Revision as Inspired by Rogue Chickens

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have noticed my tweets about a flock of rogue chickens, in particular this white hen.  She insisted on returning and hanging around the front of our store, even after her brown sisters had wandered back down the street and once again been imprisoned in their coop.

At the time, the writer part of me started asking the ‘what if’ question and wondering why Ms. White Hen wanted so badly to be a store mascot. At least her continuous peering in the front door made me think that’s what she wanted.

At any rate, at the time, I dreamed up stories--and now it appears to be time for revisions.

While cleaning up the shop’s side yard, my husband decided to get rid of a piece of junk plywood and ended up uncovering deeper layers of the white hen’s story. In fact, he exposed all kinds of subplots and story possibilities that never would have seen the light of day if the story had been written down as a first draft.  Okay I’m pushing this analogy, but I’m about a third of the way through revising Devil’s Orchid and what he found was a good reminder to me to continuously keep any eye out for hidden layers and opportunities as I move forward.

The hen’s story ended up being be a tragedy about a lone white bird who longed for her own family, escaped from bondage and laid eggs in secret, but the lack a rooster doomed her to return home and become nothing except an imprisoned egg machine—well, a pretty fat and sassy one, but no matter how you look at it her dream was crushed. 

So, to all of you in the middle of fast drafting or revising, did you uncovered any hidden possibilities in your story this week? 

Thursdays Children is a blog hop. If you'd like to join simply write a post about what inspires you and add your link to the list below.

Writing Inspired by Atrocities

Yeah, maybe that doesn’t sound very inspiring or like I’m a horribly morbid person, but atrocities were what I needed to help me work on revisions this week.

 The Devil’s Orchid, my WIP, is set in a contemporary Vermont city. I suspect most people’s image of a Vermont city is a large town with loads of picturesque old homes, tons of green space and quaint farm-folk and maybe some artsy-hippy types. This is true to an extent, but more true of Vermont in the 1970’s or 1980’s. To depict it as such in 2013 would be to leave out a vital element: atrocities.

 I’m not going into a history lesson, but over the last two decades the face of Vermont has changed because of several waves of immigrants. In my story Mallory, the main character, is staying with an aunt who over the years has been instrumental in revitalizing her neighborhood as a safe haven, particularly for Ugandan refugees.  Read More


 
Photo Source

This setting is not only a more correct vision of contemporary Vermont, it’s an element I had firmly in mind when I came up with my story. But this idea had faded a little as I dashed through the first draft. As I revise,  I’m having to think once more about the atrocities the citizens of Mallory’s neighborhood have lived through.  It’s not the story’s main thread, far from it, but it is part of the story’s inspiration and something I can’t neglect.

 Thursday's Children Blog Hop is open to all. Simply post about what inspires you and then add your blog to the link below! 

Inspired by my mother

For the last couple of weeks I’ve wanted to do a post about my mom, but I haven’t been able to find the right words—probably because I’m not sure what about her inspired me the most. Maybe it was how, as a very young bride, she raised two children and helped my dad regain his strength after he became partially paralyzed from polio. How--despite dropping out of Barnard College to marry her childhood sweetheart--she went on to mentor graduate students at Williams College. In the 1960’s, when men were still in charge of a majority of state and town programs, she headed up projects for a conservation commission in Massachusetts and was responsible for getting funding to establish nature study centers, a park and for expanding environmental education for children. She went on to do so many more things, painted decorative furniture and landscapes, wrote poetry, and raised four children in total. But most of all, she inspired me to never view anything as impossible for men or women. It is this same attitude that inspires the main characters in my stories. Sure there were struggles and difficulties in my mother’s life, many of them, but her focus was always on the beauty of the world around her and the limitless possibilities for anyone willing to go after and fight for their dreams.

Rest in peace, Mom.

Anna Wood Rice (October 2, 1921--April 26, 2013)

Thursday’s Children Blog Hop is devoted to posts about what inspires your writing. It’s open to all. Simply add your name to the link below.