Creatively Thinking: What to do when you hit a wall in your novel writing

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

It’s happening.

I’ve hit a wall in my novel.

My second novel, A New Beginning, the sequel to A Story to Tell, is much more of a challenge than the first.

My husband keeps saying I need to take a break from it and walk away but he doesn’t understand that in my head these are real people and I need to find out the ending to this chapter of their lives! How can I do that if I don’t sit down and let them talk to me? Only they won’t talk to me! Why won’t they talk to me?!

The main two challenges with this sequel are that I am writing in first person again and the second is that I’ve gone off-script in that my first novel was based on a true story and the second is completely going beyond my knowledge of the original story.

Some writers, who are plotters, would say I’ve hit a wall because I don’t plot down to the last period, but I don’t like to plot that extensively. Plotting in such a detailed way takes the fun out of writing for me. To me, once the details are on the page, fully written out or not, I’ve lost interest because the story has already been told. In other words, I’m a panster because I feel like the characters are telling me the story and I’m just transcribing it as I got along.

Despite the fact I’m not a seasoned novel writer, I’ve learned and discovered some tips to help me through this bog or over this wall and thought I’d share it here for others who might be writing a novel or any other kind of book.

1. Do what my husband said (eye roll) and take a break from your current Work In Progress (WIP)

Go work on another writing project or no project at all. Put your current project aside for a couple weeks or, if you aren’t on a deadline, a couple of months.

This week I’ve put A New Beginning aside for a couple of days and continued working on my third novel The Farmer’s Daughter, which is spawning ideas for a series (The Spencer Valley Chronicles). The Farmer’s Daughter is written in the third person, versus first-person like A Story to Tell and A New Beginning and it’s about a young woman named Molly Tanner who wonders if the world has anything to offer for a 26-year old with little life experience beyond her family’s farm and her small Pennsylvania town. Farmhand Alex Stone, drama with her best friend, and her father’s struggle to keep the farm running will distract Molly from wondering about life beyond the farm.

2. Develop your supporting characters. This was a suggestion from Jess Zafarris in an article on Writer’s Digest. Zafarris, drawing from author and podcast host Gabriela Pereira’s book DIY MFA, suggests telling more about the side characters in the book who support your protagonist. You should make sure these characters enhance the journey of your main character and help bring you closer to the ending you hope for your novel to have.

For me, this has meant writing about how Blanche relates to others in her life – from her sister Edith to her parents (especially her dad) and her best friend Emmy. Of course, I’ll also have to write a little about Hank, her son Jackson, and certain other individuals who might pop up as any type of love interest in her story. Ahem.

3. Define who your character(s) is/are. If you haven’t already, write down a paragraph about your protagonist and his/her characteristics that will help push you through the middle. For me this is close to plotting, but not quite. I ask myself “what would Main Character (MC) do? What does MC like? What issues does MC have in this book that we can address in this middle section.” So far, it’s working and it helped me push through a couple plot points that had me stuck.

4. Use the midpoint of the story to focus the story. Another suggestion from Zafarris is to use the midpoint of the story to focus your story. You can do this by reaching a climax of sorts in the story that will continue to propel you toward your conclusion. One way to craft this high point in a story is to make it seem your MC has reached their goal or has completely failed at it, Zafarris says. To me, this seems a bit cliche, but at the same time, I see what she’s getting at.

“Though they might seem opposite, the temporary triumph and the false failure share a common thread: In both cases, the external events lead to an internal moment where the protagonist must decide how she feels about the person she has become,” Pereira writes. “This introspection may be a complete turning point where the protagonist reconsiders every aspect of her personality … [or] a slight shift. … As with any aspect of a good story, the external events need to reflect and contribute to the internal journey that eventually makes the protagonist grow and change.”

5. Daydream. This one is the simplest for me since a lot of my scenes play out like movies in my head. I try to give myself time to daydream, which usually happens at night. Daydreaming isn’t hard for me because I seemed to always float through life while living in my head when I was a kid and that’s been something that has translated into adulthood as well.

I think about my characters and what situation I need them to work through and then from there, my brain will jump to a conversation they might have with another character, which spurs an entire scene playing out in my mind. The only problem with this process is that the daydreams often come late at night for me so there I am at 1 a.m., sitting up in bed, grabbing my phone and jotting down the scene I started creating in my mind. As I’ve mentioned before, this way of writing a novel can make some days hard to get through, but it’s simply how and when my creative brain works.

6. Review parts of your novel that are working and you like. This suggestion came from Writers Relief.com, which suggests waking up your creative mind for that hard middle section by re-reading the parts of the novel that work for you. By reading those sections again you may find a way to write the middle of the novel, needed to help build up to or around those moments you find complete already. After all, the idea of a novel is to build a story. This is something I keep reminding myself. When I write a scene I really enjoy, I tell myself that I can’t simply rush to the next scene I like because there needs to be some story building, some pulling in of the reader that makes them feel like they are on an enjoyable walk and not a high-speed roller coaster ride to the end. Of course, if you’re writing a thriller or a mystery, you might want the high-speed aspect, but for me, with my slower paced, clean romances, I prefer a leisurely, yet still interesting stroll.

7. Read the works of others you enjoy and even some you don’t. When you read a story you enjoy this can help give you ideas for your own story, not by stealing ideas but by inspiring you through your own character and their situations. Reading a good book is also a nice distraction from your struggles with your novel. The story in the book you choose to read can help clear your mind and show you what you can and should do with your story.

Reading stories you don’t like can also help show you what you do not want to do in your own novel. If there is a plot twist or a weak character development, you will see it as something to steer clear of in your own writing. Or maybe the book is a popular and well-received one but you know it’s still not how you want to write your own book. Either way, it can help define how you get through the rough spot of your novel.

