Guest Member: Jim Beane

ON WRITING


Two weeks ago, I read an article written by Charles McGrath for the New York Times titled "The Artful Codger." At that time, an unusual level of frustration and self-doubt blanketed my writing career. Lit-mag rejections crowded my mailbox, my collection of linked stories had sparked little interest in the publishing community and that endless task of editing and re-editing, preparing and sending, editing and editing and editing… had begun to wear me down. Hard work is not always enough, despite the optimist’s mantra. McGrath's article spoke of aging writers and their changing styles and levels of output. McGrath tried to lay to rest the myth that our best creative work is left behind with our youth. I am in my late 50’s. I’ve written stories since my teens. I’m not sure I’ve left much behind. I don’t have an MFA. I have stories to tell and I tell them, simple as that. My reward: two copies of the literary journals that choose my stories for publication and the occasional assurance that my work has value. Carpentry work has paid the bills for the last thirty years or so.

When I was a boy, the men in my life, friends and family alike, earned their livings with their hands. Plumbers. Pipefitters. Tile men. Railroad workers. Coal miners. Farmers. Fishermen. My father was the only man I knew who read anything beside a newspaper. He valued education. He loved to read and it turned out, so did I. I liked school, it came easy. I did well. The prize was college and some windows did open up for me while I was there. Free thought. Argument. Questions. Answers. But I still lived in the world of ‘real work’ and I could not help but follow the footsteps of those I knew.

I worked construction jobs during my high school summer vacations, I’ve never really tried my hand at much else. I like working outside, despite the weather, and being part of building structures that remind me of the men I'd come to know and respect. Carpentry suited the ‘cowboy’ in me. Like Salinger said, “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters”.

John Hershey compared the process of writing a story to building a house. Writers build the skeletal frame and cover it with details of flesh and bone; carpenters do the same. That metaphor stuck with me.

McGrath’s article made me feel good. He dispelled the notion that age diminishes us. Sure, my bones ache but not all the time. When the sun’s hot and the day’s short and the last rafter’s almost set, I feel strong, new, and I remember that feeling. I don’t kid myself, there’s an end, my body won’t hold up. But I get that same strong feeling writing, workin’ those words. What changes, in all our lives, is the balance. Sometimes we need reminders. Charles McGrath reminded me. Maybe, this blurb will remind you.

My first published story told of an old Carpenter forced to address his prejudice against youth and the fear that gripped his future. More published stories followed, I’m not very prolific, my first drafts are longhand and several edits precede each story’s placement on the computer. I’m terrible at sending out. I've linked a dozen stories into my first collection titled ‘MARIS STELLA & other stories’. Currently, I am at work on my first novel and circulating five stories on the lit-mag circuit. A half-dozen new stories beg for my attention. Another half-dozen lie waiting in various stages of completion. None of them is ready to send out. In 2006, I was awarded a fellowship to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. My time there was bliss, no chores, no demands, no schedules. I hope to go again, after the completion of my novel’s rough draft.

I continue putting forty hours a week on the clock. I drive a full-size work van that leaves my house every morning at 6:30. I've built stuff in neighborhoods all over the city and suburbs. My dear wife has stuck by my side for thirty years. We’ve raised two college-educated daughters. I’ve restored our home, a ramshackle 1920’s two story bungalow, in the spare time of living in it for twenty-three years and I get two weeks paid vacation per year. I have a second job. I am a writer and writers write. Here's how.

Domestic life: I located someone who loved to read and appreciated good writing and latched onto her and never let go. Don't believe those who say you have to suffer starving artist time, that there’s only room for you, the writer, and your muse. A life of single-minded pursuit offers little comfort and less financial reward.

Education: I read and read and read. I workshop my stories and wear my thickest skin. I attend writer functions, conferences, readings, classes, anything. I make time to do all of the above. No excuses. No complaints. I take action to improve. I cannot learn too much.

Network: I helped form a writers group. Groups allow new perspectives on one’s work and free constructive criticism. My group stemmed from a workshop at The Writer's Center. Our organizing founder culled six writers from the workshop and invited us to her home. We talked about what we wanted from a group, set up our conditions and called ourselves a writer’s group. We meet once a month, rotate submissions and workshop our stories. We organized eleven years ago. The impact on my writing is immeasurable. There are seven members now, and all have logged significant successes since we formed.

