MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS: KAREN MACEANRUIG: First Post

MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS: KAREN MACEANRUIG: First Post: Should you wait to practice a craft until you can make a living doing it?   Is the value of time spent in the money earned? Don’t cook unles...

Hobby vs. Profession I

Should you wait to practice a craft until you can make a living doing it?  Is the value of time spent in the money earned? Don’t cook unless you’re a chef?  Don’t sew unless you’re a fashion designer?  Don’t play an instrument unless you’re a professional musician?  No amateur astronomers or athletes allowed. Nonsense! 

As with most writers I’ve been writing all of my life.  Am I published?  As with most writers the answer is no but it’s a compulsive obsessive behavior that is impossible to break and my nervous system would explode if I didn’t do it. It’s not wasted time, it’s time spent on my mental health. Don’t apologize for time spent or on your particular pleasure.  Enjoy it

When you read or write you get to spend time with the characters!  Did you ever have pretend friends when you were little?  I often wonder if reading and writing isn’t an extension of pretend friends.  We chose the place, the setting, the people, the activities, and the story.  We get to escape to ‘the other place’ for a while and come back refreshed.

As a writer my characters always come first in the process.  They grow and become more and more fleshed out and real and then begin to interact with one another and that is the stuff of the story. Sometimes I think that I'm just there to take it all down like a court reporter so they can speak to each other, live their lives, enjoying their friends, family and lovers.  They are much like Geppetto's carving who wants so desperately to be a real little boy.

My Characters II

Two of the characters I most enjoyed spending time with when I was writing were Luke from “American People Desert: 2025” or as I call it Luke’s Saga and the Judge Beth Able Books I and II, or “Sequestered With a Killer” and “Police Force Under Siege”.

And now that I’ve said that I realize the two characters have a lot in common.  Both have a tough, hard inner core that allows them to get the job done whatever it takes. If action is required there is no hesitation, no second or squeamish thoughts. Both can kill in the line of duty.  Yet, both have a great deal of compassion and empathize readily with suffering, disadvantaged, or victimized people. 

Both Luke and Beth have a well-developed sense of justice and high moral standards.  They both love their homes and like to nest. Luke walked for almost two years to find a home for himself in a beautiful valley.  Beth lived in the same house all of her life and couldn’t part with it even when she was widowed and her daughter left home to pursue her own life.  She rambled around the big old house with a large yard and the memories kept her company.  Memories she couldn’t sell.

Luke read the Bible daily and prayed to God often and Beth was a regular member of her parish attending weekly, and prodding the church to relevancy.  Neither judged others based on their own belief system.  They were both close to family and extended family.  Neither were really social animals but preferred their inner circle for company.  Both Luke and Beth were extremely loyal to those they loved.  My hero types, I guess.

One of my other works is more of a love story, second time around.  “Love Rekindled in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto.”  Both were widowed, and I throw up obstacles to their union and their love; or, physical attraction, wins them over.  I never manage to make David the man I think he is, probably Nadia comes through much better.  Is that because I’m a woman?  Is it harder to write from the opposite sex’s point of view?  Is it hard to make a man loving as well as manly?  Perhaps, I should rewrite the story from Nadia’s point of view. An idea for my spare time, laughter.

Abby, in “Flight from Obsession,” is running from an abusive husband who is trying to find, and kill her.  I give her a new life and new friends but the threat is ever present.  Can she survive the years of worry and the frightening climax when he finds her?  I’m still putting the last few chapters together.

Bandit is, of course, a cat. The short stories about Bandit tell the story of each of Bandit’s nine lives. I love cats and it is interesting to try to write from a cat’s point of view.  Did I succeed?  Hard to know, but I enjoy Bandit along with all of the other cat roommates I’ve had over the years.  Such beautiful, loving, cuddly creatures who always seem to sense your mood and empathize. What’s the Christmas song, ‘these are a few of my favorite things?’  Cats would be near the top of that list. 

Do the “Banshees Still Scream,” is an autobiographical tale about my great grandmother, Margaret Amelia Scott.  I wrote it near mother’s day and it involves four generations of mothers, from my great grandmother, to my grandmother, my mother, and myself.  You’ll have to decide yourself if it was worth the effort for readers; it was something I had to spit out as a person in the form or words.  If I was driven to paint it would be a painting of the snapshot I saw as a child.  Smiling, and if I was Steinbeck or Angelou it would be a great novel or poem, but I’m sure as hell not so it’s just a story I wrote.  Maybe next time I’ll be writing about some of the writers I revere.

Children's Stories III

When I was very, very young I read mostly animal stories by such wonderful authors as: Thomas Hinkle, who wrote mostly horse stories, S.P Meek, who wrote many dog and horse stories, and, of course, Walter Farley who wrote, “The Black Stallion”, “Son of the Black Stallion,”  “Island Stallion,” and many, many more. 

Along with the rest of the world I read the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery series.  But my very favorite was Howard Pease, and especially, “Thunderbolt House,” about three children in the San Francisco earthquake.  That was my favorite and I read all of his other books; including, “Ship without a Crew”, “Shipwreck,” and “Secret Cargo”.  He was my favorite childhood writer.   

I’m sure I’m not remembering all of the writers that I read but Frank Yerby soon became a favorite along with Thomas Costain.  Then I found a super book, “The Good Earth,” by Pearl Buck.  That’s about the time that I switched from children’s books to adult fiction. 

Soon I was reading “Girl of the Lumberlost,” “Little Women,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Jane Eyre,” and that genre.  Not enough adventure there for me so I moved on to Dickens, Steinbeck, and many of the other classics and then I got into Russian writers,

In the eighth grade I was fortunate enough to be selected for a class sponsored by Stanford University for speed reading and comprehension.  We were also required to read one book a week and make an oral report.  It was a very small class, probably ten of us.  We read everything from Popular Mechanics to Harper’s and Atlantic Monthly for speed and comprehension.  It was a wonderful experience for me and while I did increase my speed I never gave up savoring wonderful writing. Similar classes in all areas should be offered to students in grammar school. Art, music, mechanics, physics, whatever interests the student.  How wonderful to be allow to read and read and read.