8. Write a synopsis of your story. As novel writers know, a synopsis is a summary of what your book is about. Writing this can help you to hone what scenes you still need or may need to eliminate from the book to make it more concise and carry your story forward. You’re going to need this later anyhow, whether you go the traditional route and send the synopsis to a literary agent or go the indie publishing route, like I did, and toss your book up on Kindle.

9. Try writing prompts related to your WIP and your MC.

Instead of using a writing prompt to kick start a flash fiction piece or a novel, use the prompts to ask yourself things like “What would happen if my MC did this instead of this?” or “What if this person said this or that to my main character?” Imagining other scenarios for the outcome of your novel could help to pull you out of the writing rut as well.

10. Do something physical, completely unrelated to writing. This is similar to get up and walk away from your project for a while. Go for a walk, a run, a swim, anything to get your body moving, your endorphins flowing, and your brain off your story. Or, maybe your brain will be on your story as you walk and something will break loose and help you carry forward.

For extra information on overcoming writer’s block, I’ve included this link to best-selling author Jerry B. Jenkins talking about how to overcome it. Please try to ignore how the camera is focused on the books behind him for most of this video. The advice is very good, despite that odd recording blip.

Lisa R. Howeler is a writer and photographer from the “boondocks” who writes a little bit about a lot of things on her blog Boondock Ramblings. She’s published a fiction novel ‘A Story to Tell’ on Kindle and also provides stock images for bloggers and others at Alamy.com and Lightstock.com.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 6 & 7

December 13, 2019December 19, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 1 Comment

If you want to catch the beginning of Blanche’s story, you can read it on Kindle and Kindle Unlimted. However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning.

If you want to read A New Beginning’s chapters that have been posted so far, you can find themhere (or at the top of the page).

As always, this is the first draft of a story. There will be typos and in the future, there will be changes made, some small, some large and as before I plan to publish the complete story later as an ebook. Also, sorry about the lack of indentations at the beginning of paragraphs. I can’t seem to figure out how to make that happen in WordPress.

As the nights get colder and we snuggle under covers, warm cups of tea and a book in our hands, let us embrace how life slows down to give us time to experience life around us in a simpler way. Don’t look at winter as just a time for dreary weather, cold winds, or snow to shovel this year. Instead, see it as what it can be – a time to pause, reflect and reconnect with those in your family as you wait for the warmth to come again.

I finished the last paragraph of my column, pulled the page from the typewriter and slid it into the envelope so I could drop it off at the newspaper office the next day. I pulled my sweater close around me as I stood and looked out my bedroom window at the leaves falling from the maple tree in our backyard. The colors weren’t as brilliant this autumn as they had been in previous years but mixed among the dark oranges and browns were a few bright yellow and red bursts of foliage across the hills that surrounded our small valley.

Jackson had been in school a little over a month now and while he had cried the first day I took him, he seemed to love it now. I missed him terribly during the day and I anxiously watched the clock, walking to the school every day to meet him outside. My heart melted at how his face lit up when he saw me, leaving behind the friends he’d been talking to so he could run to me and throw his arms around me. I walked with him back to the shop each day and we waited there for Daddy to finish at the office, pick us up and take us home.

I was happy to see him growing but struggling with it at the same time. He was growing so fast. His childhood seemed to be rushing by and I wanted to stop time and just enjoy it all a little more. I’d never thought I’d be a mother and now I could barely remember life before Jackson.

“Hey, Mama.”

I turned to see Jackson looking up at me, one of his toy trucks clutched in his hands.

“Hey, squirt. What are you doing?”

“I’m pretending I’m a truck driver and I’m gonna dig a hole in the backyard.”

“That sounds fun.”

I sat on the edge of my bed and lifted him into my lap, pressing my face into his soft brown hair.

“How are you liking school?”

Jackson scrunched up his nose, spinning the wheels on his truck. “It’s okay, I guess. ‘cept for all that writing and numbers. That stuff’s borin’. But I like when we get to do that recess thing. And lunch is good, unless we have meatloaf. They don’t know how to make it like Grandma.”

I knew recess was his favorite part of the day by how hard I’d had to scrub his pants clean lately.

“Mama, how come I don’t have no brother or sister?”

The way children could change a topic so abruptly amazed me. I knew questions like this one would come one day and while I dreaded them, I knew being honest was important. Still, I wondered how honest I should be with a 6-year old.

“Well, honey, because right now Mommy and you live with Grandpa and Grandma and there really isn’t room for a brother or sister.”

I felt confident that while my answer didn’t address the lack of a husband to help provide a sibling, it still wasn’t a lie.

“Oh.” Jackson furrowed his little eyebrows and scrunched his nose again. “Well, if we move away, can I have a brother or sister?”

“Do you really want to move away from Grandpa and Grandma?”

“No. I like living here, but I want a brother too.”

“What if you had a sister one day instead?”

“No. That won’t happen. I’d have a brother.”

“Are you sure about that? You know you don’t get to choose, right?”

“What would I do with a sister? I don’t wanna play with no dolls or dresses.”

“Honey, some girls like to climb trees and play with trucks too, you know. I always did.”

Jackson scrunched up his face like he was deep in thought.

“Well, then, maybe I can have a sister, I guess.”

I kissed his cheek and hugged him close. “For right now, you don’t need to worry about that, though. Why don’t you and I bake some cookies after dinner?”

“Chocolate chip?”

“What other kind is there?”

“Cool.”

I watched as he slid from my lap and ran from the room, his toy tightly clutched in his hand. There were some days I liked that it was just Jackson and me, but other days I found myself aching for a father for Jackson and a man to love me. I didn’t like, however, that my family, and apparently even Emmy, thought any gaps in my life could be filled with a man. I knew for a fact that a man wasn’t the answer to all the problems in a woman’s life and, if anything, a man seemed to complicate it more.

Hank had certainly complicated my life, first with his attention and then with how he’d treated me not long after we were married. The arrival of Judson was threatening to complicate things too, but I was determined not to let it – at least not in a romantic way. I had a feeling even a friendship with him would throw a wrench in the regularly scheduled program that was my current life.