Make time: I utilize vacation time. I organize my schedule and take blocks of time devoted exclusively to writing. I always use the week between Christmas and New Year’s day to catch up. I work for sympathetic bosses who understand what's needed to work creatively and afford me the time off as needed, without pay of course, except those two weeks and a handful of holidays. I try to schedule time away at retreats and conferences.

Discipline yourself: My writing schedule consists of early Saturday and Sunday mornings (I wake around 5 a.m. and work in my basement workspace until noon or whenever my dear wife bangs the floor above my head as reminder that there are other things that need my attention). I work two or three nights a week for several hours or until I start to nod at my desk. My life prohibits an output of a thousand words a day like some might insist is the minimum requirement to call yourself a writer. If I come up with free time, I read or write.

Stay current: I subscribe to three writing magazines. The Writer, Poets and Writers and The Writer's Chronicle. These mags are my industry resources. My shelves are stacked with countless instructional and philosophical books on writing. Most of the titles are forgotten, all the copies are dog-eared. I force myself to use the internet. I study websites of literary magazines and websites of writer’s resources.

I IGNORE REJECTION.

And I write and write and write.

And I remember ‘The Artful Codger’ that lives in all of us and relish my powers as a creative writer even as I worry about losing them.

***
Jim Beane lives in Hyattsville, Maryland with his wife of thirty years. Carpentry work helps pay the bills. His stories have appeared in the Baltimore Review, Scribble, The Long Story, Potomac Review and the anthology DC Noir, edited by George Pelecanos. The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts granted him fellowship in 2006. His story collection Maris Stella & Other Stories is looking for a publisher.

Jim worked his first construction in the summer of 1968. He settled on carpentry as his trade after college and has spent the years since practicing that trade and learning the craft of creative writing.

Member Week: Norma Tucker

AFTER THE BALLET



How am I ever going to become a great ballerina? I have fat thighs and short arms, and sometimes I forget to reach, circle, tighten, or quiver along with the movement of my feet and body, and I hate to practice. I go to Ella Banks Studio of Dance, and sometimes Ella Banks is my teacher. I like the way her name feels in my mouth, El la. Her daughter also teaches, Ruth Banks; she’s married and has fat thighs. So does El la. Ella Banks’ hair looks yellow, not blonde, yellow. Yellow feels different than El la.

I’m the lead dancer in a tap trio of me, my sister, Sally, and another girl, Arlene. I’m the oldest, Arlene is the youngest, and Arlene’s mother doesn’t have a husband. Sometimes I tap dance solo. I did a military number at my last recital to the music of “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and my costume was white satin with red and blue trim and something gold on my shoulders called epaulets. I wore a white satin cap shaped like the one my Mom’s friend, Anne, wears. She’s in the army, a woman soldier. They call them WAC’s. My Mom’s used lots of bobby pins to keep the cap from falling off my head while I danced.

She said, “Try not to lose any. They’re hard to get now with the war on.”

Another thing about me ever being a ballerina. I look ugly with my hair pulled back tight off my face.

Today I went to my ballet class right after school. Sally and Arlene do not take ballet. They used to. Once, in a recital, we were the flowers in “Waltz of the Flowers” from The Nutcracker. We each had a different pastel colored tutu -pale green, yellow, and mine, pink.

My Dad is picking me up today. He usually waits for me downstairs from the Ella Banks Studio of Dance by the barbershop door right off the lobby of the movie theater on the first floor. Ella Banks Studio of Dance takes up the whole second floor above the movie theater on the corner of North and Pennsylvania Avenues in Baltimore, Maryland. Pennsylvania Avenue at North begins one of the colored sections of town.

Odelia is colored; she comes to our house once a week to do the ironing. Everything in our house gets ironed, even sheets and the towels we use to wipe the dishes. My Mom calls them tea towels. One time Odelia brought her little girl with her. I wanted to play with her, but Odelia wouldn’t let her play with me.

My Mom said, “Leave it alone. She’s younger than you, anyway.”

I see my Dad waiting by the barbershop. He’s not smiling like he usually does when he sees me. His large brown eyes in his thin, pocked face seem sad. He’s not telling me to hurry along. He’s just watching me with those big eyes.

