Fear.

Everyone at one point or another has tasted fear. Authors know fear and speak of it. Most authors fear the fear but even more have learned one vital lesson – fear is good.

Fear is a motivator, an instigater, a castigator, an illuminator, a paralyzer and an energizer. Fear is what makes us feel alive and makes us worry that we’re going to die. Fear is under so much of who we are as people, as writers, as stories. Fear is important. And you should be afraid! Fear comes from what we know and it comes from what we don’t know. It’s insidious and sneaky and delicious. Fear is important. We learn from our fears and we adapt because of them. When you can accept fear into your heart, then you may benefit from it. Yes, I’m saying it is important give in and be afraid.

First, let’s look at why I believe all those adjectives. When we are small, we develop fear of the unknown. This is where we put the things we don’t understand, into the shadow beyond the darkness. Such fear can motivate us to run or to fight. Fight or Flight syndrome comes from this basic fear. The fear of the unknown is challenging and can be paralyzing if we don’t learn to fight through it. Simply turning a corner on a dark road meets this fear. Keep turning the wheel, despite your fear. Delicious things come from pressing forward (safely please, unless you are a character).

Second, there is the kind of fear that instigates reactions. We fear getting surprised so we set up booby-traps. We fear being “taken” by a criminal so we trap them instead. We fear getting into a fight so we avoid that person. We fear what is around the bend, the corner, or off the road.This fear is more about what will happen to us and isn’t always good. But it is a wonderful tool for your traitors, your villains, your contagonists. Channel it.

Next there is the fear that illuminates. Studying for a test out of fear of failure can illuminate us to knowledge and behaviors (ours and our fellow students and teachers!). This kind of fear shines a light on our weaknesses and our needs. This fear can be used to aid others, provide that ah-ha moment, lead to discovery of clues or the ultimate takedown of the antagonist.

Castigation often follows fear. When we have been frightened and we don’t wish to be frightened again, we often castigate the perpetrators. Most often we find it riding on relief. It causes a plethora of negative emotions including vitriol, anger, hatred, childish jealousy, envy and back talk. This is when our mouths often overtake good sense. This fear is damaging. It is what parents often do their children. It is what heroes often do in frustration or a lover to a beloved. Use it wisely because it hurts.

Finally, there is the fear that energizes. I could write on and on about fear but let’s concentrate on this positive aspect. This fear makes us feel alive. The fear of not meeting a deadline (work, school, curfew). This fear motives, illuminates, castigates, paralyzes, frustrates, and – the best part – separates the determined from the unsure. THIS is the fear which often guides an author to guide the conflict in the stories. This energizing fear is the substance of good stories. It combines all the elements of fear into one positive stroke, using all the elements to culminate into a great ending (doesn’t have to be a happy one!).

Sure, authors are afraid of failure. We all fear not being accepted. We all fear bad reviews. But when the fear energizes, it can be channeled into producing action. And that action makes us feel excited and alive. Latch onto that feeling and ride it. Let it become you. Never give up or let fear of failure win. You can benefit if you try, and keep trying.

Fear can be good for you. A little stress gets the blood pumping, colors your cheeks, makes you feel giddy and goofy and tingly all over. Fear about the first time you had sex. Fear about going to that first scary movie. Fear about Halloween and the haunted house. Fear about that last manuscript, the one you had nightmares over and the one the beta readers ripped you apart over. (You know the one that turned out good in the end but kept you up for a month in frightful worry!).

As long as you use your fear productively, as long as you don’t let fear overtake your good sense or your ability to produce/function, fear is your friend. That’s why I say, let fear in. Let fear enliven you. Let fear spark your characters, bring reality to your stories, breathe tension to your novels and excitement to your publishing. Fear, used well, is good!

So go ahead. Be afraid. I’ll meet you in the shadows.

Thanks for coming by.
I remain, Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

A couple years ago (3 Jun 15) I read an insightful (and humorous) blog post by Julie Butcher from her personal blog Fire Drill (fabulous writer/author/columnist, if you are wondering, and it got me thinking. Julie writes that today’s authors need to consider what is current for teens when writing YA. Thirty years ago, teens didn’t do coffee the way they do now (even down to the ten-years old though I wouldn’t allow that, still..). Today’s youth truly are more health conscious despite all the overweight people in the world (me included), and they are reading labels and worried about GMOs and being “gluten-free.” Thanks for the reminders, Julie.