***

“What made you leave with Hank that day, Blanche?”

Six months after I’d returned home with Jackson and Edith had apparently decided it was time I share my thoughts behind leaving my family. I focused on the apples I was peeling for the apple pie and tried to decide how to answer without sounding like a silly schoolgirl. But there wasn’t any way I wouldn’t sound silly or trite. I had been a schoolgirl and I had been silly. My thoughts were immature; my idea of what life should be skewed by romance novels and Ava Gardner movies.

“I thought I loved him,” I said finally, still not making eye contact with Edith. “I was very stupid and naïve. I know that now.”

“I didn’t ask you to make you feel bad, Blanche. I just really wanted to know. I never really asked you. I guess I figured it was none of my business, even though I was dying to know since I never expected you to do that.”

I laid the knife down and gnawed gently at my nails, a habit I’d picked up on the days I wasn’t sure which Hank was coming home from work.

“I think,” I started, with a shrug. “That’s partly why I did it. No one expected me to. Everyone seemed to always know what I was going to do, what I was supposed to do, who I was supposed to be. Mama and Daddy seemed to have my life planned out for me. Everyone saw me as boring and predictable and you – well, you weren’t. In the back of my mind I guess I wanted to prove everyone wrong. I wanted to write my own story and I wanted Hank to be in it. I did love him, or the version of him I imagined in my mind. I didn’t know . . .” I starred out the window at a car driving by the house. “Well, who he really was underneath the charm and handsome façade.”

Edith picked an apple from the bowl and started peeling it. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way. It was never my intention. Honestly, I had no idea.”

I laughed softly. “Edith, I’m not blaming you. It was how I felt at the time. Feelings are not always facts, as we know.”

“True,” Edith said. “And what we think are facts are sometimes simply facades – like the idea I was always spontaneous or fun, or whatever you thought I was. You must know by now that I was simply a lost girl who never accepted my parents’ or God’s love as being enough. I thought I had to have a bunch of boys love me too.”

She shook her head as she tossed the slices into the pie crust. “I was so foolish back then. I guess you and I were foolish together. Thankfully God protected us from doing any worse harm to ourselves or anyone else and brought us back to our senses.”

“I only wish it hadn’t taken me so long to come back to mine,” I said, feeling tears in my eyes. “And I wish it hadn’t taken Hank beating me to wake me up. I did bring harm to at least one person – Jackson.”

Edith reached across the table and cupped her hand against my cheek.

“What’s done is done and it’s time to move forward. For both of us.”

Over the years, I did my best to move forward, as Edith had said, rebuild the relationships I’d damaged when I left but I was still stuck, especially when it came to building new relationships. I wasn’t only disinterested in navigating the world of romance; I wasn’t even interested in meeting new people. My experience with Hank had left me with a healthy dose of mistrust, not only in others, but also in myself. When I was younger, I had trusted myself to make the right decisions, to know by how a situation felt whether it was right or not. Leaving with Hank had felt right at the inexperienced age of 17 had moved forward with a confidence I no longer possessed.

Edith poured hot water over my tea bag and set the milk and sugar next to me. “Part of that moving forward means reaching for those dreams you had for your future before you left. So, what did you imagine you’d do with your life one day, before you met Hank Hakes?”

I stirred milk into my tea and shook my head. “Those were just childish thoughts, Edith. Like a lot of the thoughts I had back then.”

“You wanted to be a writer. I remember that. Why don’t you start writing? Even if it’s just for yourself. You still keep a journal right? Oh! Why don’t you submit a column to the local paper? You could write about small-town life, the weather, whatever. People around here really love those types of columns and our paper needs that. Take a sample column over to the editor and see what happens.”

I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Why not? What do you have to lose?”

I laughed. “Certainly not my pride. I lost that a long time ago.”

“Oh, stop it, Blanche. Just go for it. You never know what will happen and there is no use living in the past. We’re moving forward, remember? This is just one more step you can take to do that.”

Check out the latest chapters for this story every Friday here on the blog and also follow me on Wattpad.

Fiction Friday: A New Beginning Chapter 2 Part 2

November 15, 2019November 21, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 2 Comments

Just issuing a “warning” again: If you haven’t read the first part of Blanche’s story, A Story to Tell, you might not want to read A New Beginning, which is the second part of her story. You can find the first part of Blanche’s story on Kindle or in Paperback, on Amazon (after December 17 it will be on all ebook readers and on other paperback sellers). However, you don’t have to read the first part to be able to enjoy A New Beginning. Also this week, there is a *trigger warning* for anyone who has suffered a miscarriage. There is nothing too graphic but just in case it brings up some difficult memories.

Light, Shadows & Magic (2) As I rode in the back of Daddy’s new Oldsmobile with Jackson, on the way home from Emmy’s, I thought about that awful night almost four years ago at the hospital.

I had held Edith against me as she sobbed, her body trembling. The delivery room smelled of antiseptic and blood and nurses worked to clean Edith’s legs and change the blood-soaked sheets.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her, though I really wasn’t sure how it was going to be okay.

Nothing was okay about Edith going into labor so early and her baby girl being delivered already dead. I was shaking, trying not to cry so I could be strong for her. Guilt consumed me. I’d done everything wrong, eloping with a man who turned out to be abusive, throwing my education and a chance at a career away, yet Edith was the one being punished.

Edith’s crying stopped abruptly and she went limp against me. I looked down at her pale face, her eyes closed. Panic seized me and I could barely breathe.

“Edith?” I shook her gently. “Edith?”

Her head flopped back away from me, toward the pillows on the bed.

“Edith!” I screamed.

A nurse rushed toward us, reaching for Edith’s wrist and laying two fingers against Edith’s neck.

“She’s just unconscious,” the nurse told me then darted out the door, calling for the doctor.

The doors to the delivery room burst open moments later and the doctor rushed in with Jimmy behind him.

