Recently, I’ve started handwriting again. After the wave of technology, which covered my writing like thick smoke, I’ve stopped for awhile. But I remember a time where I would write whole books in notebooks. Carrying them around like an extra limb, and holding pencil to pad close to my chest like a scarlet letter. Now that I’ve started drafting posts on paper again, I’ve noticed a slight boost in the creative juices, racing easily from my brain and spilling black ink on the page. I forgot how fun this was, scribbling my heart into tangible form, and counting words by hand. Makes me wonder about the difference between the written and typed word. Why do I feel more accomplished having written this down first? Even if but a sentence? I like this and I think I’ll make it a habit again. Alas! The rebirth of pen to paper.
We are south of Senegal, maybe Guinea, maybe Ghana, or maybe as far east as the Congo. In any event, there is a woman and she’s smiling; putting her body and her hands to work to the multitasking of the rhythm of hips, rolling shoulders and the calming beat of the sounds that influence them. You must not however get distracted by her dancing as if of some stereotypical performance the Africans must put on, for her tribes have always been comprised of dancers and musicians. After a wedding, and even after battle, the men assemble their drums and the women their bodies to tap into a spiritual formation of triumphant celebration. So, the woman is dancing, and showcasing the bright red and blue colors against her skin; the dyed cloths her mothers have handmade from fresh berries. Her hair is braided in plaits; it is strength like strong rope. The woman is gorgeous and the men stare as her chocolate skin glistens in the sun, soft and smooth like silk. He nods, returning her smile. She blushes, rolling back and forth to the appreciation of his hands, slamming with authority against djembe drums, a rope-tuned skin-covered goblet drum, as if massaging against her skin. The year is 1619, and she has just turned seventeen. Waiting this day to which he would smile at her since childhood.
Abba looks her way, it is what she calls Papa Joe, forcing her to turn off seductive eyes and transform into his innocent little girl giggling away in mama’s arms. Placing her index finger on mama’s lips she hopes she has gained enough trust in her to keep silent for daddy must not ever find out about her secret love. If so he may begin to think she no longer belongs to him, for in her village it is custom that when a woman found a man her father gives up his reign, and it now belongs to her husband. And this she can’t bring herself to fathom, that one of those fine strong men will take her away from King Joe. The one who have always protected her and was known for treating mama like a queen, yet it is what she wishes for, to be queen. For a chance to wear golden nose rings and flaring dresses— yes, to be queen is what she wants. The sounds of the village men still heard in the background of her thoughts; slamming strong hands into drums in time for her body to move in that way.
The night has come, and Papa prepares the tent for sleep, driving the stakes into the ground. The roof is thatched with reeds, the walls and floors covered with mats. She lays awake, this woman. No, better yet this princess. Her eyes wander from the plantain from which her bed is made, to the mats three feet below her. Her eyes cannot stop to think of morning when the village men will approach each tent in that they may search out their future wife. This was done every year to service the anxious seventeen year olds, young women who’d prepared for this day since infancy. Seventeen because the number seven is symbolic of perfection, and it is their belief that seventeen years represented the completeness of their womanhood, perfectly fit to become someone’s wife. For this reason alone she cannot sleep, there is just too much excitement! She would never be seen as a child again, for on this day she would officially become a woman. A man would soon leave his father and mother to cling onto her. And she would serve her husband like mama does Papa Joe and her children she would raise to be the most upright of all her country. If only upon the awakening of the sun it will rest on the heart of him, to choose her.
Yet the night is not complete. Mama screams, obliterating her thoughts into pieces of confusion as storms of men with pale faces invade the village. She cannot catch herself before falling, ropes that smell like death have embraced her space and blood creeps in from outside the tent; and then there was darkness. Pitch black darkness as if the moon, that usually sent pieces of light tapping against each tent, had suddenly run away from the men with pale faces and yellow teeth. Baby girl had never seen them before. They could have been men or they could have been monsters, she didn’t know, and had nothing else to do but wait. This woman or better yet, this princess. This semi-woman waiting in the darkness to become queen.
