Hope in the Mail Read online

  No, it’s much more practical to have your kids push from behind until you’re rolling with enough momentum to pop the clutch and basically kick-start the motor.

  Looking back, practical would have been for my parents to have a reliable car, but let’s not go there.

  The point is, I had no problem buying a stick shift because that was all I’d known growing up. But a stick shift meant Bullet had a manual clutch, and just as I was getting to a place of acceptance about the car’s appearance, I began having problems shifting gears.

  After a quick diagnosis, Dad determined that the culprit was my throw-out bearing—a little disc thingy at the heart of the clutch mechanism that disengages gears when the clutch pedal is depressed and reengages gears when the clutch pedal is released.

  Lucky for me, Dad pointed out, there was a beat-up book in the bowels of Bullet’s trunk that had the schematics for every part of my vehicle, with exploded diagrams and directions for how to change them.

  Shaped like a thick metal bracelet, the throw-out bearing might have been a small (and relatively inexpensive) part, but getting to it turned out to be a task so big I wanted to cry. To replace it, I had to either pull the engine or drop the transmission.

  My dad recommended I drop the transmission.

  The operation took place on a Saturday in a corner of the driveway of our home. Dad helped me jack up one side of the car so Bullet was on a slant, giving me enough space to work beneath it. Then he set me up with all manner of tools, wished me good luck, and left.

  I lay under the car on the sandy cement, looking up at the belly of this beast. The whole undercarriage was coated in a hundred thousand miles of dirt-caked oil, a blackish-brown grime that was a quarter of an inch thick in some places.

  Complaining about the ridiculous ick of the job wasn’t going to get the part changed, so I took a deep breath and got to work. And the first step—draining the transmission fluid—turned out to be easy. I was intrigued by the thick liquid as it poured into the receiving pan, because it seemed incongruous to have a pinkish, sweet-smelling substance stored inside the ugly underbelly of this car.

  But after that, things got messy. And hard. I scraped globs of gooey grime from all the bolts that held the transmission in place, both up by the clutch housing and back by the drive shaft. Then I figured out what size socket to use to loosen the bolts, attached the socket wrench to the first bolt, and pushed counterclockwise.

  Nothing.

  I got in better position and pushed harder.

  Nothing.

  I heave-ho’d, grunted and groaned.

  Nothing.

  I knew I was applying pressure in the correct direction because years before, my brother had taught me Lefty loosey, righty tighty. Still, the thing wouldn’t budge. And after straining several more times to loosen the bolt, I decided that what I needed was more leverage.

  I scooted out from under the car, rummaged through the garage, found a length of pipe, and stuck it on the end of the socket wrench.

  Back under the car, I heave-ho’d again, both hands fisted around the pipe, pushing with all my might. This time the bolt gave way with a sudden crack, and in the process one fist slammed into the grimy undercarriage, busting open my knuckles.

  Yes, pain. Yes, blood. Yes, swearing.

  But I was also excited that the bolt was finally loose, so after blotting the blood and shaking off the pain, I focused on cracking the rest of the bolts, front and back. Then I lined up stacks of scrap two-by-four pieces beneath the transmission to keep it from crashing onto the driveway when the bolts came out.

  One by one, I pulled out the bolts and clinked them into an old can for safe storage. And when they were all finally out…

  Nothing happened.

  The transmission just stayed up, in place, as if the bolts didn’t matter.

  I double-checked the schematic, reread the directions. I’d done everything the way I was supposed to, so why wasn’t the tranny budging?

  I shook it from the side.

  Nothing.

  I kicked it.

  Nothing.

  I knocked on it with a hammer against a block of wood.

  Nothing.

  I knocked harder.

  Nothing.

  Finally, I shoved aside the two-by-fours, got underneath the transmission, grabbed it with both hands, pushed with both feet, and…

  Yeah…no.

  Not yet.

  First there was a sort of slurping sound. Then, as the front gasket broke its hundred-thousand-mile petrified seal, excess tranny fluid in the housing ran out and drenched me. Pink, sticky ick ran down my neck and into my ear and oiled back my hair.

  And then, yes, thunk, the tranny came down.

  Right on top of me.

  Pinned to the driveway on my back with a transmission on my chest, I was scared and crushed and gasping for air, but mostly I was furious. Anger had been building inside me throughout the day, but this pushed me over the edge. Other dads bought their daughters new cars. Other dads would at least change the part for their daughter. But here I was under this turquoise turkey with a transmission on my chest! What kind of insane parents did I have?

  But there’s only so long you can stay pinned to the ground by a transmission before you have to make a move. Spurred on by anger, I wrestled that metal monster off me, removed the throw-out bearing from the clutch housing, and marched into the house to confront my father, filthy face, busted knuckles, tranny hair and all.

  I found him in his home office, paying bills.

  “Here,” I said, handing him the part.