“Edith?” Jimmy stepped toward the bed, but the nurse stood in front of him.

“Let the doctor check her,” she said. “Just hold on.”

I was still sitting on the edge of the bed, holding Edith’s hand, trembling with shock. I looked at Jimmy, his eyes filling with tears.

“She’s lost a lot of blood,” the doctor said, laying his hand on my shoulder. “We are going to start a blood transfusion and we need you to step outside while we prep her. We’ll be out to talk to your family when we have a better idea what is going on.”

Jimmy helped me stand, his hand on my arm. I stumbled with him out into the dimly lit hallway to the waiting room.

Mama stood from where she’d been sitting, holding Daddy’s hand, and I fell into her arms, crying against her chest, shaking.

“The baby – the baby didn’t make it,” Jimmy said his voice breaking with emotion. “They’re giving Edith a blood transfusion now. She’s lost a lot of blood.

“Oh, dear Jesus.” Mama gasped the words through her tears.

Her arms tightened around me as Daddy began to pray out loud.

“Father, we commend the spirit of Edith and Jimmy’s baby into your arms and we humbly ask you now to spare our Edith, keep her safe, bring her back to us while always understanding that it is your will that will be done. Amen.”

Daddy’s voice was loud and clear, full of love, yet tinged with sadness.

Mama, Jimmy and I echoed the amen, before collapsing into chairs to wait for the doctor. I drifted to sleep against Mama’s shoulder, jerking awake an hour later as the doctor entered the waiting room. The expression on his face was relaxed, relieved. “She’s lost a lot of blood and she’s weak, but I think the worst is over.”

“Thank God,” Mama said, her eyes red from crying.

“I don’t want you to think this is going to be an easy recovery,” the doctor said, his tone somber. “She’ll be here several days and will need weeks to recover, but –“ He smiled wearily. “We’re in better shape than we were a couple hours ago.”

Jimmy stepped forward and took the doctor’s hand.

“Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

The doctor’s eyes rimmed with tears as he clasped Jimmy’s hand. “Of course, young man. I’m sorry we couldn’t save the baby.”

“You did the best you could,” Jimmy said.

As the doctor turned to leave, Jimmy stopped him.

“Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Will we – will she –“

The doctor smiled weakly, clearly exhausted. “You’ll be able to try again, if that’s what you’re asking, yes. Not right away, but eventually, yes. This was just a fluke, you might say. I don’t expect it will ever happen again.”

Jimmy wiped his hand across his face to wipe away the tears.

“Thank you, sir.”

“When can we see her?” I asked.

“You can go in anytime but keep the visits short. She needs her rest.”

Mama hugged me and Daddy hugged us and then we pulled Jimmy in with us. We stood in the middle of the waiting room and cried together, mourning and rejoicing at the same time.

Daddy and I watched Edith sleep that night, him sitting in a chair next to her bed, me curled up in a chair near the window. We’d sent Jimmy and Mama home to rest, knowing they’d return tomorrow and send us home to rest. The fading daylight cast a pink hue across the room and left a chill in the air.

Edith looked so frail against the pillow. Her skin blended in with the sterile white of the hospital sheets. I stood and brushed her hair back off her forehead, watching her sleep, remembering all our nights together as children, before our teenage years, before she decided I was a boring stuck in the mud.

“Blanche, do you think there is really a God up there?” she asked one night as we laid in our beds in the dark.

“Yes,” I said confidently.

“Why?”

“Well, I can’t imagine all the beauty of the world came together by accident.”

“What about all the ugliness of the world?”

I laid there, silent, thinking.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“Why doesn’t God stop the evil of the world? Like why are there wars? Why did Uncle Jason have to die in Korea?”

I wiped at tears with the back of my hand.

“I don’t know,” I said again. “But one day we’ll know, and we’ll all understand why God didn’t stop it. I guess it’s like Pastor Frank said, God gave us free will and sin was chosen by Adam and Eve. Once sin entered our world even innocent people suffered. I don’t know why Uncle Jason died but I know we will see him again one day.”

Edith sighed in the darkness and I swore I could hear her eyes rolling.

“Oh, Blanche, sometimes you’re just so naïve and trusting.”

Now, in this hospital room filled with wires and IVs and beeping machines, Edith and I seemed to be reversed in our beliefs.

“God has a plan,” she had whispered to me when she woke up, after the first round of blood loss, before drifting off again into another round of deep sleep.

“A plan for what?” I wanted to ask. “A plan to take away your baby? A plan to let Hank become bitter and abusive?”

I was angry at God, but I didn’t know if that was a proper emotion to feel. I was angry that God had taken Edith’s baby. I was angry that it seemed like Edith was being punished when she’d made up for all her past mistakes and was doing all the things the Bible said was right to do in the sight of God. Why wasn’t I the one being punished for my mistakes?

I heard a soft sigh and looked over at the chair where Daddy was sitting, leaning forward, his head in his hands.

“Daddy? Are you okay?”

I heard him softly crying and tears dripped through his fingers.

“I’m sorry, Blanche,” he whispered.

“Sorry? For – ”

“I’m sorry I let my anger over what you did drive a wedge between us for so long. I’m sorry I made you feel like you couldn’t come to me when Hank started hurting you. I’m sorry I -” His voice caught with emotion – “didn’t protect you from Hank. All I keep thinking is how I could have lost both of you. My God. What would I have done without both of my girls?”

I walked over and knelt in front of Daddy, pulling his hands from his face. His eyes were swollen from crying. I kissed his forehead.

“It’s okay, Daddy. I took for granted how much you loved me and how you were trying to protect me when you told me to stay away from Hank. I’m sorry it took me so long to admit that what I did was wrong.”

Daddy leaned his forehead against mine and we sat in the floor of Edith’s hospital room, in the glow of a setting sun, crying together. It was the forgiveness we both needed.

“So, Blanche…” Mama’s voice cut through my memories and I looked up at her, wiping tears from my face. “Oh. Why are you crying? Are you okay?”

