IT'S FIRST FRIDAY! Delaney. Eckhart. Hurricane Sandy

The Photo

This is where I give three authors one photograph, and in 150 words, they write what they see in it. The difference in imagination and voice is fascinating. This month one of the authors, Marc vun Kannon, lost power to Hurricane Sandy and didn't make it. Maybe he'll be back sometime. 

DELANEY

I sit here, in my father’s study, waiting. Soon the candle will go out and the birthday party for my cousin, Cassie, and my beautiful sister, Alice, will be over.

Today, they are sixteen. Alice, whom I love so, wants only to be with Cassie. No longer does she read with me, play games or share secrets. She only smiles on her way to giggle with Cassie under the elm tree. They fall silent when they see me coming.

I helped Cook frost their individual birthday cakes, though. Chocolate for Cassie, lemon for Alice. It is a tradition.

My mother is screaming, my aunt sobbing, the wail of an ambulance falls silent as the front door opens. I smile as I blow out the candle.

Someone stands at the open door. Alice? No, Cassie. She sobs as she holds up a small birthday cake. It is lemon.

 We traded, she says.

ECKHART

The loud overweight lady with bad breath would be right in. But that was an hour ago, when her mother left. So she didn’t move even though the sharp edge of the metal framed chair poked the small of her back. They’d practiced for hours last week. Sit straight, shoulders back, even though she longed to skid on her bum across the room. But that she could never do, because her mother expected her to be perfect—to win. Nothing less would do.

Her face itched from the makeup. Her hair was curled and fastened just like a princess—a princess she never wanted to be. She tried to ignore the pinch between her shoulder blades, but agony worsened as she waited for the agent to appear, promising fame for the children and fortune to the parents. And not once had anyone asked nine year old Lily, what she wanted.

At Amazon

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

KATHLEEN DELANEY

Kathleen Delaney writes the Ellen McKenzie mystery series. Dying For A Change, the first in the series, introduces us to Ellen who has returned to her as a real estate agent. Finding a dead body in the closet of the first house you show is a hard way to start. Life doesn’t get any easier for Ellen in the next three books, Give First Place to Murder, And Murder For Dessert, and Murder For Dessert. She has just finished the fifth in this series, Murder by Syllabub. She lives in South Carolina in a one hundred year old house with a dog and cat and often a couple of her eight grandchildren who love to visit. Or is it the pumpkin/cranberry bread they like?

At Amazon

LORHAINNE ECKHART

Lorhainne Eckhart began her writing career five years ago. A lifelong love for stories inspired her to start writing. She read everything and naturally had the ability to create vivid characters, drawing on the experiences of friends, family and acquaintances around her. When her children started school she sat down to write her first novel. The story unfolded and four years later The Wild Rose Press published her first novel, 'The Captain's Lady.'  Lorhainne has a passion for the outdoors, her extensive gardens and preserving nature. Lorhainne Eckhart and her family live in the peaceful countryside on Vancouver Island.

The Lonely Garret

At Amazon

My guest this week is my friend Kathleen Delaney, author of the delightful Ellen McKenzie mystery series.

Most people picture authors of years gone by as recluses huddled in an attic, no heat, no food, scribbling their lives away, driven to write. They shut out the world and lived in their imagination, creating characters they hoped would live forever on the pages of their manuscripts. They sharpened their quill pens, dipped them in India ink and crossed out all of the lines and phrases they didn’t like. Re-writing was a real challenge in those days.

I’m not sure how accurate the garret thing was or how many authors warmed their freezing hands over a fire of discarded manuscript pages, but they probably had fewer distractions. Authors today have a harder time isolating themselves. Today, we have email, Facebook, Twitter, smart phones, competing for our attention.

There is one thing writers of today and yesteryear have in common, and that is the need to find a quiet place where they can concentrate, where their imaginations can run wild, where they can retreat from the real world and inhabit a world they create, where they meet characters that live only in their imagination until they’re brought to life on the pages of a manuscript. The kind of quiet writers got in their garret is gone. The world intrudes constantly with the ring of the phone, or the ding that says we have another email message.

At Amazon

Charles Dickens barricaded himself in his study and, I’ve heard, was able to so completely immerse himself in his story his pages were stained with tears as he wrote of little Oliver asking for another bowl of porridge or the death of Little Nell. I wonder, though, if some of those tears might have been frustration at broken concentration as a child played under his desk. But, on he wrote. Agatha Christie had a quiet home in rural England, but she spent a lot of time traveling with her husband in third world countries. Trains were often noisy, dirty, jerky affairs, filled with strange sounds, smells and animals. Yet, she turned out book after book. I’m told that Charlotte Armstrong, an author of many mysteries during the 1940’s and 50’s, had so many distractions at home she’d get in her car and drive a block away from home, lock herself in and write. And that was before cell phones.

I don’t think any of them locked themselves in an attic. They may not have had Facebook but they all had distractions and they all got a lot done. Maybe, today, all we need is the will power to turn off the TV, put the phone on answering machine, ignore the ding that says we have mail, and write. Ignore the real world for a few hours. It will still be there when we return from the one we’re creating, from visiting the people whose story we are trying to tell. If Dickens could ignore a screaming child under his desk, we can ignore Sponge Bob turned as high as the volume will go. At least, we can try. If that doesn’t work, I’m told Denny’s is open all night, that it’s pretty quiet after midnight and they give free refills on coffee.

Bio
After a rewarding career as a Realtor in California, Kathleen moved to South Carolina and writes full time. She now lives in a wonderful 100-year-old house, with a wraparound front porch, where she and her dogs can wile away a summer afternoon, and a big office, lined with bookcases, where she can spend her days writing. And, as always, reading. You can find more about Kathleen and her books at http://www.kathleendelaney.net/