The Loup-garou

I wrote a short story, "Sidonie and the Loup-garou," a couple of years ago in response to a class fiction assignment. What in the world is a loup-garou, you may ask. An ancient evil who's been running around the swamps and bayous of Louisiana since the arrival of the French Acadians after the British kicked them out of Canada. The loup-garou came along for the ride and has been here ever since.

According to the old folks a loup-garou is a man-wolf who walks around upright on two legs. He, or she, has large red eyes, a pointed nose, shaggy hair, and long, sharp nails. Cajun children grew up with the warning "Be good or the loup-garou gonna get you" ringing in their ears.

The Cajun loups-garou differ from the Hollywood stereotype, who are often portrayed as loners, solitary outcasts. The Cajun loup-garou is anything but. They love to party. They can dance all night just like their human Cajun counterparts. They hold their balls at Bayou Goula during a full moon and also on the night of St. John's Eve, June 23. This is the night they gather from throughout the Delta for a gigantic convocation.

FYI: to ward off an attack throw a bayou bullfrog at a loup-garou (they're terrified of frogs), or sprinkle salt on the creature and their fur will catch on fire.

Following is a short scene from my story:

She stood there a moment, squinting into the blackness. Red eyes stared back at her. She couldn't move. She heard a mewling sound, like a cat in pain. She realized the sound was coming from her.

Denny. I've got to get to Denny. He'll take care of me. And I've got my frog. Papa Leon always said the loup-garou was scared of frogs. He promised me. If I can just get to Denny's house.

She whirled and sprinted toward the pasture, fueled by adrenaline and secure in the knowledge she had the fastest time on the track team in the hundred yard dash and the high hurdles. The fence loomed ahead of her. It didn't take long to make it over the wooden rails, and she looked for the porch light's welcoming beam ahead.

It wasn't there.

She could see the muted blue of a television set from a window, but the porch light was out. She kept running.

Just make it to the house. Denny would be waiting. She didn't know if those red eyes were still behind her. She sure wasn't going to stop and look. She wasn't going to stop until she got to the back door.

Sidonie had to go over another fence to get into the back yard. The blue water of the swimming pool gave off an eerie glow in the moonlight, mirroring the giant white orb in the glassy surface. She skirted the edge of the pool and skidded to a stop at the door.

She grabbed the doorknob and pulled. Nothing. She yanked harder. Several times. Where was Denny? He was supposed to be there to let her in.

She turned and backed against the door, clutching her frog to her chest. The red eyes emerged from behind the pool umbrella. Hairy hands reached out. She shoved the frog at him. He snatched it away.

*

My advice? Stay away from Bayou Goula in June. If you must travel there take a burlap sack full of  live bullfrogs and a gallon-sized salt shaker.

I've Been "Tagged"

My friend, Jess Ferguson, tagged me with some questions, so here goes.

1)What is the one book you couldn't live without?
Other than the Bible, it would have to be The Million Word Crossword Dictionary. In addition to helping me out with my crosswords, it's a great Thesaurus. Better than a regular one, actually.

2) What can you see out your window at the moment?
A gray March afternoon and the Pousson's house.

3) What's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten?
Like Jess, I'm not an adventurous eater, but I would have to say it would be the powdered milk and eggs we had to use in Goose Bay, Labrador.

4) What fictional character would you most like to marry?
That's easy. James Bond, as played by Sean Connery. A close second would be the sergeant in "From Here to Eternity," as played by Burt Lancaster.

5) If ever a fictional villain was going to win, who would you want it to be?
Hannibal Lector, because the ones he went after usually had it coming.

6) How many types of cheese can you name off the top of your head?
American, Swiss, cheddar, parmesan. Love 'em all.

7) If you didn't want to be a writer, what would you want to be?
An archeologist,

8) Can you play a musical instrument?
I can play "Chopsticks" and "Heart and Soul" on the piano.

9) Do you own a Kindle or Nook or any sort of e-reader?
I have a Kindle Keyboard and a Kindle Fire.

10) If you do, how many books do you have on it?
95 when I counted yesterday. Since then I've bought two more.

11) You just got published. In a glowing review, someone calls you the next [insert famous author name here]. Which famous author has to watch their back now you're on the scene?
James Lee Burke. Wish I could write like him.

Flex Your Muscles Part 2

Last time I told you about some online sources for writing prompts and exercises. Besides the internet a large number of trees have given their all so we scribblers can jump-start our creativity. One of the best books I've seen is A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words. The subtitle reads: "image-driven story prompts and exercises for writers" and the author is Phillip Sexton. The photographs were provided by Tricia Bateman. Over 110 photos are inside its pages just waiting for us to add our immortal words. It has chapters on the different elements of fiction writing: Beginnings, Description, Character, Dialogue, Emotions, and Endings. Chapter 7 is titled "Story Starters" and has 120 pages of exercises that focus on specific ideas about the craft of writing and working with photos. The last chapter has suggestions for using the exercises a second or third time.

So there you are. Enough suggestions to keep you busy for awhile. And who knows, you just might end up with something some editor might be willing to take a chance on.

Gotta go. My first exercise awaits. There's this letter with no return address. What's in it? How is my protagonist going to react to the contents? Why?