Mama looked concerned and reached over the back seat, reaching for my hand.

“I was just thinking about Edith,” I said as her fingers encircled mine.

“I know, sweetie. We never know what God’s plans are, though. Things could change for Edith and Jimmy and maybe they’ll be blessed with the baby they’ve always wanted, just as Emmy and Sam are. We can’t give up hope.”

She pulled her hand away to grab a tissue from her purse. “You’ve got to start taking tissues with you places if you’re going to be sniffing and weeping like your mama.”

I laughed as I wiped the tears and blew my nose.

“Your nose is snotty, Mama,” Jackson informed me.

“Thank you, honey. I would never have known if you hadn’t told me.”

My sarcasm was lost on my son.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “Glad to help.”

Do you have a fiction story you’ve shared on your blog? Leave me a link in the comments so I can check it out. If I figure out how to offer a link-up on my blog, I plan to start doing that in future weeks!

Oh. So that’s why writing book two has been such a challenge.

October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 8 Comments

I have been having a hard time writing the second part of Blanche’s story and I think it is because I had so much fun sharing the first part on my blog and interacting with some of my readers about it as I went along, and I haven’t been doing that with this book.

A-Story-to-Tell

I was able to go back and make changes before I published the book on Kindle, but sharing it in pieces and receiving feedback as I wrote it, was fun. I’ve heard this is similar to how Wattpad works, but I don’t know if I’m really interested in sharing it with that many people. I don’t mind sharing it with the few people who read my blog, however, because my blog readers are cool people, with similar tastes, who aren’t afraid to give me polite pointers.

I’ve also been struggling with Blanche sharing with me the second part of her story like she did the first part. I’m fairly certain I just heard many of you say to yourselves: ‘I’m sorry what? You think your character is talking to you? How many drugs are you on?” I know. It sounds weird but, yes, sometimes I feel like my characters tell me their stories in bits and pieces and I wake up (because they don’t tell me when I’m awake apparently) and jot down what they’ve shared with me, flushing it out later.

The first part of Blanche’s story came out pretty quickly, but now I’m struggling with what happens since she’s (SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST STORY) left Hank and come home to live with her parents. I already have plenty of ideas and a few chapters in rough draft form, though, so it is coming together. The second part of the story will introduce a few new characters but also continue the story of other characters in Blanche’s life.

Will Hank find redemption, like my dad is vying for? Or will he disappear completely from the scene? We will have to wait and see – including this writer who hasn’t totally decided what will happen with Hank yet.

And what about the arrival of Blanche’s friend Emmy’s cousin? What role will Judson “J.T.” Waignwright play, if any? And then there is Edith, Blanche’s older sister. How is married life (and parenthood?) treating her? When we left her she was expecting. Hank’s mom was also on scene, hoping to have a relationship with her grandson, and searching for her own healing from her own abusive marriage.

What will happen to Emmy and who is Stanley Jasper?

We’ll see every Friday, starting this Friday when I start sharing chapters from “A New Beginning,” the sequel to “A Story to Tell.”

Fiction Friday: The Librarian

October 4, 2019October 3, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

For this week’s Fiction Friday I’m sharing part of a story I’m working on, a character I’m developing. As always, this is a work in progress and it hasn’t yet been proofed, so there can always be typos or errors in it. Feel free to let me know about typos in the comments.

My first novel is for sale on Amazon Kindle.

Ginny Jefferies unlocked the back door of the library and slipped inside as quickly as she could, slamming the door behind her and standing in the darkened doorway. She hoped no one had seen her enter, thinking that the library was already open. There were hours posted on the front door, but people rarely read them and often tried to open the door no matter the time.

“Can’t I just slip inside and grab that new Jan Karon book?” Mrs. Fraley had said one morning, waving at Ginny as she rushed across the parking lot in the pouring rain.

“I don’t even have the system up to check you out, but we’re open in an hour,” Ginny said, holding her umbrella against a gust of wind.

Mrs. Fraley clasped her bright pink rain hat against her head with both hands.

“Well, it will just take moment and you can write it down that I took it out,” she said, insistent. “I’ve been waiting for months for that book.”

“I’m not even sure if it’s been checked out or not.. .” Ginny started.

“All I need to do is check real quick,” Mrs. Fraley pushed past her.

Ginny shook the umbrella off inside the door, peeling her wet clothes off as Mrs. Fraley rushed across the front of the library in search of the book.

“You open?” Dan Bennett’s head appeared inside the door she’d forgot to lock behind her. He didn’t wait for her to answer. “Good because I need to print an important paper off for my insurance man. Wouldn’t you know it, the printer ran out of ink just last night.”

“I haven’t actually turned the computers on yet –“ Ginny started.

“No problem at all,” Dan said with a wave of his hand, stepping inside. “I’ll get them for you. One less thing for you to do this morning.”

“Ah, okay, but I-“

The door opened again.

“Is it time for storytime yet?” Mary Ellis was holding the hand of two toddlers with a third young child standing behind her, all three of them dripping water on the carpet inside the door.

“Storytime isn’t for another two hours,” Ginny said, hoping to usher them back outside.

“That’s okay,” Mary said pushing past her. “Well, just spend some time in the children’s room. You still have those blocks and toys here right? The kids will love that and it’s better than trying to entertain them at home.”

“I – -oh – dear,” Ginny decided then and there to make her entrance into the library as incognito as possible from then on.

Ginny leaned back against the closed door and sighed. So far so good. No one was pounding on the door and she seemed to have made it in unseen. She looked around the two-story library, lit only by the curved windows above the shelves on one side of the main room, and enjoyed the silence. Sunlight streamed in through a high window on the main floor, pouring light across the Women’s Literature section.