For this week’s segment of Writer’s Quote Wednesday, as hosted by the lovely Colleen of Silver Threading, I take inspiration from Aldous Huxley:
“Every man’s memory is his private literature.” ~Aldous Huxley
The influence of memory in our lives is thought-provoking. Even if it’s just the name of a character or birthplace, memory plays a part in what we write and often even how we write, which is what makes this quote so interesting. A lot of the stories in my books, for instance, take place in Chicago because I know Chicago. This is where I am from, where I was raised, and it is the city that I know. I do not have to make up the names of streets and towns and shops because I know them. I’ve been to Ford City, shopped at the Food & Liquor on 63rd and Western (it’s closed now), and lived on 47th Street. I’ve rode the Red Line through the loop, touched the people, smelled the food and heard the voices. As long as I have memory of Chicago, I’ll always have some story to tell.
About the Author:
What I enjoy about this weekly prompt, in addition to the inspiring voices of authors who compel us to keep writing, is the search and discovery of new authors to explore. Sometimes it’s best to understand more about the quotes you use. I discovered for instance, that Aldous grandfather, Thomas Henry Huxley, was known as a controversial naturalist in his time, nicknamed as “Darwin’s Bulldog”, which made me think twice about whether or not to use this quote since I don’t believe in anything with the words Darwin in the same sentence. But anyway, I decided to play nice though and let Aldous hang around a bit longer, so here’s his background according to The European Graduate School website:
“Aldous Huxley, was a British writer. He was born on July 26, 1894 and died on November 22, 1963. He would become most specifically known to the public for his novels, and especially his fifth one, Brave New World, written in 1931 and published in 1932.
Aldous Huxley would come to be known mostly as a novelist and essayist but he would also write some short stories, poetry, travelogues and even film scripts. In his novels and essays Aldous Huxley would always play the role of a critical observer of accepted traditions, customs, social norms and ideals. Importantly, he would be concerned in his writings with the potentially harmful applications of so-called scientific progress to mankind”
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That’s it for this week’s segment. Be sure to check out the other #WQW posts from other bloggers this week. Just look for “Writer’s Quote Wednesday” in your readers :).
So last week, in a post called 3 Reasons I am Not a Professional Author, I spoke about how I started using a Family Tree to build my characters. I do this using Microsoft Word which I am learning more and more about each day. Family Trees can also be done in Microsoft Power Point.
What this method helps me to achieve is a greater depth in character development. It helps me to create a background, a foundation if you will, for my characters so that they evolve into real living people and are not just stick men and women with names. By creating a background, I can better design the main character out of the genetics of the people that came before them. In this way, I am not just making people up, but they are coming from an ancestral bloodline of sorts. Your primary characters can actually have a lineage and a family to which they belong to go with the personality your writing gives them.
Over the course of this week, I have put together a sample Family Tree and a few steps to help you to get started. I thought I would be able to accomplish this over the weekend but quickly discovered it was a lot more work than I remembered. To make this as simple as possible I will give you the steps as to do this the easiest way possible (which is not exactly how I put mine together but it works). Please understand that this is just a sample and that you can go much deeper than what is presented. To save time, I only scratched the surface here:
Step #1: WRITE
So if you read the previous post to which I mentioned this method, you know that I don’t use a timeline when I write. I start by writing the story as it comes to me. You can use this method either way. It is however, a good idea to start writing first because the juices start to flow and you have an idea of the characters you can start adding to the chart. Once I’ve written a few pages and I have an idea of the characters, I can then proceed to build on their lives by way of the timeline. All of this is simultaneously done as I’m writing so the timeline is not completely finished in one sitting. I may get to a point in the book where I want to switch some things around or change some names. In simplest form, I’m writing the story and using the family tree to organize my characters as I move along the process. The chart also helps me to sit back and take a full view of everyone even after the book is finished, to study the characters, and to recall names quickly. It’s easier for me to look at my chart instead of rely on memory or scan the document, to recall an important feature so as not to create inconsistencies when I’m writing. I know it seems like a lot and some of you are probably asking yourself, “Shouldn’t I just write so that the emotion and descriptive language makes the characters realistic?” Of course. The chart does not replace writing in personality and all of that good stuff, it just helps with names and family history.
Step #2: OPEN MICROSOFT WORD
Step #3: GO TO THE INSERT TAB
Step #4: CLICK ON SMART ART (it is between Shapes and Chart in Microsoft 2007 & 2010)
Step #5: When you get into Smart Art, CLICK ON THE HIERARCHY CHART and choose a chart
Step #6: Start building, adding names and traits or whatever it is you want to add
Remember that this is not a normal family tree. You don’t have to just add names but in this chart you will also add other important things about the character, such as height, weight, hair and eye color, etc.
