Philosophy of Flying Fish

We were coming home late last night and Bill suggested we take a quick detour down to Avenue B and check out the flying fish. Now, if you're not from San Antono, you may not have yet heard of the flying fish, or think I'm referring to actual flying fish. I am not.

These flying fish are a school of 25 seven-foot long, colorful, figerglass sunfish that now hang over the newly opened section of the San Antonio River beneath Interstate 35. We'd had several good looks at them in daylight, but they are illuminated at night and we really wanted to see.

It was very much worth the trip, though it was getting close to 1 a.m. and that area is what is called euphemistically a "transitional neighborhood". In my vivid imagination it occurred to me that Sunday morning's headline could read, "Local Author Slain and Dismembered Near Site of Her Next Novel". But since I do not write thrillers, I comforted myself that it was not ironic enough to happen.

In truth, it all seemed pretty tame. The bars were still blaring music and people were milling around, but minding their own business, just out for a good time on a Saturday night. I felt, in a sense, right at home.

Now you might think from that statement that I am a former bar fly, night-lifer, living-large kind of gal. No indeed, I am still the relatively shy, bookish nerd you originally imagined. But that is only in my REAL life, of course.

My next novel, going on sale June 30th, is called RED'S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR. Red's bar, a completely fictional place, is located on completely unfictional Avenue B., specificially on Eight and Avenue B. I love that. Eight not Eighth. As if the city couldn't manage to spring for another letter for the street sign. Yes, I am aware that on the new sign where it crosses Broadway they're now calling it Eighth, but on that corner of Avenue B, it is merely Eight.

Anyway, I spent a year hanging out in Red's bar. As I said, it's not a real bar, but that doesn't matter. I was sitting here at this desk as I am now, but I was there. So the area does seem like home somehow.

It's one of those strange truths that writers live with and don't usually share with others, that our fictional lives can be as real to us as our true one. We don't usually talk about that too much, because it makes us sound crazy. Hey, if you spent your whole life making up stuff for a living, you might sound a little crazy, too.

I have written a lot of characters in a lot of settings. I feel connections with those characters as if they are actual people that I'd known. I feel connections to those places, as if I actually spent time there. This can be both good and bad. Thanks to stories like GARTERS and SWEETWOOD BRIDE, I walk around Tennessee as if I'm a native. I have never been more than a tourist there. And because of LAST DANCE AT JITTERBUG LOUNGE, I've developed a nightmarish fear of being lost at sea.

In RED'S HOT HONKY-TONK BAR, fact has strangely caught up to fiction and it's a challenge for me to peel away what I know to be true from stuff I just made up. In my story, bar owner, Red, has, among her many plotline challenges, the construction of the new San Antonio Museum Reach on her backdoor.

When I began the story, a little more than two years ago, the river behind Eight and B, looked just like it had for decades, I guess. The first day I walked around the area, thinking about it, I saw orange construction tape cordoning off the area beneath the bridge at Brooklyn Street. As I began the book, the digging started.

This weekend the area opened to the public. It's amazing so much planning and waiting, it all happened so fast. Bill and I walked to the riverside where I imagined Red's to be and I was blown away.

The character, Red, rightly feared the loss of something that she loved, a place that was as dear and special to her as any in the world. That has certainly happened. But I'm convinced that sometimes we do have to let go. The world is not a static place. The planet keeps spinning and we cannot hold it still, even for the best of reasons. The noisy bars on Avenue B are undoubtedly going to disappear for more staid residential development or tourist friendly commerical. We can't stop that from happening. What we can do is relish the moment that we're in. Even if it occurs at one o'clock in the morning.

The Novel as Mystery Meat

I just took a break from writing to pull some meat out of the freezer for supper. We are in that awkward stage of grocery shopping when most of what is left in the freezer is roast beef. I like roast beef, which is frighteningly evident from my cold storage. I've got roasts for the crockpot and roasts for the rotisserie, roasts that I could pot roast and roasts that need to be roasted. Unfortunately, I also have leftover roast in the fridge. We've eaten it a couple of times this week. I don't know how welcome it would be on the table again tonight.
So I dug a little deeper and within the distant recesses of that frosty whiteness I spied a small freezer bag. It was opaque with age, but clearly there were pieces of something inside. I was immediately thrilled, thinking by the size and shape that these might be ancient filets, long forgotten but still very good.
I was doing the happy dance all over the kitchen.
I carried the bag outside where Bill is working on the front flashing of the house.
"I think I found some filets!" I told him. "Are you up for filets?"
He walked over and looked at my bag.
"Pork chops," he said. "I think they're just pork chops."
I look at the bag more closely, and a bit disappointed.
"Okay," I said. "Do you feel like pork chops?"
"Yeah, that's fine."
I came back inside and put them in warm water to thaw. But I'll tell you, I still think they might be filets.
And right then...ta dah!...the metaphor jumped me. I don't go looking for metaphors in my life. But somehow they always seem to find me.
My writing, I realized is a lot like mystery meat.
Unlike a lot of writers that I read and admire, my stories are not really planned out in advance. Or rather there is a plan, a very simple straight-forward roast beef kind of plan, that get's thrown out quicker than a turkey neck at a vegan barbeque.
I think to myself, I want to write about a young father who feels like he never fit into his family (Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge) or a grandmother who's not very good at taking care of her daughter's kids (Red's Hot Honkey-Tonk Bar). And the ideas seems simple and straightforward.
I have always written "from the hip," as they say. I sit down at the computer and put one word after another and that's how I work best. I guess you could say that my subconscious is a better writer than I am. I think I'm writing about fictional Jack Crabtree, swimming pool designer. But on the pages appearing before my eyes my subconscious begins to mull over long forgotten truths about my father and my uncles, my life in Oilton and bits of wisdom that I've learned, mostly through trial and error, in my life.
Writing pushes me to dig deep into my own heart, my own past, my own disappointments, my own fears. Invariably, the story that emerges is far different and more complex than I'd ever imagined. Even more that I wanted to imagine.
In writers' workshops I often tell a story about working on a book (Suburban Renewal) where the hero's father is in prison. I put him in prison at the beginning so that Sam, the hero, could be raised by his grandmother. Men who are raised by dads are often very different from those who are not. I needed this guy to be not.
Then suddenly in the middle of a scene, his father walks in.
What?!? Delete. Delete. Delete.
That was weird. I told Bill about it. Too crazy. This father was a very bad guy, very bad for my story. I wanted him out of there.
Next day, I returned to the computer and the bad dad shows up again.
Once more, I deleted him.
On day three, I decided, "Okay, I'll let this guy have a really peripheral role here."
For those of you who've read it, you know that Sam's father becomes so important in that story. He is a bad guy, but he ties the generations together and upon his character rests the entire theme of redemption possibilites available for even the worst among us.
So right now, I'm busy at work on a new book for 2010. (Red's Hot Honky-Tonk Bar is coming out this July). The 2010 book is a very concise and simply story, strictly roast beef. I could tell you all about it. But the minute I write a word here, it will definitely become some nice smothered pork chop with tasty stewed apples on the side.
Hope you're up for some grilled filets.