Tag: fiction

The enduring nourishment of Linus in the pumpkin patch

The weather is turning cooler (mercifully!), the days are getting shorter, the Halloween decorations are up, and that can mean only one thing: It’s time to watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Again.

Operative word: again. Because we watch it Every.Single.Year.  We would no more miss the Great Pumpkin than we’d miss buying Halloween candy in September and then having to buy it again a few weeks later because we sampled too many.

Ahem. Anyway.

It’s always the same:

Lucy is as bossy as ever – and dangerous, as she removes the football, causing Charlie Brown to risk spinal cord injury.

Charlie Brown mistakenly gets invited to a Halloween party and gets rocks when he goes trick-or-treating.

Snoopy gets melodramatic crooning at the piano and doing reinactments of World War I aerial dogfights.

Linus sends a warm invitation to the Great Pumpkin to visit him in the pumpkin patch …

… and then he gets questioned and ridiculed by everyone – including Snoopy.

It’s always the same. Year after year.

We love those crazy kids because they never change. Lucy is always bossy, Charlie Brown is always being picked on, Snoopy is always a daredevil, and Linus … oh, Linus, that lovable kid … he never loses his belief that the Great Pumpkin will show up. Even when the Great Pumpkin doesn’t show, Linus picks himself up, dusts himself off, and looks toward the future. “Next year at this same time, I’ll find a pumpkin patch that is real sincere!”

He knows that when you have faith and hope in your heart — and you live with sincerity — anything can happen. (Even his bossy sister, in a surprising and loving moment, goes out to the pumpkin patch and brings him in from the cold.)

With heartfelt appreciation to the Peanuts gang’s creator, Charles M. Schulz, that message is something we can depend on in a world that changes minute by minute. We know Charlie Brown and his friends will continue to be as hope-filled as they are. We never have to worry about a Charlie Brown reboot or a sequel where they turn surly or apathetic.

And that’s a nourishing thought.

(p.s. The Internet Archive has the video online.)

I Do Declare: Humor is a funny way to stay fit

When a new acquaintance finds out I’m a writer, I will invariably get The Question: “So what do you write?”

Which is a little bit like asking someone: “So what do you eat?”

Because the answer is pretty much the same: “Everything I want to.”

No, I’m serious (about writing and eating).

My portfolio runs the gamut from nonfiction books and historical fiction novels to news articles and features to business and personal profiles to human interest and tourism stories to white papers and technical documentation to grants and proposals to humor in various media.

And it’s the last item – humor – that got me through (and continues to get me through) the toughest of all other assignments and projects.

My long-term projects (novels) have the occasional light moment, but for the most part, they’re drama fiction. Take, for instance, my historical novel, Turning August, which is set in Germany in World War II and deals with the Resistance. Yeah, a pretty deep subject. Lots of drama.

I wrote a scene (after a huge amount of research) about the Babi Yar Massacre (if you want more info on it, click here … take a deep breath and say a prayer before following the link), and afterward I flopped onto the sofa and sobbed for a long time. The tears would not stop; it was that intense. I called a friend, and she talked me back up into the daylight.

After I calmed down, I remember saying, “Wouldn’t it be weird if I end up in therapy because of a novel I’m writing?”

She thought for a moment and said, “That’s why the light is so important. What you’re writing is important and you need to do it, but you also need to find the light. Find something lighthearted to watch or read – or better yet, something to write.”

Excellent advice from my friend. And she was right – it does help to turn to something lighthearted after such a deep focus on intense drama. Laughter (or humor in general) is healing. Besides being a mood-lifter, it can improve the immune system, sleep quality, and memory, plus a host of other benefits. (Dig deeper into the topic with a few authoritative bits of info here and here and here.)

For me, humor is also a productivity booster. When I take a few moments to create humor pieces, I find that my mood is consistently better, my work on long-term projects is of a higher quality, and I’m eager to get to work every day.

Hence the part of my blog called “Good Cheer,” which includes Belle of the Ballyhoo (a comic strip about a freelancer dealing with all the craziness of contract work) and Vim & Verve (conversations between two alligators who critique movies and TV shows with a lot of snark).

