What We Write Matters Because Life Matters--Inkblots

Though we are few, a handful of 'Blots have gathered in Brookside cottage (one of our tiny house retreats) as Gillian has become our family librarian and is entirely reorganizing the Scriptorium, dusting all the shelves, establishing categories, bustling about making it bookish and charming.

Rachel will lead us off with her 1950s yarn. I love your intricate details of picking the lock. It can be challenging to figure out the best way to convey non-verbal sounds, hiccups and the like. How did you spell it? You do a good job of filling in details of posture and what the person is doing in the midst of dialogue. I wonder if this scene needs to be more tense, or are you aiming at humor rather than the shock of discovery as she rummages through his papers? She does show emotion afterward, but I felt like it was missing earlier when she was being discovered. Margaret and Daisy are the same person which is a bit confusing. How is Daisy going to be pressured to change? Rachel's protagonist is trying to figure our her place, find her wings, discover who she is. I suggested creating longing for everything to be right, for the problem to be solved (without solving it entirety). Give the reader hope that things do not have to be this way, broken, dysfunctional, without resolution.

Alisa reads the opening pages of The Emblem (again, which Alisa pushed back on reading to us). Alisa wrote the first draft in 2010. This is a book set in the 1930s exploring the tensions between white minors in Washington State and black minority laborers. You write narrative so well, but I would like to hear more dialogue in the opening chapter. I love the scene with his little girl. Ordering up a whiskey. I wonder if there is a more colloquial way of saying this in the 1930s. I wonder if you could start with this dialogue and weave in the back story narrative in between the talk. Readers love listening in to others talking, like eavesdropping. There's a sort of conspiratorial emotion for the reader when we do this, in my opinion. Connections of the soul. Compelling love story. She wants her main character(s) to be more intriguing. I'm reading the entire manuscript in the next days.

John doesn't want to read. He is smarting after another critique. We understand at 'Blots. You're in good company. Read! He gave us permission to interrupt him when we don't like something. I think you need to abbreviate the dialogue. "I can't!" rather than, "I just don't think I can do this." Suddenly she threw up. Is there another way to convey this? Alisa has given birth, and interjects. They would clean her up right away, not leaving her in her vomit. Rachel asked what John is trying to say with the birthing scene? He wants it to be realistic. The story is all about a baby that was almost aborted. He is trying to show the difficulty. Rachel feels like there needs to be a reprieve after the anguish. Alisa feels like it needs to be tightened, condensed, and that's what Mother Bond wanted too, tighten the scene, make it move more quickly. What I am hearing is, less is more. Don't overwrite the birthing scene. We all seemed to agree that the baby's name Grace should not be named after the mom's name. We want to hear Grace for the first time in the final line of the book. We talked about abortion, about the NY Governor Cuomo Herod law, about the rhetoric of toxic-masculinity, identity politics and whether it will produce men who will give their lives for others, or will it backfire and produce more selfishness and boorish pride as men simmer under the dictates of the left to act more like women.