On the Shoulders of Giants Part II

My new look.

Some have 'complained' that the Yellow on Black look was hard to read. Granted.

Another writer who influenced me tremendously is Willa Cather. She can describe the connection between the beauty of nature and the loneliness of her characters like no other. She interweaves nature and character so that their actions are interchangeable. I wish I could do that.

She uses nature as an intricate component to her story, her characters' behavior and disposition. Nature, environment, people, they are all one. They lived intertwined.

I tried, (God help me, I tried) very briefly, in spurts, to infuse that in all my novels, but especially in THE PROMISE OF LIVING, my YA novel.
Thank you Willa, for your gift.

Here, Ryan, who is receiving visions and premonitions, sees the murder of a girl, and cannot prevent it from happening in his tiny New Hampshire town.

There were no homes on this stretch of the road, and at the four corners, Ryan, instead of going straight, toward Wilson’s Ferry, headed right, up a steep hill that wound up a long stretch of road to the summit that gave a tremendous view of the hills. When he reached the top, Ryan parked the truck near a ditch and turned off the engine. The silence was calming. Sparrows flew from tree to tree, the hay in the pastures on both sides of the road had been long cut, and in the far distance the glint of sunshine bounced off the various silos. The sky was September blue.

“Okay,” Ryan said, “we’re here, what’s up?”

“Ryan, your premonition. That was her, wasn’t it,” Dave said pushing his body down sideways so the back of his head was leaning against the side door, “that was Donna.”

“Yes.” Ryan stared out the windshield. A car passed by but didn’t recognize the two boys or Ryan’s truck. There was a Maine license plate on the back of the car. “I killed her.”

“What?”

“I saw it happen, and I didn’t do anything to stop it.”

“But you didn’t know who it was, you told me you never saw her face.”

“I should have. I should have been able to identify her and warn her. I should have been able to prevent this, Dave.” He punched the steering wheel. “What the hell is the point of having this ability to see things if there’s not a goddamn thing you can do about it?”

He punched the wheel again and again like some strange percussive instrumentation and yelled in his own frustration. He got out of the truck, slammed the door behind him and started walking. He crossed the road, jumped the ditch onto the field that covered the summit of the hill. The wind picked up here and his t-shirt blew against his frame. He crested the hill, and the splendor made him stop short. In front of him was a sea of hills, rolling off into the west, toward Vermont, a wide swatch of autumn fabric, large patches of gold and red and yellow of the majestic trees of New Hampshire, the oaks and maples that stood with indifference in their colors. Far beyond and below, there were glimpses of the Pennacook River, a shining blue band accented with sunshine marking it out from the colors of the trees.

On the shoulders of giants PART ONE

If you want to be an stage actor, read plays and attend performances. If you want to be a singer, listen to professionals. If you want to be a good writer, read. Read the classics, read, read, read and then write. 
Granted, the trouble arises when I read, for example, too much Delillo, I end up writing like him. But there are certain writers who have influenced me tremendously, and I salute them all. 

Sometimes people will ask this regarding my own writing. One giant whose shoulders I stand on is Thornton Wilder. Read his plays or books and his messages come through loud and clear. I've invoked Wilder many times in my novels, not to copy, but to honor. 

Thank you, Thornton, for all your work.

Here, in IN THE NICK OF TIME, Andy and his friends have time traveled back to antebellum Georgia and are hopelessly trapped. One night, he wakes up to contemplate the problem and 'talk' to his dead Grandma Geri. 

Chapter 17

The full moon awoke Andy at a quarter to one. The light streamed through his window and onto his face, much like the street lamp outside his home used to. The Main House was ghoulishly quiet. No hum of a refrigerator or microwave or a computer monitor. No dishwasher running or dryer tumbling. Electronic sounds that would sometimes jar him awake back home now were completely absent. He slid off the poster bed and walked in his bare feet toward the open window. The moon made the plantation look blue: as if it had snowed. The smells of the horses floated by, he heard the trickle of the stream and the sound of an owl. Cicadas. Other than that, there was nothing. There were a few stars on the farther side of the sky, but the moonlight reminded him of summer nights at home.

It’s the same moon, he thought. It shone on them as it shines on us.

It had been six days. Six days with no new discoveries. 

Andy figured that someone at home by now has got to have missed him. When he traveled back to Boston, his trip was brief and the present time hadn’t been affected.

But what about after six days?

Andy didn’t have an answer for that. How long does time stop before it starts to pick up again? He could picture his father coming into his bedroom and seeing the opened door and the little pile of matches and the incense stick. His father would think he’d been smoking dope or cigarettes, and he’d be walking around talking to his mom. “I didn’t think we’d have to worry about this with our Andy,” he could hear his father say.

            Worse yet! What if his father came into his room, saw the incense, and then lit one! He could end up here! Well, that would be fine as long as he had some extra in his pocket!

 Oh Grandma, Andy thought as he gazed out over the beautiful land and smelled the sweet, country air. How are we going to get out of here? What’s this all about?