My Chart
OK so I hope that you can see this well. This is my chart which I created using a slightly different design than the Smart Art. I customized it and created my own boxes. I saved it as an image file and then used Microsoft Publisher to crop out the white spaces that come from Word.
In my chart, we see that Stella is named after her great grandmother Stella Mae.
When Blacks stepped off the slave ships and into the shoes of their new lives, their ancestral names were stripped away. After chattel slavery ended, one of the first signs of freedom was for slaves to change their names. Having started with just a first name, they wore the last names of their masters, in which the majority of them continued to wear after emancipation. Others altered their last names slightly after freedom to disassociate from their masters. Another percentage went far as to just make up a last name, as in Booker T Washington’s case. According to his Autobiography, “Up From Slavery”, Booker noticed while in class that many of the students had two names. So when the teacher called for his name he calmly announced “Booker Washington” so as to fit in. Later, he found out that his mother had named him “Booker Taliaferro”. And just like that he became Booker T. Washington:
“By the time the occasion came for the enrolling of my name, an idea occurred to me which I thought would make me equal to the situation; and so, when the teacher asked me what my full name was, I calmly told him “Booker Washington”, as if I had been called by that name all my life; and by that name I have since been called.”- Up From Slavery, Page 17, Boyhood Days
Instead of take on the last name Saddler, the first Stella decides to take the last part of her first name, Mae, and change it into May. Her family would then go on to be known as the May’s.
Interpretation of Chart:
Deborah was a slave on Paul Saddlers Plantation. They produce a daughter who Deborah names Stella Mae.
Stella Mae and John produce a son who Stella names Solomon Curtis. According to the chart, he inherits his father’s green eyes and black hair but this is an error on my part. His eyes are actually Brown like his mothers, but he inherits his father’s jet black hair.
Solomon goes on to have four girls: Deborah, Rebecca, Judith, and Sara.
Judith, the middle daughter, goes on to give birth to a daughter who she names Stella, after her grandmother.
We see that Judith inherits her green eyes from her father Solomon and her grandfather John. For the sake of space I did not include Judith’s mother in the sample chart; she is white.
Stella inherits her eye and hair color from her great great grandfather Paul. Stella’s father is also not included in the chart; he is black.
As genetics would have it, Stella is easily capable of easing on pass the color line by inheriting more external European features than African American.
…I’m an unashamed user of the SOSYAL NETWURKS in pursuit of my ‘business of writing’… in reflective self-honesty, I try to steer clear of SPAMMING, which I find as abhorrent and annoying as most of yeez Lads and Lassies of Blog Land… that does not preclude from time to time an acceptable amount of inclusion in my posts, elements of my own WURK… there’s a proper way to do that… I like to think, in balance, the majority of my posts are aimed at entertaining, p’raps even educating, and certainly empathising with my fellow scribblers in support of their wee masterpieces… that balance is generally about 90% for others, 10% for my stuff… and I’m comfortable with that… when occasions arrive, such as this present period, running up to and including the launch of my latest Jack Calder crime thriller, KILLER CITY, there will inevitably be a…
For today’s segment of Writer’s Quote Wednesday, hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading, I draw inspiration from Brooke Griffin:
Sometimes we try to get everything done in one sitting when it was never meant to be that way. My Writer’s Quote Wednesday this week is to encourage every writer to take it one day at a time. I don’t know anything about the author of this quote (when I goggled the name it was about fitness or something idk) but I used it anyway because when I read it I knew Brooke’s words were meant for this week, as it is on one accord with my thoughts. Each day presents its own opportunity for improvement. It can be something as simple as getting out of bed or writing a journal entry. It can be something as great as finishing a book or as simple as cleaning the house today. Every day is a learning experience and because the days change so dramatically from day to day there’s always room to improve or to learn more about a particular thing or skill. This is not to say to chase after fruitless knowledge, but personal growth is always continuous. So this is to encourage each writer to invest in his or her best. When you invest in your best you can’t go wrong, you’ve done all that you can do. Today your best may be writing for 15 minutes, and tomorrow it may be 20 minutes. Whatever the case, give it your all. And always seek more.
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That’s it this week. Don’t forget to check out all of the other awesome quotes from other bloggers. For some reason I can’t link to the picture today so Follow This Link instead to join the fun. 🙂
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