I also highlight a range of memes featuring Reggaetor (an alligator who listens to Bob Marley), Grammarcat (a feline who silently judges your grammar), Writer Girl (a fashion doll always trying to meet her deadlines), Haiku To You Too (silly haikus with amazing photos), and Wine Me Up (exactly what it sounds like).

The Book of Proverbs – ever the astute guide – notes that “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” (Proverbs 17:22, NRSV)

I like the “good medicine” of writing humor. It’s a pleasant taste. And it keeps my writing muscles fit.

I found one of my best characters by paying attention and taking notes

One of my readers once asked how I come up with the complex characters for my novels and give them their particular mannerisms. The answer is complex: a mixture of research, a study of traits and personalities, close observation of people, watching their habits and quirks.

Many articles and books and creative writing courses have been written about character development, and my initial thought was to refer to those sources.

But as I thought about the question, I realized I had a good short answer: I listened to my dad talk. Thoughout his life, Dad invariably found himself connecting with the most curious and remarkable characters and, being the fabulous storyteller that he was, he loved telling the stories of these people.

In a book I wrote with him – “If You Can’t Pay Attention, Take Notes,” a collection of his sea stories – one of the vignettes highlights Dad’s friendship with an undercover NIS agent, completely unaware of the agent’s identity.

I was so intrigued by this character that I put him in a series of novels I wrote (the “Para Team 1” series) that involve an agent with a special unit of Naval Intelligence.

Here’s Dad’s account of the inspiration for my character, as told in his sea stories (more info about the book here):

When I was stationed in Norfolk, I met a fellow who worked in the Beachmaster unit with me. Mike was a second class boatswain’s mate and had been for a long time. You could tell by the stripes up his arm that he’d been taking the first class test for a while and obviously hadn’t passed it yet. The boatswain’s mate first class test was hard to pass.

That didn’t seem to bother him, though. He was a nice, easy-going guy – loved to tell jokes and play cards and fish. We had a lot in common.

Mike was married and had two kids. We went fishing all the time, and he and his wife came over and played cards with me and Pat. Over the course of a year, we got to know them pretty well. We even went on vacation together.

One day two military police came to the door of our building. Mike was standing between them. The MPs asked to come in to talk to a particular chief who was on duty. I told them it was a secure building and I couldn’t let them in, but if they would wait there, I’d go get him.

I found the chief and took him to the door, and the MPs arrested him. The whole time Mike didn’t look at me. I was worried about what kind of trouble he was in.

I found out from some others in the building that the chief they arrested was suspected of selling answers to the first class test. Now I was really worried about Mike.

As soon as I got off duty, I went to his house to see his wife and let her know I was going to the brig to see Mike. But when I got there, the house was completely empty. All of it was gone – the furniture, their clothes, the food in the refrigerator. Nothing was left. No moving boxes, nothing in sight.

By this time I was thoroughly confused, but I made my way over to the brig and asked if I could see Mike.

He wasn’t there. In fact, they had no idea who I was talking about.

When I got home, I told Pat about it. She was shocked. She had just seen Mike’s wife in the commissary the day before.

When I got to work the next day, I found out that Mike had been working undercover with Naval Intelligence. They had known for a while that someone was selling secrets to the test, but they weren’t sure who it was. Mike – obviously not his real name – had been working on the case all that time.

Several years later I was stationed in Charleston. One day I was walking across the base, when I passed someone who looked familiar. I turned around; he turned around. We stared at each other for a moment.

It was Mike.

But he was no longer a second class boatswain’s mate. Now he was a chief engineman.

He looked surprised, like he didn’t know what to say, but then he extended his hand.

“John, how’s it going?” he asked.

“It’s going good,” I said. I wasn’t sure what to call him, so I hesitated. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m stationed on the Sierra,” he said.

I didn’t ask him why. I figured he probably couldn’t tell me, and whatever he did tell me wouldn’t be true.

So we talked about fishing. After about ten minutes, he went on his way and I went on mine.

About a week later, I heard about a drug bust on the U.S.S. Sierra. I wasn’t surprised at all.

I never did see Mike again. At least I don’t think I did. Might depend on whether he got good at disguises.