The Stories
Stories come to me in different ways. I was under the impression for most of my life that everyone “thought” about stories the same way I did. After the The Anniversary was published I became aware that, no, not all people saw life’s incidents as potential stories. How is that I observe the most innocuous situations, such as two women (any age) in a coffee shop engaged in conversation, and my mind goes straight into who they are and what they’re talking about? This is not the same as judging them. I know full well when I’m fabricating a story it has nothing to do with the folks I’m watching. They’ve just offered me a platform in which to create. Sometimes I wonder if how I think is what Norman Rockwell captured in his paintings. Like a snap shot of people in action.
“I sometimes think we paint to fulfill ourselves and our lives, to supply the things we want and don’t have.” Norman Rockwell.
While writing The Anniversary, I did indeed venture into the hearts and minds of those I wrote about. Even though I drew from familiar places and memories in my own life, the majority of my book including the characters, are completely from my seemingly endless imagination.
I learned so much writing and publishing this book. There are “proper” ways to write that I may one day adopt and practice. Such as developing a plan before the actual writing starts. However, after giving this a try I’ve established my brain doesn’t work that way. Around the third or fourth chapter I abandoned the plan as my characters begged me to let them “bust out” and do something outrageous. It had to be up to me in the moment if I let them or not.
The Anniversary’s timeline unfolded as I typed. The characters developed as I typed. That’s not so say I didn’t spend a good amount of deleting and rearranging. However for me, writing this way allowed the character’s to maintain their integrity, true nature, and actions.
An excerpt from The Anniversary chapter 9.
When we were kids, there was no highway from Halifax to Lund Harbour. The country road between the two worlds snaked around corners, evoking motion sickness that could render me semi-conscious, with or without Gravol.
With our spacious Buick crammed to the gunnels, we’d take off with “no time to waste,” so Mum would say. I loved that Dad was fully in charge of the day. He and Mum rose early while Grace and I slept. They used this time to pack the car “undisturbed by two excited little girls,” Dad would say with a wink.
This year was no exception. I awoke to the smell of percolating coffee that wafted around the corner from the kitchen up the stairs, filling my nostrils with the message, Wake up, the day’s arrived, it’s time. My parents’ voices, laced with my mother’s laughter, echoed against the walls, filling me with promise. It was better than any Christmas morning.
In a kind of reverent silence, as if our excitement was too grand to be expressed, Grace and I dressed in the clothes that had been selected the night before. My mother’s transformation was in full bloom. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she skipped from room to room preparing the house for our absence. Her white, sleeveless blouse tucked snugly into her blue pedal pushers showed off her hourglass figure. Hot pink toenails drew attention to her pretty bare feet. The shiny brown waves of her hair bounced around her face, framing her high, flushed cheekbones, the bow of her full raspberry lips showcased perfect white teeth. Not a spec of make-up needed; she was truly a natural beauty.
Her laughter, now fully emerged from its hiding place, warmed my bones. We’d all laugh along with her — she had no idea the power of it. It was like a song you never wanted to end. I should have told her.