The building was the former Spencer Family mansion, built in 1901 and deeded to the town in 1967 to be used as a community library. Walls had been knocked down, floors removed, to create a large open room for six-foot high bookshelves, ten rows on each floor. The Spencer family patriarch, J.P. Spencer, had left the building to the library association in his will, much to the fury of his remaining family members, a son who already lived in a mansion on the other end of town and a daughter from a previous marriage who had never even lived in the town. J.P.’s family had founded the railroad company in the town in the mid-1800s, making the company the second largest employer in the county at one time, next to farming. These days railroad and farming were dying out, fading away like an actual physical newspaper.

Ginny refrained from turning the main lights on, still hoping to remain in silence at least until her first cup of coffee was finished. She plopped down in the plush chair at the front desk and stared blankly at the row of computers, urging her brain to turn on before she turned them on. The computers were fairly new, especially the ones in the gaming stations in the library basement.

The introduction of computers that ran video games was not something Ginny had been in favor of. The library board had overruled her, insisting they were needed to stay with the times and appeal to the younger generation. For Ginny, the library was a place to read, a place to fill a child’s head with knowledge, not somewhere for them to destroy brain cells playing ridiculous games on a computer.

“Well, who knows, maybe when they are done playing their games they’ll wander up the stairs and find books!” Frank Rouse had said during the meeting, talking with his hands, as usual, long arms flapping around like a chimpanzee on speed as he talked. “We’ve got to move into the future, Ginny or become a relic of the past. It isn’t me driving the demand, it’s society. We need to meet that demand or simply watch libraries be boxed up with the rest of the artifacts.”

Artifacts and relics. It was all Frank seemed to be able to talk about since he’d hit the age of 65 and Ginny wondered if it was because he felt like he was becoming both. There were days she knew she felt like it and she was 10 years younger than him.

With a deep sigh, Ginny walked back to the office in the back of the building flipped the light switch and walked to the coffee pot she’d brought in herself to keep her and her assistant Sarah awake for the day. As the dark roast brew hit her nostrils she closed her eyes and thought about how she’d bucked the stereotypical trend of being a spinster librarian, but sometimes she wished she hadn’t.

Ginny had been the librarian of the Spencer Valley Memorial Library for 20 years and married to Stan Jeffries, a small-town real estate star, for 30 years. Stan served two counties through Jeffries Real Estate and two years prior had been named Real Estate Agent of the year for this region of Pennsylvania. Stan and Ginny didn’t spend as much time together as they used to, but they had settled into a comfortable routine, especially since their last child had moved out a few years ago, and that was more than some couples had. Still, Ginny had recently begun to wonder if being a spinster would actually be less lonely than her marriage had become.

Sipping hot coffee 15 minutes later, she flicked her fingers across the row of light switches in the main room. Fluorescent highlighted the bookcases and tables, the children’s room, and the doorway of the conference room. The rectangle over the mysteries and thrillers section was still flickering, making her feel slightly off balance. She’d have to ask the volunteer maintenance man, George Farley, who was also the town’s funeral home director, self-proclaimed town historian, and director of the local community theater, to help her change it this week.

She picked up a book from the return pile and did what she always did to start her day – opened the book and inhaled the smell of ink and paper deep into her lungs. She loved the smell of books. She loved the feel of a book. She wasn’t a fan of what others called “ebooks.” She didn’t want to hold some device in her hand, she wanted to touch a book, hold it and lose herself into another world with each turn of the page.

Ginny had been reorganizing the bookshelves in the library for the last few weeks. Becoming more involved in her work meant she didn’t have to focus on how dull and mundane her life had become since the last of her children had moved out of the house the year before.

“If only one of them would give me a grandbaby already,” she said with a sigh as she sat at her desk and turned on the computer to start entering the returned books into the system. The switch from paper filing to computers was another update she had briefly fought against before admitting typing information into a computer was easier than pulling open drawers and flipping through rows of index cards.

The back door squeaked open and Ginny’s assistant Sarah Shultz slipped in quickly and slammed the door behind her, leaning against it as if to hold back some kind of nefarious onslaught.

“I think Ed Pickett just saw me from the diner front window,” she said breathlessly. “He knew I was coming here. He could be here any minute.”

“Oh good grief. It’s way too early and way too Monday for Ed,” Ginny said sipping her coffee and closing her eyes. “I hope he finally reads the hours on the front door.”

Ed, the incessantly question asking Ed.

“Do you think I’d like the new John Grisham book or the new Tom Clancy?”

“Should I try out this new book by this woman author? I don’t usually read women authors. Too much estrogen for me.”

“I’ll just sit over here with these books, read the first chapter of each and decide which one I’ll check out. Okay?”

Then there was that time he had read the same book she was reading.

“Ah, that’s a good one,” he said, leaning one elbow against the front desk. “Too bad he killed the love interest off in the last chapter. I really liked her.”

Sarah lifted the strap of her messenger bag over her head and laid it behind the front desk.

“Rough weekend?” she asked Ginny.

Ginny shrugged. “Boring one.”

“We need to get you a new hobby,” Sarah said.

Ginny bit her tongue.

Sarah was well-meaning but 24, bubbly and clueless about getting old. Ginny adored her but wanted to slide a book about menopause across to her and show her her future.

“I can’t imagine what I’d do,” Ginny smirked. “The library is my life.”

“Or so the library board thinks,” Sarah quipped.

Ginny snorted.

“God forbid I am not here at all times,” she said, walking toward the drop off box.

“Or be thinking about anything other than new programs,” Sarah called after her.

“And keep up the perfect appearance in the community,” Ginny called back, practicing her royal wave.

Ginny gathered the books in her arms and carried them back to the desk and stacked them on top of the returns from the previous day.

“You start entering them in,” Sarah said. “And I’ll start putting them back in their rightful places.”

“Get them done as quick as you can and make sure you get yourself some coffee,” Ginny said. “Ed will be here at the strike of 9, I’m sure.”

