Category: general

Even So

In fact, Judd and Wendy, along with Ray Magnum, and Rosie and Lee Oswalt. and Laine McKay, became so real to me that even after I let Judd McKay have his say about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the entire cast of characters decided they wanted to take ten pages each to decipher their emotions, too. I started several weeks later writing about how Ray, Wendy’s husband, suffered from PTSD from being on a firetruck after the storm. I talked about his struggles with increased alcohol use and survivor’s guilt.

By this time, I had started counseling for my own feelings of desperation and anxiety that overwhelmed me after the power came back on and the damage was cleared from my neighborhood, which had experienced Katrina as a Category 1 hurricane over 120 miles inland.

I had let my writing friend Lori read the original story, and I sent her this next ten-page installment from Ray after I finished it. She wrote an in an email back to me that she could see how I was “processing” my own feelings about the hurricane through Ray and thought I needed to talk about his actions, rather than his thoughts. I called her up.

She and I talked for a while, and she crystallized a sentiment for me that I took to heart as I continued to write: This story was not about how people attempted to learn to cope. It was about people who had been destroyed inside by what they had faced. Her exact words (as I remember them) were, “This story is not about Ray’s struggles and victories in AA.”

So I ditched those ten pages and instead wrote instead about Judd and Laine McKay’s meeting with a lawyer to finalize their divorce. Again, I let these characters hurt each other and say hateful things they truly meant. I didn’t get into their heads–I let their actions speak instead. Slowly but surely, I was developing this storm story into a novel that would consume my life for the better part of five months.

Where It Went

I drafted the first short story feverishly in my notebooks until I finished it, then I started typing it into our computer. I revised as I went, tossing in twists of the knife at every point I could find to heighten the dramatic tension. The final scene that took five minutes of story time turned into three days of wondering how to end it and get Wendy and Judd apart again. I went through draft after draft, trying to make it sound “honest” to my concept of the characters.

When I finally solved it, I felt spent. It had taken we two weeks to finish it (I think). But I had a ten-page short story, all told from Wendy’s point of view. But while I thought I was finished with Still Waters, it was not finished with me.

I let my husband read it, and if he wondered about why I had written it, he didn’t ask. He only asked why I had them sleep together. I told him that I was trying to show how far fear could take somebody. I sent it to a few of my writing friends. My friend Christine Parisen said, “Wow! I had to smoke a cigarette after this one!”

But Judd McKay wasn’t finished talking. I kept thinking about that character, and he wanted his ten-page say about the events of the story. So I wrote how he came back to Hattiesburg and discovered Wendy was pregnant, and how he became convinced it was his child. Another month of one gut-wrenching scene after another. I had never written fiction like this, where the characters became much more than thinly-disguised people I knew. Judd McKay and Wendy Magnum became real people in my mind, and they had a greater story they wanted to tell.

How It Started

So this project grew out of my experience during Hurricane Katrina. I was reading stories in the news about the impact of the storm–destroyed homes, businesses, landmarks, streets etc. I started wondering where stories about people were. Everyone has a story, right? So that was where I started trying to orient my own writing about the storm that I was doing for the news outlets I worked for.

But I wondered if I could do a storm story another way–so many people had stories about being safe that always ended like, “I lost my home and my business and my livelihood, but my family is safe and that’s what’s important.” Those comments had a poignancy that appealed to me. Then I thought of something else–what about a storm story where, miraculously, everything was fine except for mental well-being? What about a story where the people involved lost nothing–but were destroyed psychologically?

I came up with a story, set in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where no one thought the hurricane would ever reach. But it did–the Katrina winds and rain came through as a Category 3 storm. In my story, two people, Wendy and Judd, holed up together in the storm have an intimate encounter, with the attendant regret and emotional pain that came as a result of betraying their spouses during the lapse in judgment.

(I had never read Katherine Chopin’s short story, “The Storm”; it wasn’t one of her more well-known works. I read it years later and had an “oh of course” moment that nothing is new under the sun. Interesting side note: the story was never published in Chopin’s lifetime, only to be included in a collection of her work published in 1969–the year Hurricane Camille destroyed the Mississippi Gulf Coast as the most powerful storm on record.)

Once the idea took root, I couldn’t shake it. I drafted it in my notebook by hand while waiting for power to be restored–working on it in fits and starts while negotiating life with three children, a husband, a house, and my freelance news writing. I had no idea where I was going with it or where I would end up.

Hi There

So here’s the scoop. This page is where I will document my foray back into fiction. The working title of the short story collection I am writing is Hurricane Baby: Stories. Here I will talk about the progress of writing it, how the story came about, and who the characters are; in short, as a reader, you get a front-row seat to the act of creating that is writing fiction. Why am I offering this kind of look into the process, pitfalls, and perils of doing the hard work of writing fiction? I’m glad you asked. 😊

I’ve had a lot of fear about starting this project. I decided the best way to get past the fear is to face it head-on and acknowledge it. I will write about fear. About the hard stuff. About being scared I’m going to invest a lot of time into a project that may not ever see the light of day. About being scared of being judged for writing what I am writing. About being scared of what folks may say.

But it occurred to me that I can ensure that the labor is not in vain by offering to share the journey with readers. Craft, perseverance, encouragement are qualities many writers say they wish they had more of. So I am going to be showing those moments with you, the reader. I hope my vulnerability in this process is encouraging to other writers, who may see themselves in my struggles. So. Join me. I can’t wait to meet you all.