song celebrates the emotional and transformative impact of music on humanity, suggesting that the essence of music itself is the actual creator of songs."
"I wrote the very first song." The MUSE. GOD, MUSIC?
Finally, in my search for novels, I decided to check out the best and found Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, a Pulitzer Prize nominee. Over the years, I had heard of that book but didn't know what it was about — a scholarly book about Christianity or the Bible? No, it was a bestseller about the Congo, with religion, philosophy, and politics intertwined in a way that only a deft hand can achieve.
It deeply impacted me.
Poisonwood has two meanings; one is a plant in the Congo that, when touched, will give a terrible rash. The other means Blessed. There are many words, especially in primitive cultures, that have multiple meanings.
The Poisonwood Bible was set in the Eisenhower era when the US was trying to bring Democracy to the Belgian Congo. (Or force, and it looks as though they are trying again.) The Poisonwood Bible is about a Missionary family who move to the Congo to give them Christianity. The father, the Preacher, is so obsessed with bringing Christ and baptizing all the little heathens that he would let his family starve to do it. And starving is what the natives of their village are constantly on the verge of while trying their damnest to avoid.
The viewpoint is from the wife, the mother, and her four daughters. Each of the five has their own voice, which Kingsolver said she wrote their monologues over and over to get their tones and perspectives.
One point I took away was that democracy doesn't work when people rush to a vote without having a viable discussion and coming to some consensus. As an old chief said, "When a vote is 49 to 51, half the population is angry all the time.
Kingsolver lived in the Congo for a time, and she said she researches the devil out of her books. She wants to be honest and have her readers trust her. One point that surprised me is that Kingsolver isn't afraid to use cliches, idioms, and everyday speech in her writing, something writing teachers try to drum out of writers. "Your writing is too good to use convenient slang." Well well.
I also read Kingsolver's The Bean Trees, which I loved. It warmed my heart; it didn't tear it out. I got a kick out of her description of Oklahoma, where my husband and I attended school for two years. In The Bean Trees, I gained some insight into the Cheyenne Nation of Oklahoma.
And people read more non-fiction because it teaches them something. Hum.
Kingsolver won the Pulitzer prize for Damon Copperhead, which I've chosen not to read for I don't want to endure a little boy getting slapped around by a man his mother marries.
I can take just so much angst.
I read a sweet little book this past week titled The Family Journal by Carolyn Brown about a divorced mother who finds her 14 girl smoking marijuana and her little 12-year-old boy sneaking out at night to drink beer. She decided that tough love was in order and moved them to a small town where she had inherited her family's old house and rented it to an agriculture teacher. (Enter a hunk.) It's handy to have an inheritance, but then, that is the stuff of novels. It reminded me of how much fun it is to grow up on a farm, as well as how much work it entails. Children seldom get bored on the farm and often begin to love and care for the animals.
The kids hate her at first, of course.
When I closed the book, I said, "Now that was refreshing."
*Here are Barbara Kingsolver's five rules for writers:
1. Give yourself permission to write a bad book.
2. Revise until it isn't a bad book.
3. Get cozy with your own company.
4. Study something besides writing.
5. If you're young and smoke, you should quit.
She goes on to say that you want to live to an old age, for it is then that you do your best writing.
There's hope for me yet.
P.S. I'm listening, I don't hear you. Love you anyway.
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