The radio in the barber shop is really loud. And now that I’m by the open door, I hear the announcer.

“President Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia today.”

“Oh Daddy, what’s going to happen to us?”

***

Norma S. Tucker of Bethesda, Maryland, native of Baltimore, Md., retired after over a twenty-five year career in higher education administration. She served at a Maryland community college, a women’s college, in associations, and in university and international institutions. She is now fulfilling her long-time desire to write short stories, a memoir and essays with occasional ventures in poetry. She has participated in numerous workshops at The Writer's Center.

Member Week: Ann Barnet

A DEPRESSION CHILDHOOD IN ELMHURST, ILLINOIS

In the 1930s when everyone was poor, complaints about clothes salvaged from the Missionary Barrel would evoke a reproachful reminder from our mother, “Other children are suffering.” Shoes, however, were always bought brand-new. Mother had bunions; she was fanatical about a proper fit for growing feet. Perfect size leather lace-ups were guaranteed by the shoe-store fluoroscope, an X-ray machine widely employed to fit children's shoes, until some authority thought of the cancer risk.

Our next-door neighbor, Mr. Schleiner, committed suicide because he lost all his money in the stock market. His daughter Grace was in the same grade as my brother, Paul. Mean Gracie tattled on us when we ate some of her mother's raspberries from the bushes that leaned over onto our property, so I hated her. I was sorry, however, when I learned that her father might not go to heaven. I pled for him, but mother who understood such matters was doubtful. "It depends whether he accepted Jesus as his personal Savior." Gracie had to move away because of the lost money. Her house was empty for a long while. The raspberries were there for the picking, but, as is the way in such matters, they didn’t taste as good as before.

A railway ran along our big back lot behind a row of bright hollyhocks. We waved to the conductor, balanced on the rails and smashed pennies stuck onto the tracks with chewing gum. I solved one of my first scientific questions: Which sense is first aware of an approaching train? I lay balanced against a track. When I felt a vibration, I rolled down the embankment. Then I would hear the whistle, and then see the approaching engine. My place on the track was warm in the sun, and sometimes I dozed. Although I always rolled to safety in plenty of time, I decided to quit experimenting before my sister, Eva, told on me. I didn’t want to risk a spanking, or worse, a prohibition from going into the back lot.

Most of the traffic on the Aurora and Elgin was commuter trains, but freight trains also rumbled down the tracks. They delivered a plentiful supply of hoboes to our back door. "Hobo," one of us would yell when we heard the knock. It was a perfectly respectable appellation, as far as we knew. It never entered into our heads to be afraid of our visitors. Rather, I longed to hop a freight with them and live a far-away life of thrill and adventure. Then mama would pine for me – sweet revenge.

Mother kept twine and a pile of old clean sheets torn into squares in the pantry. We would help her make baloney and mayonnaise and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and wrap them in wax paper. She would tie them into the cloth squares for convenient carrying, along with an apple if we had one. A tract that explained how to get Saved was placed in every package. Hoboes usually carried their own sacks, but mother wanted her food to stay clean. Besides she wanted to be sure the hoboes received spiritual sustenance along with their daily bread. Cleanliness and Godliness in one convenient packet.

***

Ann Barnet grew up as the daughter of a minister. She became a physician and medical researcher at Children’s Hospital in Washington. In 1980, she founded a community center, The Family Place, which serves low-income expectant parents and preschool children. She is writing a memoir called, “Border Crossings: A Spiritual Journey in Medicine.”

Our family lived in the town of Elmhurst, a half hour from Chicago on the Aurora and Elgin Railway. My father took the train each morning to work in Chicago. The track ran along our big back lot behind a row of bright hollyhocks marching along the edge. We waved to the passing trains, balanced on the

Member Week: Camille E. Gaskin-Reyes

Today's member is Camille E. Gaskin-Reyes. Currently an adjunct professor at George Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs, she spends most of her free time reading and writing. Her favorite poets are Pablo Neruda and Rumi.

Spooning Out Childhood Memories

Reaching back into my South American childhood is like stirring a huge pot of memories with a ladle and dishing out experiences, some wonderful, some painful. One vivid flashback takes me to the tender age of three. Every morning as my older siblings left for school, I, the youngest of nine children, would tearfully wave at them. While they went off into a mysterious world, I puttered around the house by myself, until they reappeared.

