Newsletter

"Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing."
--Benjamin Franklin

John’s Notes -

Spring in Michigan can drive me to write. A crisp, clear morning, 35F makes me question my choice of a t-shirt and vest, but I head to my favorite diner, arriving at 6 am as the open light blinks on. Oatmeal, with a bit of brown sugar and milk at my booth with a smile from the sole server, a lovely woman who brings a bit of warmth to the cool morning.

I wake between 4-6 am most days, the ache in my back nudging me to get up and move. I listen to that ache and end up wide awake. When I was younger, I woke up energized by the sunrise. Now, I wake to the ache - coincidently about the same time as the sun.

I hate to waste time, so I do something with it - I write, do my coaching correspondence, and read. Sometimes I let music lift me while I’m working, and others I let news shows deflate me - knowing someday it might inspire. I’m stubborn, so I keep listening. Hoping. Today is music - String Quartet #19 in C Major, KV. 465 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, nicknamed "Dissonance" for its slow introduction. Lovely.
A writing habit, once built, can propel us forward, making it easier to write than to not write. I’d love to hear what your writing habit looks like, and will have a piece in my next newsletter on building a positive writing habit.

Two book recommendations this month:

For Readers:  

I learned about Maggie Stiefvater through a recorded interview with one of my professors, Shana Youngdahl. Maggie is a great writer - but she is a master storyteller. The difference, for me, is how a tale wraps you up in it and carries you away. How she introduces herself;

“I am Maggie Stiefvater. I write books. Some of them are funny, ha-ha, and some of them are funny, strange. Several of them are #1 NYT Bestsellers.”

Choose something that looks good - you won’t be disappointed. https://maggiestiefvater.com/novels/

For Writers:  

Cheryl Klein has given us a wonderful guide, The Magic Words, Writing Great Books for Children and Young Adults. Klein frames her work around writing for Children and Young Adults, but the lessons apply to all storytelling. If you want to improve your storytelling, get this book, find a writing partner and work your way through it.

 https://www.cherylklein.com/the-magic-words

A short story -

jsmalnor@gmail.com

No one taught me about ghost tears, that ghosts cry real tears, or that their tears are magic.

Because they didn't know.

Last summer I met a girl who was in a treehouse, and she was crying. I was climbing up to help and one of her tears landed in my mouth. It tasted like a sour candy and red pepper and made my mouth tingle. One minute I was a kid, and the next I was a half-ghost. The whole thing led to a big problem, solved by someone dying – a strange but happy ending. Something I don't think is going to happen today.

My name is Charlie. Charlie Daniels.

I can do most of the usual ghost things – fly, disappear, and appear wherever I want. I'm a normal human unless I concentrate on the ghost stuff. The hardest part of being what I am is that I stopped aging. I'm twelve years old, well, Harper says I'm almost twelve, at eleven years and ten months old, but I'm rounding up. I'll be the same age next year, and maybe forever. Sometimes I'm relieved I won't have to go through the 'puberty journey' as my mom calls it, and sometimes I wish my life was frozen at sixteen or eighteen instead of twelve.

The problem right now is this ghost, Angelo, who is haunting Harper's family to the point they are considering selling their house and moving. Harper is my best friend – I know, I've told you – and having her move would be awful. So I need to get rid of Angelo. I've known for a while. But honestly, I'm scared of him.

It is very hard to kill a ghost, as they are already dead, but there are ways.

Some people think that you can dig up the body of the ghost and salt it, then burn it, and the ghost will dissolve with its body. Salt does nothing to ghosts, and once they are ghosts, they have no connection to their body, so the whole salt and burn is a myth. Another common belief is cold iron – and silver, or enchanted weapons – the idea that metals can hurt ghosts is also untrue. I've tested them all.

But there are a few ways to kill a ghost, ending them completely or sending them on to wherever they are bound – meaning heaven or hell. I didn't think much about heaven and hell before I became a ghost, but now – they are simply a part of my life.

One sure way to get rid of a ghost is to have another ghost grab them, and will themselves to move on. I don't know why it works, or how, but an old ghost named Philip told me it is the one sure way to make a ghost move on. But if I grab Angelo and will myself to move on, my ghost half will disappear. And my human self will die. Or at least we think it will. So, not a great option.

I met Philip, a miserable old ghost, when he was struggling to move on - when he tried everything else, he asked me to take dried lemon mint leaves, or dried radish leaves and grind them up. He said if you dissolved the leaf dust into vinegar, put it into a spray bottle, and sprayed it through one ghost and onto another, they would dissolve. Philip was sure it would work, and he thought mint sends them to a good place, and radishes send them in the other direction. Kind of a big deal if you get it wrong, but mint felt right to me – I hate radishes.

"Charlie, it's not killing if you do it with kindness," Philip begged me.

I didn't want to kill anyone, but Philip was miserable. I used mint leaves and could feel it when the spray went through my arm – it stung, but nothing else happened. When the spray hit Philip, he glowed for a moment and then faded. The last thing I saw was the smile on his face, eyes closed in what looked like joy. It didn't feel serious, because I didn't think it would work, not really, but there he was, gone.

I followed Angelo's trail to the back of Harper's house, carrying two spray bottles in a nylon grocery bag. I made myself invisible, which never stops being cool, and hovered over him. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't what happened next.