After I considered how much I hate intrepidly healthy people (just kidding! Maybe.), I thought about the reverse of what Julie said. I’m a boomer and I know many young people who are writing about other generations in their stories. Some are doing biographies while others are penning family histories. The point is, depending on the decade, things were very different when I was a kid, teen, and young adult. 

But how much effort is being given to the truth in building a culture in newer books?

For example, I heard on the news that Affirmed won the Triple Crown, gas was 91 cents. The big win was 1978. But just ten years earlier, gas was averaging only 34 cents! And a stamp was a nickel. It certainly alters perspective, right?

I was discussing the new cell phones with a young college woman (20 years old) and she asked me about my first cell phone. I laughed and told her about the “shoe size bricks” that were phones. And then I really floored her when I mentioned the “bag phone” we had in the late ’80s. It sat on the floor, on the “hump” in our car, right where the big plush bench seat separated so each of us could adjust our own. She was still reeling from shock I think because she said, “hump on the floor?” Ah the cars of yesterday! Something else to consider, yes? Those late 80’s don’t seem that far away to me because I remember them, but to her my world might as well be a separate galaxy.

Much was written of the early rock festivals. Take Woodstock, historical and beloved. There were no cell phones. There were no tablets. There were no Bluetooth devices or iPods.  Woodstock was 1969. The first Walkman – a fabulous portable cassette with foamy headphones, didn’t happen for another decade on July 1, 1979.

In keeping with what Julie mentioned, let’s talk coffee and food. Historians believe the first recorded coffee-house was in Constantinople, Turkey in 1475. So coffee isn’t a new thing. Starbucks, however, is. Coffee houses or coffee shops really didn’t “develop” into a conscious thing in the US until about 1990 (though it was in the more artsy places like SoHo, San Francisco, and New Orleans earlier).  Starbucks opened one shop in 1971 in Seattle (where many think the coffee craze started). I consider the coffee craze a part of the boomer experience, “boomerly” speaking.

But let’s go back a little further. I grew up in the Midwest on corn-fed beef and potatoes. As kids, we ran everywhere, pretty much without fear of anything. My town wasn’t small but it was a town and not a city. Still, we didn’t have gang violence, drive by shootings, drug dealer corners, or worry about being abducted, at least not in abundance or where we were restricted. People got their mail at the house from a mailman who walked. Newspapers were delivered to the porch (or the flowers if the aim was bad) by kids on bikes, kids walked to school when they could (because many could!). My first experience with a school bus wasn’t until I hit 8th grade. By then I was in Florida and in a more subdivision environment. We rode bikes to school in the 6th and 7th grade because that was accepted and gave us freedom. No one worried about us being stolen or killed. And that was only in 1966-1968.

But back to food. Sonic drive ins have been around since 1959. I never saw any until I was an adult but there were many “copies” around, perfect hangouts for dates. Drive-in’s were big when I was a teen and young adult. Movie theaters had balconies and you could smoke. We did. Theaters were where movies were shown and plays were performed. And balconies didn’t cost extra either.

At home, we didn’t eat wrap sandwiches and yogurt smoothies. We ate soft creamy ice cream or frozen custard, snow cones and Nutty Buddies. We bought hot dogs and hamburgers loaded with everything, the messier the better. Anyone remember Burger QUEEN?  And no popcorn was worth eating unless loaded with butter and salt. We ate red meat — meatloaf, sloppy joes, spaghetti with meat, meatballs, hamburger, steak (might be flank or flat-iron but it was steak).

No one read labels because there weren’t labels like there are today. That is an innovation of the last decade. No one really cared. Ever.

And no one I went to school with had a peanut allergy. PB&J sandwiches (peanut butter and jelly) were readily shared! Oh, and no backpacks. We carried all our books (lockers didn’t come until junior high and then we still carried to class), and our wee metal lunch boxes with thermos! Sandwich, box of raisins, apple, milk (no bags of chips, though sometimes I did get a bag of peanuts).

The point is, as Julie Butcher mentions, “Pay attention to the world.” Stay current with today’s inventions and trends if you are writing YA. If you are writing about young adults 30-40 years ago, understand the world and culture of that decade or century. If you want to write historical novels about the last fifty years, then realize how very different the times and people were. Even language can date you if you are writing lots of dialogue (and I know you are). Neato, groovy, cool, hip, man. Super, jelly-o, and jeez!

If you are an older writer creating YA characters today, be careful not to let your memories of “back then” become the world of your characters of today. And likewise, if you are a younger writer (40 years old and less), be careful not to let modernisms muddy up a retro, antique or vintage story.