  He jumped from his chair. Now, I thought he might take one look at grimy, bloodied, beaten me and say something like Oh, no! Are you all right? But, instead, he jumped from his chair, his eyes fixed on the part, and said, “You did it!”

  He grabbed his car keys and insisted we go right then to buy a new part. Daylight was burning! There was no time to lose! The next day was Sunday, and who knew what time the parts store would open, if they’d open at all!

  He dropped me at the curb in front of Coast Clutch and Brake. I went inside, mortified. There were cute guys behind the parts counter. Cute guys who, when they saw me approach, elbowed each other like, Oooh, baby, and had a good chuckle over the Girl from Planet Grime.

  I bought my part and got back in Dad’s car, and I think he finally tuned in to how upset I was, because when we made it home, he helped me install the new part and bolt the transmission in place.

  When we were done, I got in the driver’s seat, fired up the motor, put the car in gear, let out the clutch, and…the car barely hobbled along.

  It didn’t work.

  So, okay. This is when I broke down and cried.

  But my dad said, “Don’t give up now! It probably just needs to be adjusted.”

  As it turned out, he was right. A quick return trip to the underbelly for a simple adjustment was all it took. Afterward, I pulled out of the driveway tentatively, but half a block from home I was gunning it, changing gears, speeding up, downshifting through turns….I didn’t care what my car looked like. I didn’t care what I looked like. I was consumed by a euphoria I hadn’t experienced before.

  I’d done it.

  I’d fixed my own clutch!

  Yeah, I’d been slimed and grimed and bloodied and crushed, but I’d come out victorious.

  I’d done it!

  It wasn’t until people started asking me how I’d become tenacious enough to endure ten years of rejection that I began looking back on that day, that experience, with appreciation. Because despite how I felt about my father at that time, what I see now is that he gave me something much more valuable than a new car.

  He gave me the belief that, with enough grit and determination, I could do anything.

  It might no
t have taken me so long to get published if I’d found my voice sooner. But I thought I had a voice, and I thought it was working just fine, thank you very much.

  I didn’t know that developing writers should be in search of their voice—the sound of combined words that feels right to them and rings true to the reader. As it turned out, my voice was located nowhere near where I was writing. I was looking—and writing—in all the wrong places.

  When the events that spurred me toward writing occurred, I had just crossed into adulthood, so the voice I used to write about those events was that of an adult. And as time ticked along and my writing evolved beyond my own experiences and into those of actual fictional characters, I continued writing in the voice of an adult.

  Turns out, my voice is not that of an adult.

  Turns out, I’m stuck at about thirteen.

  And despite all the angry therapy words I committed to paper, it turns out that my most natural voice isn’t tragic or angry or injured—it’s guardedly tender, but also funny.

  My path to discovering this began when my husband gave me a copy of Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury. He said he loved it because he felt it captured the magic of growing up.

  I loved it too. It reminded me of the mischief the neighborhood kids and I got into when we were growing up. It was a happier time in my life—time spent being outdoors, riding bikes, spying on the neighbors, and running a little wild. Reading Dandelion Wine made me mull over those years, and my new adult perspective could see the neighborhood and the people in it through a broader lens. There were layers to the adults I hadn’t recognized as a kid. There were reasons, some dark and painful, that they behaved the way they did.

  So I began writing what I thought of as my version of Dandelion Wine, and I did it in the voice of a twelve-year-old girl.

  Early in the process something clicked, and clicked hard. I recognize now that it was the sound of me opening the vault and finding my voice. All of a sudden, writing was fast and fun and freeing. I laughed out loud, I teared up, I was in the story.

  This was probably aided by the fact that I was working in a fictionalized version of a happier time of my life, but the fascinating thing about this is that, many years later, when hearing that the story was based on my childhood, my editor laughed and said, “I should have known,” and told me that a lot of first books are based on the author’s real life.

  What all of this taught me about writing and about life is that you should try to remain open to new paths. It’s easy to become rutted in a certain way of thinking or an approach to life. We get comfortable with doing things a known way. It may not be the best way, but it’s our way, and we tend to stick to it.

  There may be discomfort in trying new ways, new things, but what’s the harm, really? You can always go back to your old way.

  So try a bite of something new. Try a different way home. Try a different kind of music, a different genre of fiction, a different color to wear. Just try. Give different a chance. You may discover whole new little worlds that suit you.

  And you may just find your voice.

  I’m not writing a mystery here. Or going for some great climactic moment. You already know I have published books, so clearly that story has a happy ending. And I will get to how that finally came together; however, in this section I want to focus on the mechanics of writing.

  Please keep in mind that there is no right or wrong method. The things that work for me may not all work for you, but I still hope you’ll find much that’s useful in what I share. These are not writing secrets, they’re things I’ve learned or discovered after years of working to crack the code—things that have helped me construct over thirty novels.

  I’m happy to share them with you, but please assume that the phrase In my view precedes all the statements I make about writing, okay? I find qualifiers tedious both to write and to read, so let’s just be done with the formality of that and get down to it.

