Struggling With the Antagonist ( A Learned Neurosis)

In Margeret Mitchell's epic novel, Gone With The Wind, we see the author's soft appeal and romancing tones in a vortex of voracious conflict. Simple times in the South's early history backdrop the story with beauty and idealism, while a raging domestic war confronts the characters. This technique or effort puts the author at risk. The risk of being identified with the ugly truths that fight its idealism and beauty. Being in this predicament is not at all unique as that is what makes for a good book. In fact, it is critically necessary. The problem is that the writer's true fabric, should he or she be more sheltered, has to temporarily be overcome by this enemy of heroism. Like scratching a blackboard, the sound and feeling make us cringe, but the actual doing it has to bring a healing procedure of massage and meditation nearly impossible. It is most difficult for me as I was raised in a well-guarded and sheltered homelife. Reading other epics is what divided my more pristine response, allowing me to build the 'bad guy' up enough to create a situation. Is it believable? It must be.

Though sheltered in a loving and seemingly well-balanced family, Mitchell was indoctrinated with stories of the Civil war by her parents, her own mother Maybell, independant of the standard femme fatale of the era, supporting the women's suffrage. Later, during college, she landed a job at an Atlanta newspaper as a journalist, and became one of the best in her business. Before Selznick took it on as an academy award winning movie, her book won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937. Though successful, she suffered from bouts of depression that subdued any desire to top the book that turned over the movie industry forever. Some sources say that it was due to her admonitions with the graphic horror with which she wrestled in such a powerful project. There is a hint (foreshadowing) of drawing toward then away from the adversary.

This was just one example among so many whose lives contributed to the balanced effort of the best sellers, such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov. The story deals with moral and religious elements that fiercely fight one another, placing both protagonists and its enemies in a clever duo, a contest of philosophical interests. Different from Mitchell's history in theme, they both contain the firey elements of plot development compelling the readers to stay with the story. Digging for clues planted by those elements of good and evil, the reader can easily become a literary juror who must decide which will succeed, (all the while knowing that good usually wins in the end.)

The antagonistic influence is the most difficult to write into a narrative, be it illustrated in conflictive forces within the story itself or a character. However, reading the basic principles of the best sellers, especially those of the 20th century, we as writers, have hope that we can become well acquainted with the successful art of losing our less candid thoughts behind for the sake of the story. For it is in the passion that makes all stories cohesive, no matter how hard the author must slip out of their own element. The author, in truest sense, wins after all.

On A Subway

The face was quite like I imagined
appearing close to the subway door;
and I, so very shy, thought you would
never remember me; now that I had
a larger frame, and wrinkles under my
scanty brows, tears that still flow
without much warning to give me away;
I would have to tell you how your hair
smelled like pine tar and your skin like
starchy linen in the heat of a sweat.

...and so this is how we never met?
passing up a jaunt to Queens once we reached
the stop in the Bronx. It didn’t matter-
thunder rumbled the screeching brakes
rain swallowing your image,
the wind filtered the smell while your
face was only the ghost of a dream thinking
maybe I should have gone to Jersey after all.

Does the finished book seem too far away?

I finally learned something. Yes. I'm going on the 62nd year of my life, and all the lessons I've learned have suddenly come to the awesome knowledge of 'huh'? Why? Because I'm always on a timeline. You know who you are, and why it seems like finishing a book takes so long and then the whole time you're trying to materialize the abstract of your wild imagination, there is that thought in the back of your mind. " But what if no one wants to buy it? "

Stop right there. If you're like me, writing nearly every day, then half the work is done for you. You just need a support system. Not the one at home that needs to be taken to school. Nor the one who wants meatloaf for dinner instead of stuffed tilapia. You need a group within a sensible driving distance to help you keep the vision, keep you focused, and force some discipline into the dream of being published.

...to be continued

Stellar observation by an Average American

Okay, folks. This is another political thesis on why Obama is not doing the part we thought he would but its angle will surprise you. Although I discern the administration to be awry, I'm always trying to see the side that could make the American public take more responsibility by including themselves in the imbalance of our country. After all, we are the receptors of what the world sells-be it merchandise, jobs, attitudes, and even beliefs. Why shouldn't we take inventory? I also believe in praying for our leaders so that God will get His way according to his order and plan.
Still, I am not like my friend, Paula Harrison Gatewood (Facebook member and political rally leader) who seemingly is answering the call to arms in the campaign against unfair government. My call is evangelism. But it took my sister-in-law to discern the hot topic of Obama's faulty identity that stirred me up on the nearly exhausted issue of religious labeling. So here is her brilliant statement which I will post as best as it was told to me with a little embellishment:

" The reason our country's a mess is not as much about what our president is doing wrong. It is about who he is NOT! It's not even as much as becoming president on the coattails of his cultural popularity. No. What kind of man has the guts to become president and change his religion to be accepted while the very people who voted for him are finding out something pretty serious. He's not who he is supposed to be. He's from a Muslim background; he turned Christian for the label and won and now the world is learning he is a fraud. He got away with something pretty spineless because it is important 'how' presidents are identified by their faith claim. He won't stand by what he is because he knows it won't go over. I'm very mad about that!"

So, folks, my sweet simple country girl sister-in-law breaks ground again and puts the fire back in the bull's feet. Tell us if you think it is important to claim what you believe? Why or why not?
According to Donna, it is not about an issue, really. It's about who someone IS. And in this light, who someone is NOT! ( No inflamed debates, please. Just practical and passionate suggestions.)

Chow down on that one!


M. Dianne Grotius Berry - Senior Editor for "Rantings From River Bay"

Using Poetic Patches, haiku, or haibon

There are little voices that must burst out with a kind of inaudible volume. This allows there to be no limit to its comprehensive. This is the form of poetry.
For example, let me example the Poetic patch;
Between certain paragraphs while bookwriting, this special poetic
device helps to concentrate the meanings with fewer lines while
summating plots, characters, and other focus points for the reader.

In my essay, " Struggling With the Antagonist", an in-depth study of
how an author's real personality and demeanor are brutally challenged by
a novel's antagonist, it breaks away from the narrative and inserts the following poem as a 'patch' that extends and strengthens its details:

"I used to drip down the wall
like a stupified drunk;
but the music of poetry led
me to its wide open door.
Now, the jealousies of great
prose are merely strings of beads
around a sweaty neck."

The story goes on, but after another page, or at the end of each chapter is a poetic patch.
You see? There are more to come.
Leave your thoughts, examples or questions here!