            Sometimes, in the summer, or on a crisp, windless winter night, Andy and Grandma Geri went out into the back fields and stargazed. Grandma Geri had a small telescope, and she taught him the names of constellations and the brighter stars.

“See that one?” she said one time, pointing to a gorgeous red star in the Southern sky. It was the middle of August when Andy was about ten years old. “That’s Antares, one of my favorite. It’s in the constellation Scorpio; you can see that it looks like a Scorpion. With a flashlight, she traced in the sky, from star to star, a giant “J” swerving off to the left. There, about halfway down, was Antares. “Antares is six hundred light years away from Earth.”

            “It’d take six hundred years to get there?” Andy asked. How could he see that red star so clearly when it was so far away?

            “Well, sort of. First, you’d have to be traveling the speed of light, which is 186,300 miles per second. Per second, Andy! Can you imagine whirling through space that quickly?” She took the flashlight and swooshed it across the night sky like a meteor. “Then, if you’re really going that fast, it would take you six hundred years to get there. And who knows what planets would be waiting for you when you arrived?”

            “I can’t imagine that far,” said Andy.

            “I can’t either, honey,” she said, “but it’s a wonderful feeling trying. Oh, the things out there!” She put her arms around his shoulders and together they surveyed the heavens. The night was full of the sounds of crickets and frogs. “There are galaxies, and moons, and planets, and billions and billions of stars. We’re so tiny sitting here,” she breathed in the hay and the fresh air, “but how precious and magical that is.”

Andy sat on the windowsill in the moonlit, timeless, plantation house. The sounds of the night swirled around him, and the minutes of the hour traveled onward. He was Andy and he was Drew.

After a moment, he caught himself dozing off, and he jerked his head awake. A shooting star caught his eye. Andy felt completely connected to all that he saw. It was the most peaceful feeling he ever had, and as Andy breathed, the universe breathed.

He was now and he was then. The trees are planted and people are born; the trees are cut down and people die. It could be the 21^st Century, it could be the 19^th. “The time doesn’t matter, Andy,” he heard Grandma Geri say. “We’re in the rhythm of the stars and the tunes of the planets, and always shall be.”

Those pesky ideas!

Sometimes, I notice my creativity reach an all time high and then instantly follow a certain pattern: it either becomes louder and louder until I start 'downloading' plots, characters, tone, themes, WHAM all at once, typing or writing as fast as my fingers can produce it. Then I spend months or years editing and rewriting, but the basic foundation has been set. 

Other ideas comes the same way: strong, powerful ideas that fly into my brain and linger and marinate. They have me intrigued, I resonate with the production design, the basic genre, tone, plot, yet, YET! They stay in the marinade. 
When I try writing the opening chapters, words come out flat. Engaging for me, but when I put the piece away for a week, take it out and read it again, I groan at my own obvious bad writing. 

The idea is delicious, the execution is not. 

Strange. 

The same tingle is there, the same groove in my stomach starts to feel excited, and sometimes the words flow with such ease, and other times they flow easiLY, but not lastingly.
Some would argue those ideas, like motifs for a composer, should lie in the marinade a little longer, but don't throw them out. Be patient.
Yes, I understand that. But sometimes those bowls of marinaded ideas start to take up space in my 'refrigerator'. What does one do?

What do you do? 

Am I a dinosaur?

Sometimes when I read other writers' works (Esp Middle Grade fiction), I see a consistent trend: lots of action (especially with a boy as a protagonist), lots of action, and lots of action. One thing just moves to another to another as if any type of reflection, interaction, connection to another character or sympathetic reaction from the protagonist would make any boy reader throw up his hands and say, "That's it! I'm not reading again!" as he turns on a video game. 

I believe in connection: to our world, to each other, to ourselves when we are alone with our own thoughts and questions. I strive to put that into my novels as well. I think boy readers can relate. I believe boy readers do enjoy those subtler moments in a novel. I can't believe a boy reader would be so easily bored. 

Today, movies reflect this non-stop, dizzying edited roller coaster experience more and more in films made for ages 9-13. Do books have to match this 'insanity'? 

Am I a dinosaur? 

I remember the opening of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", a book not written for kids, but seems to be all the rage in the retelling of it. Take a look at the first paragraph: 

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the name of Tarry Town.  This name was given, we are told, in former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days.  Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic.  Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole world.  A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform tranquility.

Did you even finish the passage? :) But, c'mon, what a terrific opening! What a great way to establish setting, especially with words like, 'spacious coves', 'inveterate propensity' and of course, my favorite, 'one of the quietest places in the whole world'. 

Still sends chills up my arms when I read this. 
How many people would plow through this today? I don't know. I would. But I love words. 