  There are three fundamental parts to consider when constructing a novel:

  Characters: These are all the people who populate your story, not just the main character. You like them (or maybe hate them), they feel real, you care what happens to them, and you want to spend time with them.

  Story: This is what happens, where it happens, and how you structure and pace it. The premise itself should be interesting, and the story should move along at a clip that will keep the reader’s attention, with no sagging middle or unproductive sidetracks.

  Language: This is the choice of words, their cadence, and the images they evoke. It can be anything from sublime prose to punchy, single-word sentences.

  The good news is that if you can master two of the three, you will have a good book. The caveat is that one of the two must be compelling characters. You can paint glorious scenes with words or take us on a roller-coaster ride through the pages, but without compelling characters your story will have no heart.

  So let’s delve into each, but with the understanding that they cannot be fully isolated. What your characters do is the plot. Why they do it is based on who they are. And how their story or adventure is conveyed will include language that reflects who they are and what they are doing. It’s all intertwined. Also, what further complicates an analysis by separation is that each of the threads is influenced by things that happen to the creator of the characters, their world, and their story. Because things that happen to the author in real life often influence what happens in the story or to the protagonist. And very often, it’s this influence that gives the story heart.

  So inseparable, yes, but I’ll shift the focus to each and include some examples of life influences. Let’s start with the one fundamental a good story cannot do without—characters with heart.

  You absolutely, positively should not use cardboard when constructing your characters.

  So, what should you use to create them?

  You might want to start by going back to the vault and looking for inspiration there.

  After years of searching for my voice in all the wrong places, I peeked inside my vault and discovered that back in a corner—behind what felt like a lifetime of other stuff—were the kids from my old neighborhood.

  It had been ages since I’d seen them in person, but the memories surrounding them had been there all along, waiting. And when I took them out to play on the pages of my story, they surprised and delighted me by springing to life, becoming thinly veiled characters in a barely fictionalized world.

  Fictional or not, the characters and their world were recognizable not only to me. When How I Survived Being a Girl was finally published, my mom urged me to get liability insurance. “What if the neighbors decide to sue you?” she asked.

  Sue me? What was she talking about? We’d moved away ages ago. And who’d want to sue me?

  But then I got to thinking about how the names of the characters in my book were barely different from the names of their real-life counterparts. Chuck was Charlie, Marilyn was Mary, Bill was Will, Andy was Little Andy. And the drunk next door was Freeko, which is what we’d called him in real life. There’s even a map at the beginning of the book, pointing out where everyone lived, with FREEKO’S and an arrow pointing to the house next door.

  Keeping everything so close to the way it had been did translate to a sense of reality on the page, but I hadn’t exactly stretched my creative abilities, and my mom had a point.

  Deniability on my part would be difficult.

  Still, I tried to put my mom’s worries to rest. “Come on, Mom,” I scoffed. “Who in their right mind would stand up in a court of law and say, ‘I am Freeko and I take issue with the way I’m portrayed in this book’?” But for the first time I became concerned about other people’s reactions to characters I created. I’d been not published for so many years that having a book out there for anyone to read had just been theoretical to me.

  But now
it was real.

  Had I made a huge mistake?

  After mulling it over for a while, I dialed the old number for “headquarters”—the house that shared a back fence with ours when I was growing up. It was the house where the neighborhood kids knew to congregate, the house where the Myers family lived.

  The Myers family, who became the Moyers family in the book.

  Cringe.

  Anyway, I wasn’t sure the number would still be in service, but Mr. Myers answered on the third ring. When I said who I was, he said, “Well, now. This is certainly a voice from the past.”

  After some pleasantries, I got to the point, explaining that I’d written a book about growing up in the neighborhood and that I hoped when they read it they’d take it in the spirit intended. I might have mentioned that they were the Moyers in the book and about Marilyn being Mary and Chuck being Charlie and Bill being Will.

  I hadn’t bothered to change their dog’s name, so I didn’t mention that.

  Mr. Myers seemed more interested in how everyone in my family was doing, so the conversation veered off in that direction and then we were saying our goodbyes.

  Before I’d managed to fully exhale my sigh of relief, the phone rang.

  It was Mrs. Myers.

  “What’s this about a book?”

  I explained all over again, and again I said that I hoped they’d take it in the spirit intended.

  Fortunately, they did. They actually thought it was a lot of fun to have that time captured as fiction, with enough true events woven in to create a little capsule of our childhood.

  And Freeko? He and his wife were no longer living there. I don’t know what happened to them and I didn’t dig too hard to find out. I now recognize the difficult nature of their situation, but as a child I did not. And thirty books later, I regret not exploring key threads—like the Freekos—with more depth. At the time I was unable (or, perhaps, unwilling) to venture far from the events and characters of my real childhood, but now I see the missed opportunity inside the story, the deeper paths that were waiting right there for me to explore.