After my daily crying fits, my mother took pity on me and asked my brother’s kindergarten teacher to allow me to accompany him to school for one day. When the big day arrived, my mother wrote my name on a satchel, and placed a bottle of milk (I still drank from a bottle), a small slate, white chalk, a pacifier, and a handkerchief inside. That morning I proudly entered my brother’s class. The teacher made me sit in a small chair at the back. She told me to be very quiet.

By mid-morning I was completely worn out, slumped in my chair like a senior citizen napping in the sun. I missed my mother and home. When I wasn’t dozing off, I got out my slate and chalk and tried to write what I could see on the blackboard. Everything was strange, confusing, and noisy. I decided right there and then that home was a better deal.

At the ripe age of five I formally started kindergarten. Most of my siblings were in the same school, but in higher classes. Every Monday was Inspection Day. It was a Catholic school and nuns would inspect students for cleanliness and appearance: uniforms (for girls length below the knee), nails, hair, socks, and shoes. The latter had to be immaculate. And there were penalties for lack of compliance. Due to this Monday morning ritual, Sunday night in our house was always a mad rush, as children had to wash or iron school uniforms, blouses, shirts, trousers, and socks, as well as find and polish the decreed school shoes.

I soon figured out that there was a business opportunity in shoe-shining. Since some of my siblings were already pre-teens or teens with numerous social or sports activities at weekend, they had little time to polish their shoes, come Sunday. I offered my services for the princely sum of one cent per shoe or two cents per pair, with advance notice. For last minute requests, say Sunday night late, I doubled the price. I put all my earnings in a piggy bank. Like Scrooge, I would take them out now and again, lovingly count them and carefully put them back. I kept my piggy bank hidden in a drawer, quite a feat, since there was so little privacy at our house.

At the end of the year as the holidays rolled around, I often lent my siblings some of my earnings to buy gifts. At times I charged them interest. I knew what interest was at a relatively early age. Being the youngest child, I often accompanied my mother to her savings cooperative. She and neighborhood women pooled their savings every month and deposited the entire sum into a bank account, which they withdrew at Christmas, thus earning more interest for all. My mother and these women were raising their children on their own. Every penny counted. I still marvel at their creativity and the power of collective action. At eighteen my first job was at a commercial bank. I think I know why.

Member Week: Michael Stein

Today's featured member is Michael Stein. He was born and raised in New York. In his formative years, he spent many summers at his family’s home in Amagansett, New York. He lives in Arlington, VA and is a consummate advocate for The Writer’s Center bringing up its brilliance, oftentimes too frequently during conversation. One of Michael’s favorite pastimes is having a cold beer on a hot Long Island day. His reviews can be found on his beer-blog at www.beermadeclear.blogspot.com.

The Writers, The Artists and Me—1993

Beads of sweat trickled off of my nose, collecting at the bottom of my pinstripe nylon jersey. Stepping outside the brown '82 Volvo, it was clear today would be another August scorcher on the East End of Long Island. I grabbed my Louisville bat bag from the trunk. I wasn't sure what to expect when I stepped onto the field but what I saw was definitely not what I had expected.

I came to play ball at the Annual Artists vs. Writers Softball Game. My dad had come to participate in the affair which started 46 years before in Wilfred Zogbaum's Springs neighborhood yard. The air reeked, a dusty dingy smell, a combination of Bengay and baseball bags that had been sitting in the shed all year. As I took a quick glimpse around it occured to me there were more braces here than an orthopedist's office. "This is going to be cake," I thought. As a nine year old I was sure these old timers were going to be a cinch to beat.

We headed towards the right bench where writers, strapping on their armor, prepared for battle. To the left, the artists and actors practiced their diction and enunciation. Their warm-up was not physical, but audible "the Mongolian man moved his massive money from Manhattan to Martha's Vineyard." This was how they warmed up? "You have to be kidding me," I said to myself, and sure enough, they were. But this kind of revelry was lost on a nine year old, especially one who had one purpose: to get to the plate.

My father pulled out his off-white brace, placing his left elbow into the holster. The brace's jaundiced color was the result of too many doubles matches and too much sunscreen. However, today's game would not be played on the clay courts of Amagansett but rather on the dirt lot behind the East Hampton A & P.