Know your world. Mine, theirs, yours. You dig? Jeah (not a misspelling)! And your stories will shine brighter for your efforts. Your characters will be memorable, too.

(Thanks Julie Butcher)
I remain, Yours Between the Lines,
Sherry

THE LEGACY OF TRADITIONS

As I prepared for Christmas this year, I went through my usual, annual habits and realized some of my habits were in fact greater than such a trivial label.  Many of my habits are actual  traditions, made so not by me but from a long list of women who prepared for hundreds of Christmases before me.

I guess my realization began as I gathered the tablecloths from the bottom drawer of the sideboard. In the bottom, lovingly folded, the white tablecloths with candy canes, cookies, and Santa stockings were waiting for their annual viewing.  I inherited these tablecloths from my mother who got them from my paternal grandmother, who received one of them from my great-grandmother.  I removed these cloths and as I passed my fingers over the well-worn pattern, I realized that I was standing, walking, and working in the shadow of a great Christmas tradition – the ritual unpacking and ironing of the cherished linens.

    From 2009

How many times had I seen my grandmothers and mother stand beside the ironing board and watch the back-and-forth motion accompanied with the “sssshhhhh” of steam rising from the freshly washed, pristine cloths?  How often did I marvel at their patience as they performed this ritual ironing, wondering why on earth would they bother (you know teenagers and their lack of “big picture” living)?  How often did my mother send me to the kitchen to refill the little spray bottle with cool water, used to dampen the heavy cotton cloths and eliminate wrinkles?  I even have a memory of a great “thud” of a true cast iron as my grandmother labored over very old, thick, cotton tablecloths with an oven-heated iron. Talk about arm muscles!

  This year

As I pulled out my ironing board, all these memories and thoughts rushed back. I had a small, self-satisfied moment as I realized now I was a part of a wondrous past, a line of great women who continued a truly satisfying tradition of Christmas linens.  I need not ask “why go through all that ironing” as I look at my dining room or kitchen table.  I can’t help but smile, proudly I admit, as I spot the Christmas table cloths with candy canes and Christmas stockings draped over sofa tables or the sideboard. There is a Christmas magic of which I am now a part, as woven as I am into this tapestry of tradition.

Need you ask why a woman who never irons at any other time of the year, irons once a year for Christmas? Call it part of the decorations?  Sure.  But it is so much more to me now.

This is the legacy of traditions. Like the corn soufflé served over certain holidays but only once a year. Like serving ham on New Year’s Day, turkey on Thanksgiving,  or goose for Christmas. Like red, white, and blue decorations for Fourth of July but only that day. These are the things we expect, demand and rely upon as legacy and heritage. Whatever we grew up with or adopted and continue throughout our lives, these matter. These actions and items are comforting and fulfilling because they are part of our “life identity.”

Just like I must have chocolate chip cookies that include a box of Jell-O Pudding to keep the cookies soft, and I must bake these just before Christmas. As I turn on my mixer, I am transported to an older kitchen where other women mixed a batter just like mine and turned out chocolate chip cookies as I will do, to the delight of the house. Habit? Tradition? Legacy.

As an author, this legacy of tradition matters in your writing too. Each book in a series builds on a legacy. The familiar habits of your characters, the places they go regularly. The friendships they develop and the depth of each relationship changes and is enriched in ever chapter, in every book. Every story revisit is a chance to use the traditions and the legacies that you give your readers. And like things we do for ourselves over holidays (even birthdays), so the readers feel taken into your family of stories when you surround them with traditions which completes legacies and legends.

Build these traditions from the beginning in your stories and when you can, repeat them as your stories continue. Pay attention to your real life legacy of traditions and as you enjoy the habits of the season, remember you can give your readers the same joy. Whether you mirror, mimic or create new ideas for your characters and their lives, remember the legacy you leave in your stories can be as real to your readers as your enjoyments are to you.

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ANNOUNCEMENT:  Be sure to join me in my monthly Facebook Live chat on Thursday, Dec 21 at 10 am EST. And come back to Facebook later in the day for a BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION FOR DRAHOMIRA – she’s turning 1000 (well, actually 1020 but we’re keeping to the stories). And she’s got a surprise for you which I will tell you about during my chat!

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I wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year. I won’t have a blog post for you on Christmas day but I will have a Year in Review post to celebrate the opening of 2018. Come back then and share tales of your Christmas with me.

Here’s to Auld Lang Syne, a song that means “for the sake of old times” and reminds us to cherish old friendships, good health and to toast the new year. Here’s to you! See you next year and thank you for joining me this year as we all strive to be the best we can be.

I remain,