A little extra fiction – The Farmer’s Daughter

July 31, 2019July 31, 2019 / Lisa R. Howeler / 4 Comments

I thought I’d share some extra fiction today, beyond the story I’ve been working on with “A Story to Tell,” even though it isn’t Fiction Friday. This is the beginning of another novel in process, The Farmer’s Daughter. This is the story of Molly Tanner, who thought that by now she’d be living away from her family with a career of her own, but instead is still living on her parent’s dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania. Now 26 she begins to wonder what the future will hold for a girl whose whole life has been working on her family farm and selling produce at her family’s farm store.

“Okay, cow.”

Molly Tanner spoke through gritted teeth. “You want a fight? You’ve got one.”

She grabbed the harness of the usually docile Jersey, jerking hard to pull the cow forward. The cow stretched her neck, looking bored while she chewed her cud, ignoring Molly’s efforts to lead her the 100 yards from the pasture to the barn, her feet firmly planted in the mud.

Molly pulled harder and gasped as the rope slipped out of her hands and she fell backward into the mud and manure.

Up at the barn Molly’s brother, Jason, and the hired hand, Alex Stone, were watching her. Her brother was holding a bucket of feed for the pigs and Alex was leaning against the doorframe of the barn door, chewing on a piece of sweet grass.

“What do you think she’s doing down there?” Alex asked, arms folded across his chest.

“Looks like she’s arguing with Lilly-belle again,” Jason said.

“Should we help her?” Alex asked.

“Probably,” Jason said.

Neither man moved to help. Instead, Jason poured the grain mixture into the feeding bin in the pig’s pen and Alex tossed the chewed grass at the ground and hooked his thumbs in his belt loops, still watching Molly.

Sitting there on her butt in cow poop, rain falling on her, Molly thought how this moment represented where her life had ended up since she’d graduated high school eight years ago.

She was still living on her parents’ farm in rural Pennsylvania, still sleeping in her old room, her mom still cooking her meals and washing her clothes. Molly thought by now she’d be out on her own, with her own career, her own life. As it was, she didn’t even know what career she’d have outside of farming. Working on a farm was all she’d ever known and all she’d ever wanted – at least until recently when she’d started to wonder what else the world might offer a 26-year old with no degree and little knowledge of the world other than how to milk a cow and sell produce at her parent’s small farm store.

“Listen here, girl, it’s time to get in that barn,” Molly said, pushing herself off the ground, lecturing Lily-belle. “I’m tired. It’s been a long day of milking and cleaning out all that poop you and your friends make. And I’m not done yet. I still have to help Mom bake cakes for the church rummage sale next week. You know how much I hate that bake sale, so come on, give me a break, okay?”

Molly looked into the deep brown eyes of the cow and realized how pathetic she must look standing shin-deep in mud, covered in cow manure, talking to a cow as if the cow could understand her. Her life really was swirling down the proverbial toilet.

“Good grief, she’s a mess,” Jason said from the barn, shaking his head. “You’d better go rescue her.”

“Hey!” Alex shouted. “What’s going on down there? We’re ready to start the milking!”

Alex’s voice booming across the cow pasture brought a curse word to Molly’s lips, which she immediately felt guilty about.

“If you’re so impatient then you get this stubborn cow moving!” she shouted, tugging hard at the harness again.

Molly heard the sound of boots thumping heavy in the mud behind her and watched in disbelief as Alex reached over her shoulder, took the harness from her hands and Lily-belle moved forward with him.

“Are you kidding me?!” Molly shouted. “I’ve been trying to get her to move for 20 minutes! What did you do differently?”

Alex looked over his shoulder and smirked as the cow followed him

“I guess the ladies just like me.”

“You wish,” Molly grumbled loud enough for him to hear.

“Molly, why don’t you just head in and get cleaned off,” Robert Tanner said to his daughter as she stumbled through the barn doorway. “You can start helping your mom with those cakes. Alex, Jason and I can finish up the milking.”

“I’ll take you up on that offer,” Molly said. “Maybe I can even manage a shower before bed for once.”

“That would definitely be a good thing,” Jason said with a look of disgust. “You smell like the pigs.”

Molly shot a glare at her brother and turned to walk back toward the house.

“And you smell like the gas that comes out of their behinds!” she shouted over her shoulder.

“Always have to have the last word, don’t you?” Jason shouted back.
“Yes!”

“Whatever!”

“Whatever back at you!”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Robert said. “I’ll have the last word.”

Molly watched the sun slipping behind the hills that hugged the Tanner’s 250-acre farm as she walked. The sunset, a mix of orange with a streak of pink, made the fields of the farm look almost mystical. She knew she’d never get sick of this view, of these sunsets at the end of a long day. She walked into the chicken coop to look for eggs she knew her mom would need for the cakes.

The last few years had definitely been a challenge for the Tanner family. They had watched their once strong patriarch, Robert’s father, Ned, fade away, trapped in a mind riddled with dementia. Around the same time Ned’s dementia had progressed, the family farm had plunged toward bankruptcy, as two years of heavy rain and flooding killed the corn and hay crops, leaving the family with little feed for their cattle.

Robert and his brother Walt’s decision to increase the farm’s organic produce inventory had helped save the business, but only barely. Now the family joined other farmers in the area in another crisis – a surplus of milk and decline in demand.

“I swear, if one more person tells me they drink almond milk I’ll scream,” Jason said one day, climbing down from the tractor and slamming the door closed. “It’s not milk. You can’t milk an almond. Milk comes from mammals. It’s false advertising. They should call it almond juice. Plus, who knows what’s in that stuff – it isn’t only almonds, that’s for sure.”

Walking back toward the house, trying to wipe dirt from her face, but instead only wiping more onto it, Molly paused again to look out the fields of the farm. The green of the corn was starting to peek up from the soil and soon they’d be harvesting it, if the rain would ever stop. It would be the third year of harvesting without her grandfather, the first since he’d passed away from heart failure at the end of last summer.

“Are you going to stand there all day or are you going to bring those eggs into the house?”