I remember when I was at a bookstore this past summer, and a boy around 10 years old bought IN THE NICK OF TIME, my first book in my time travel trilogy for that genre. He returned two days later with his dad to buy Book #2 THE TIME OF HIS LIFE and Book #3 ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD. He was happy I was still there to autograph the novels, but I believe he returned for a better, more long lasting reason: the relationship he had with the book, the characters, the plot, the adventures where all of it came together to reflect, in perhaps some small way, his own life. 

Thank you young reader! 

Welcome Back, J. Lee Graham!

Yes, I am back. After several years, I've decided to return to blogging and making the entries cleaner, shorter, and sharper. 
I have published five novels: Four for Middle Grade (I don't really resonate with the word "tween", but basically my books are for UPPER Middle Grade: ages, 10-13.) My novels tend to be dark and daring and full of cliffhangers which do not fall into the usual category of the 8-9 year olds. 

Just letting you know. 

I've written one Young Adult book which is clearly for readers age 14 and up. All my books are on Amazon and Smashwords both as e-versions and as page books.

I'm tired of trying to fit everyone's mold of what a "Middle Grade" novel looks like, or sounds like, or feels like, or whatever like. I just enjoy writing great stories with lots of exciting cliffhangers, a lot of danger, and above all, really tight relationships among my characters.

Here are my novels: 

FIREFLIES by Bree Wolf: a Review by J. Lee Graham

Bree Wolf’s Fireflies, her first it seems in the Middle Grade Genre, is an oddly wonderful fusion of The Well-Wishers by Edward Eager and the Southern Gothic stories of Truman Capote. Ms. Wolf has created a delightful, sweet twelve-year-old boy named Gabriel, who lives in New York City and inside his computer in a fantasy world adventure game where characters use stereotypical face-cringing Tolkien speak. I love how Ms. Wolf creates one of those god-awful fantasy games complete with cheesy dialogue and everyone eating stew.

Her hero Gabriel laps it up. It’s all he has. His parents are a dysfunctional mess (taking no responsibility for Gabriel’s spiral into this addiction in the first place) and Gabriel tends to respond to their screaming and their horrible behavior by pressing his nails into his palms in a type of pre-adolescent PTSD which breaks your heart. To add to this, no one at school even knows or cares who he is. When Ms. Wolf writes simply, as she does describing a ridiculous game of hangman in the classroom, you want to reach out through the pages and take Gabriel on a long walk.

As the class kept guessing, Gabriel crouched down in his chair, letting his hazelnut hair fall in his face. He had figured out the answer long before the hangman eventually died on the noose, but he didn’t raise his hand. He never did. They would all look at him if he did. The mere thought made his hands tremble.

His parents force him to go to North Carolina (on a 10-hour train ride? I didn’t understand that one as they live in a two- story apartment in Manhattan and could afford plane fare.), but it is here that the novel kicks in. There is a lot of plot: a sick girl, a scavenger hunt and on and on, and while at times, it may feel like too many things happen in all of one summer, it was the characters themselves that kept me reading Fireflies. This was the glue Ms. Wolf uses to create some wonderful friends for Gabriel to slowly commune with. Their dialogue was fun and natural and even when one of them calls another a “drama queen” (do kids even say this, and do they know the actual history of the expression?) it didn’t matter. Relationships in a MG novel have to work for me regardless of the plot, and there are moments of real beauty when Ms. Wolf allows her characters to breathe and find each other and above all, commit to each other.

Many of my favorite scenes centered around the local swimming hole, and I had to marvel at the (subconscious?) themes Ms. Wolf utilizes. {In two of my own time travel MG novels, a lake is featured prominently, not simply for plot points, but as a strong metaphor for transformation.} It is an ancient metaphor, the ‘baptism’ if you will of a character coming to terms with a newer part of him/herself. In Fireflies, each character has an interaction with the water that subtly exposes his or her hidden fears and gifts.

Another powerful symbol is the use of scissors by a female character when interacting with Gabriel. What she creates with the scissors seemed to be pushing the believability envelope, but their conversation, her intention and the ritual and the symbolic meaning behind it all was quite moving.

The use of technology in MG is so difficult sometimes and often I find myself scratching my head wondering how to incorporate it into fiction without it erasing all the drama and tension. In this novel, the techno traps did confuse me. Gabriel has a cell phone (we learn much later in the story), but there’s no mention that he either calls or doesn’t call his parents and vice versa. The characters can take pictures and send them to each other on their phones, so that means emails and internet access, yet Gabriel doesn’t use the phone to play his fantasy game? He instead, goes into a library and simply logs on to his game. There is no mention that he has a library card that would allow him to do this.

Some continuity issues with months and school schedules (the North vs the South) also pop up, but these are all trivial details. Perhaps just a good copyeditor to tighten up the inconsistencies is all that’s required.

Gabriel comes through in the end, and I hope there perhaps is a sequel in the works. Ms. Wolf is getting her feet wet and one can feel her itching to write more. Again, Ms. Wolf’s sympathetic and sensitive writings around relationship, friendship, the power of living in the present, and living life to the fullest are tremendous enough reasons to read this charming book.