Angelo became visible, tears streaming down his face. He sat there, mumbling, rocking back and forth, and looking pathetic. My hand clutched the spray bottle, but I couldn't get myself to spray him. A squeeze of the handle would make my problem disappear. But I couldn't do it. I guess it felt like I didn't have the right – even if I did have the power. I dropped down next to him and became visible.

"Hello, Angelo," I said.

Angelo jerked upright, wiping his face, eyebrows arched into points, eyes squinting, and his lips drawn down at the corners until they reached his jawline. I took a step backward.

"What do you want?" he said.

"I don't want you haunting Julia's family," I spoke, my voice loud enough to be heard, but only just. The lack of a tremor made me stick out my chest a bit. I didn't want to start a fight, but Angelo was the kind of guy who always wanted to fight for some reason – or no reason at all. "Why were you crying?"

Angelo's lips pushed together, creating a wrinkly circle which reminded me of a dog's butt. And that made me smile. And that made Angelo's eyes darken further, eyebrows scrunched together, and he disappeared. But he probably didn't know I could see his trail – that I followed out to the backyard, where he sat behind a storage shed.

"Sorry," I said.

Angelo's shoulders went up and down like he didn't care what I said. I sat down next to him.

"Why are you hanging out at Harper's house?" I said.

He sighed and turned his hands palms up like he was surrendering.

"I'm stuck here, and I thought if I could scare them, maybe I could move on," Angelo said. "That's what ghosts are supposed to do, right?"

I closed my mouth, as my mom always told me not to sit with my mouth open.

"Is that why you were crying?" I asked.

"Yeah. I used to love scaring people. Even scared a couple to death," he flashed a look that made me believe him. "Ah, I'm done with that and I'm ready to move on," Angelo looked pathetic sitting there. Then I thought of the spray bottle in my bag.

"Uh, I think I can help if you want me to," I said. "Did you ever meet an old ghost named Philip?"

Angelo looked confused.

"Well, he wanted help moving on and showed me how to do it. And it worked and I think he was happy. Do you want to try it?" I felt guilty saying it – I came there to kill the guy and now I was asking him to let me do it as a favor.

Angelo's eyes filled with tears, his face red and nose dripping. He nodded. My hand touched both bottles, but I wondered if the mint would work. For Angelo, I mean, if he'd scared people to death.

"Hey Angelo, how did you die? Why do you think you stayed as a ghost instead of moving on?" I said. If he did something terrible, I could switch to the bottle with radish leaves.

"I was sick. I started getting headaches and stomach aches and then I got real tired and died," Angelo said. "I was fourteen."

He spoke in a matter-of-fact voice and seemed like dying was no big deal. But I think it should always be a big deal.

"Would you like to move on?" I asked.

The smallest of smiles touched his lips like the morning breeze raising ripples on the surface of a pond.

"Close your eyes, Angelo, and think of going somewhere nice," I said.

He closed his eyes, and I raised the bottle. I waited, trying to get my heart under control, and wrapping my mind around the idea of killing – well, not killing, but ending a ghost. It felt serious this time. That breeze might blow the spray back onto me, so I moved around to be upwind of him. Angelo's face was peaceful.

I squeezed the trigger. And then again, and again.

Tiny drops of vinegar, with tinier particles of lemon mint, floated over Angelo, hesitating before settling onto his body, and glowed. The smile on his face grew, and his eyes opened, looking directly into mine, as his body faded. Silence ruled the moment.

Angelo was gone. Not even a ghost trail to follow.

Learn more about Charlie: www.johnsmalnor.com

Craft: The Storytelling Process - 

Story Plan -

Writers will know the terms planner or pantser as descriptors of how they write - building from a detailed plan on one side or letting their muse carry them forward on the other. My experience has shown that we need both - but at the right moment. Consider, if you will indulge me, the idea of building a small cabin in the woods - your future writing escape. You can dive in and start building, but realizing halfway through that you want windows moved onto the wall with the lake view can lead to a lot of extra work. A lot. That’s what pantsing will get you. But if you have every detail meticulously planned, the final result can feel a bit sterile and lacking in personality - the result of extreme planning. So I advocate for a middle ground. 

Start by creating a book plan - with a brief one line premise. Try this format:

A character (in two 2 words) who has a goal and is experiencing some kind of situation/crisis/or facing an antagonist.

If you can’t summarize your story in one line, keep trying until you do. Ask your writing friends for help.

Next, create a summary, a 3-4 sentence description that offers a setting, a storyline, and a hook - what would make this story need to be written? If you don’t like the summary, you likely won’t like the complete novel thousands of hours later. Take the time to create a good premise.

Now, extend the premise to a simple, three-act structure - each act with a summary. Then imagine those acts split into scenes (worry about chapters later) and write a single-line premise for each scene.

Once you can tell the whole story in 40-60 sentences (the summary of each scene), we can go crazy pantsing our way forward within each scene - knowing the purpose and the ending of each to maintain continuity and a sense of direction.

Several additional things are part of a novel plan - including your writing intention, setting accountability consequences, creating weekly progress reports and celebrating key milestones.  Joe Bunting, Founder of The Write Practice, will talk you through it (free) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puHqYlqdZUE.