Flex Your Muscles

"Write every day."
"How would Yo-yo Ma sound if he didn't practice that cello every day?"
"Do you want a surgeon operating on you who didn't work on his skills?"
 "What about Michael Jordan or Larry Bird or Kobe Bryant? Or Jack Nicklaus? Would they be any good at their game if they never practiced?"
How many times have we heard someone say something like that? I heard "Write every day" for the first time way back in 1985 when I started taking classes and getting serious about my writing. I've heard it several times a year ever since. Every class I ever took that's the first thing the teacher said. "Write. Every. Day."

Okay. That sounds like good advice. What do I write about? How many times have you sat staring at the blank screen or the pristine sheet of paper and wondered how to get started? I have. Many times. That's no excuse, however. A ton of things exist out there to get you started.

Online, go to www.thestorystarter.com and click on the box. "Today this sentence popped out: The rich jungle guide climbed the wall in the ballroom for the grandmother." Surely we can get a story out of that. After all, we're writers, aren't we? Go to www.writermag.com/prompts. Every Friday a new prompt is posted. Another weekly site is www.poets.org. Subscribe to THE TIME IS NOW and every Thursday they'll send a fiction prompt, a poetry prompt, and something new, a creative nonfiction prompt, to your inbox.

That's just a few you can find on the Internet. Next time I'll tell you about some of the books out there.
So go ahead and flex those writing muscles.

Are You Portable?

The March issue of The Writer magazine has an interesting article by David Harris Ebenbach titled "The Portable Writer." He says he worries when he hears a writer say they can only write at a certain time or in a certain place or in a special kind of journal with a special pen or only on the computer. Unfortunately for us the perfect conditions are elusive. It would be nice to be able to go to an artist's colony in the mountains or a writer's retreat by the sea, but those conditions are short lived. I decided to take stock of my own writing routine to see how portable I am. Not very, I'm afraid. I go to the library at 9:00 in the morning. I sit down at the last table in the back of the nonfiction section. I spread  my paraphernalia all over the table and get to work. I get a lot done and wrap things up after about two hours. But then last Tuesday, horror of horrors. Someone's sitting at my table! Messed up my whole day. Then the magazine came in the mail and I read the article. Like the song says, there'll be some changes made. I'll clean off my desk so I can use it to write on instead of catching clutter. The kitchen table has possibilites. Stellar Beans and Books a Million every now and then. My brother has a nice cabin on the river. How about you? How portable are you?

Listen To What They Say

I just returned from a ten-day cruise to Key West and the Bahamas. Very relaxing. No telephone ringing. No deadlines. Just endless water and balmy nights. No worrying about query letters and the dreaded synopsis. Lots of reading, though. I had a  book on my Kindle that I started reading after we set sail. It was one of those "can't put down" books. NO REST FOR THE DEAD by 26 different writers. Great book, and highly recommended. But I digress. I sat on a window bench reading, saving the table for my sister and cousins, who had gone to the casino to kill time until the next Trivia game started. Two couples sat down at my table and started talking. Like I said, I was reading and minding my own business. One of the women left for the casino and her husband unloaded some interesting things about his wife and her family on the other couple. I tried. I really tried to keep reading and not eavesdrop. The wife came back and they all got up and left, and I hotfooted it back to my room and wrote down everything I could remember him saying. There's no way I'm not going to get a short story out of that conversation. So listen to what they say. You never know when someone will drop it in your lap.

Perseverance

Perseverance

 I've been suffering from the What-Do-I-Write-About blues. The blogs were waiting for my immortal words, but that closet needed cleaning. The laundry was piling up. I had errands to run, so I took myself off to the Dollar Store and the library. Post Office, next stop. I pulled the endless catalogs out of my crammed up box, deciding which ones would not make it home. Next came my latest copy of the Writer's Digest magazine. Who was staring back at me from the cover but my favorite author of all time. James Lee Burke. "The bestseller on battling through rejection" were the words under his name. I couldn't wait to get home and read it. I knew a thing or two about rejection. Or so I thought.

This man is a rare two-time Edgar Award winner, recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship, and three of his books have been made into films. He published his first story at age nineteen. His latest novel, Feast Day of Fools, is his thirtieth book and has been nominated for the National Book Award. By the age of thirty-four he had three mainstream novels published.

 His fourth book, The Lost Get-Back Boogie, was rejected 111 times in nine years. He was rejected for the Guggenheim fourteen times before finally being accepted. LSU Press finally picked up Boogie and it was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

This article is not so much about rejection as it is about perseverance. I thought I had cornered the market on rejections. I have one each from Alfred Hitchcock, Ellery Queen, Great Mystery & Suspense, Asimov's Science Fiction, Fantasy and Science Fiction, and two from Byline. A total of seven. I am not even in the ball park.

 Here's Burke's advice: Never keep a manuscript longer than 36 hours. Listen to what a publisher or editor has to say about changes. DON'T EVER QUIT. Believe in yourself.

My novel, Wild Justice, is at The Permanent Press being looked at by an editor, but I have at least ten stories sitting in a drawer. The next time you see me ask if I've sent anything out lately. I'll do the same for you.