Her mom’s voice and laughter startled her and she turned away from the sunset.

“Sorry,” Molly said. “I was just admiring the sunset.”

“I know it’s beautiful,” Annie Tanner said. “But I need to get those cakes started. A sunset will wait. Mavis Porter won’t.”

Annie looked at her daughter and sniffed. “What were you doing out there? Rolling in the manure? Head upstairs and get a shower before we start on these cakes.”

Molly inwardly cringed at the mention of Mavis, the woman who had overseen the Spencer Valley Methodist Church rummage sale for 20-years straight. Mavis had a knack for making anyone feel less than, her thin face pursed into a permanent look of disapproval. Molly hoped she wouldn’t be roped into manning the baked goods table again this year. Mavis seemed to think it was ironic to have the fat girl guarding the cakes and cookies at the annual rummage sale.

“I can’t believe there are any cakes left,” a middle school-aged boy said one year, looking Molly up and down from across the church basement while his friends laughed.

“There were probably even more before she came in,” another boy said, as they all snickered.

She pretended she didn’t hear them as she counted the change in the money box.

Molly wasn’t proud of the weight she’d gained over the years, but no matter what she did she couldn’t seem to get back down to her high school weight of 118. She missed when she was in junior high school, thin and limber and not the butt of little boy’s jokes.

With long brown hair that curled when wet and plenty of curves, she possessed a clearly feminine shape. She was not what some might call grotesquely obese. Still, she wasn’t happy with the extra cushion to her belly, backside, and thighs she’d developed in high school. She wished she’d never heard the term “saddlebags” beyond what was hooked to the actual saddle of a horse. Drying off in front of the bathroom mirror she kept her eyes downcast, hoping to avoid a full view of what her body had become over the years.

Three cakes were baked and cooling on the dining room table when Molly heard her father’s truck pulling into the driveway of the house.

Her father’s red Ford needed to be replaced. The old truck was Robert Tanner’s pride and joy and a gift from his father when Robert had taken over the farm. Annie kept urging him to invest in a new one, but each time she did he responded with: “It gets me where I need to go and when it won’t no more then I’ll get a new one.”

Molly watched as her dad climbed out of the driver side, more gingerly than he had even a year ago. He’d been up since 4 a.m. to oversee the milking of the cows, the shoveling of the manure, the preparations to mow the field and she knew the last few years had been as physically rough on her dad as it had been emotionally.

Alex slid out of the passenger side easily and walked toward the house. He wore the same style of faded blue jeans and brown work boots he did every day. A white t-shirt was dirt-stained under a blue button-up, shirt sleeve plaid shirt. Molly couldn’t deny Alex’s rugged good looks quickened her pulse at times, but he was six years older than her, obnoxious and preferred the bar when she preferred solitude with her journal.

“Are you coming to dinner tonight, Alex?” Annie asked from the doorway.

“I don’t like to intrude and I smell like – ..”

Annie interrupted before he could finish.

“Jason is visiting Elsie tonight so there is already an extra place at the table for you,” she said. “Wash up and head on in. I’m dipping it up now.”

“Good day in the fields?” Molly asked after the prayers had been said and the food was on the plates.

“The John Deere finally broke down,” Robert said, breaking a piece off a chicken breast.

“Will John come and look at it?” Annie asked.

Alex and I can take care of it in the morning after milking,” Robert said nodding toward Alex. “It will make a late start, but I hate to spend the money if I know we can fix it here.”

Alex grinned. “Robert forgets I’m not good with the tractors, just the trucks,” he said. “But I’ll see what I can do.”

“I have faith in both of you,” Annie said with a smile.

Quiet settled over the dining room. The clanking of forks against plates was soon the only sound. Molly felt the tension in the air like someone wanted to say something but didn’t know how to. Her dad cleared his throat and she felt apprehension curl in her stomach.

“We got a letter from the co-op today,” he said.

“How bad are the numbers?” Annie asked and spooned more potatoes on Alex’s plate.

“Worse I’ve seen in five years,” Robert was somber. “It’s going to hurt a lot of farmers. Even with the organic market, I think it may even hurt us. There were also more farms that went out of business this year.”

Molly felt sick at the thought of even more of their friends being forced to sell their farms. She had attended too many auctions last year, hugged too many farmers wives, watched too many farm families weep as their lives were sold to the highest bidder.

“I don’t understand how the buyers can keep getting away with his,” Annie said, shaking her head. “It’s like the harder we all work, the more we get punished. We make the milk, they raise the prices and barely pass anything on to us.”

Molly pushed her potatoes around her plate as silence settled over the small group.

“We just have to give this over to God,” Robert said softly. “It’s all I know how to do anymore. Keep plugging ahead somehow and pray God shows us which direction to take. We’ve got the store, we are offering organic meats and products, something many people seem interested in now. It’s all we can do.”

The family and Alex nodded but they all felt the dread and the worry, like a sojourner without a compass.

Robert Tanner had been working on his family’s farm for more than 50 years and in the last 10 years, the farm had expanded to include farmland once owned by neighbors who had sold family businesses after the decline in milk prices had devastated them financially. Robert and his father Ned had offered area farmer’s a fair price and in some cases had even given them jobs in Tanner Enterprises. The farmers were able to keep their homes and remain in the area, if they wanted to, with the Tanners taking over their planting, harvesting, and milking.

Robert was proud of how he and his brother Walter had been able to grow the family business his grandfather had started almost 100 years ago, but he was also tired. It hadn’t been easy to keep a small farm, let alone a big one, operating in the black and it was getting harder each year. Diversifying what the farm produced and adding a farm store had increased profits enough to keep food on his, and his employees’, tables, but there were some days Robert wondered when the other shoe was going to drop and his dream of being a farmer would die.

___

Looking for other fiction? Catch up on my novel in progress: ‘A Story to Tell’ Here.

I’m also working on a Biblical novella, which you can find excerpts of here or at the link above under Fully Alive