"Stein, you no-good weasely hack, how the hell are ya?" it was Bill Fiegelman, an old friend of my father's. As the game progressed, this teasing introduction seemed tame as the artists and writers continued to toss out insults. "Zuckerman you old codger you couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a t-bird!” The writers had the wittier lines as the artists and actors stuck to profanities, at the plate and in the outfield.

Finally, in the fifth inning I got to the batter's box. The actors complained that the writers were playing by the rules too closely, but to a nine year old, even the lack of a consistent batting order was baffling. Here I was, ready to take a crack at the mean right-hander Roy Scheider. He had been retiring the writer's team all afternoon, but I was ready for him.

The Jaws star wound up and the lob dropped in as the umpire called a strike. I took another pitch for a ball and got the timing down. The slow-pitch was much different than I was used to. As the third pitch rolled in my eyes were glued to the softball. With a swing I made contact and sent the ball into the outfield. I hustled around the bases, almost passing Mike Lupica as he headed for third. I had to hold up at second--I could have gone for three, but my triple was cut short. In front of all of the East End's well known writers, I was content to have a run batted in.

Member Week: P.B. Stevens

All this week--and a little of next--we'll be featuring Writer's Center members on First Person Plural. They are going to tell us their stories. Today's featured member is Pamela “P.B.” Stevens. She is a writer, consultant, and mom, living in Arnold, MD. She is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts honors English program and has taken workshops at the Center. She is currently writing a memoir and various other personal essays and has been published in Connecticut’s County Kids magazine.






Saturdays and Snowstorms


I sit in my living room in my fluffy robe and tattered slippers. I sip steaming coffee while gazing at fat snowflakes falling on the already thickly covered ground. It is in this moment that I recall a friend’s recent, incredulous question: “What exactly makes winter your favorite season?” I could not answer her specifically until, curled up in my living room chair in the midst of the raging snowstorm that encased Annapolis, I remembered a recent Saturday outing to the beach at Sandy Point State Park.

Sandy Point can only be described as a unique beach. The hallmark terracotta-colored sand stretches out to the Chesapeake Bay and the imposing Bay Bridge, a reminder that progress often trumps beauty. I always avoid this part of the beach. The whir of minivans and roar of eighteen wheelers creates a clenching in my chest that even the softly rippled water cannot soothe.

Instead, I turn left and head to the area marked for boat launches. There is a path along this part of the beach that bends around to the left and takes one away from the disquieting scene. Soon, on this bright and cold winter day, I am amongst tall reeds that sway and scrape. I am amidst bleached beach grasses that splay their long, lustrous fronds out onto the sand, reminiscent of a girl’s summer tresses.

I make my way to a jetty, where two lone benches sit upon a knoll of grayed grass. The water laps at the shore. Like the patch of ice on the craggy boulders that jut out into the bay, the tightness in my chest and the crease in my brow begin to slowly melt, drip by drip.

And then I hear it. A cacophony of noise erupts upon the quiet as a large group of school-aged children races past me, stirring up great clouds of orange sand. They chase each other around the base of a nearby playscape, machine gun trills falling off their tongues. I sit on a bench facing a lighthouse and a cove carved out of tall sea grasses. Time passes. I wait for the children to look up, to see water rippled by the wind, to smell the sweet, pungent sea air. But they cannot engage the quiet. Their bawls and bellows puncture the air and send sea birds scurrying.

It is like this for some time. I yearn for the quelling of their voices. But they continue to purge their frenzy upon the land, their parents talking amongst themselves, aloof and detached. I wait some more. I hear more machine gun trills and decide I can wait no longer for the quiet to return. I start to make my way back around the bend. The sounds of the children begin to blend into the rush of Route 50.

This is the day that returns to me on this snow-covered day in my cozy, fire-lit living room. It is in this moment that I realize my love of winter resides in this hush that comes over the land, undisturbed by man or beast, a blankness into which you can step and hear your own gentle breath exhaling into the great white expanse.

It is not just this hush placed over the natural world, but especially the unnatural world. The snow lay atop car roofs, strip mall rooftops and along the long, busy highways, uttering a soft, slow “shhhhh,” like a mother who lays her child’s head in her lap and gently strokes his hair. And I wonder, I hope, that the children will notice.