When I think about why I love to write--how heavy my interest is in history--and how much I enjoy writing unique contrasting characters, I always come back to my family. I grew up in a very rural area where the nearest town is twenty minutes away. Your neighbors go generations back, as does your own legacy, and you battle with mother nature to find a balance with the past--while living in the present--and worrying over the future.
With my Grandmother passing unexpectedly last week, my family--which is large and spends as much time together as is possible--gathered and shared stories while we said goodbye. There was lots of laughter, more so than tears, and a very loving sense of endless time. An odd way to put it, I'm sure, but when you have so many generations collected together, you can't help but feel endless. It is something that has always been present with me, especially when I travel around where I grew up. It didn't matter if you only spent five minutes in a car or walking, you would undoubtedly come across something my family was, and still is, apart of. We have our own private cemetery, where both sides of my family reside, two secondary cemeteries we share with neighboring families and a church that is all our own. I have relatives with farmland that stretches on into the horizon, a homestead that has been in the family for almost a century at least and so, so much history.
Along with all of that also come many stories and wonderful interesting people I am amused and humbled to call family. The day of my Grandmother's funeral, after she was laid to rest and everyone had returned home temporarily to catch up on some much needed rest, I spent a few hours with my Grandpap and he told me things about his and my Nan's life I had never known. How the quiet, funny and loving woman who was so easily embarrassed, was also a spitfire when it came to the people she loved. How she stood up to her own mother and fought her on marrying my Pap. How she put up with his bullshit, babied him like he was the most precious thing in her life, and how, even if he didn't deserve her, she still made him feel wanted.
I love listening to my Pap talk. He still uses phrases like "she gave him a good cuffing" instead of saying "she punched him a good one"--and we share the same sense of humor, as well as an inherit wild streak. Most of all, I love getting to know about where I come from. About the railroad station I grew up playing baseball in when it was raining outside and we didn't want to go home just yet. About the dilapidated churches hidden in the woods that were simple in structure but so striking in their location. About the creek I use to capture crayfish out of that once was apart of a massive damn and water works that fed the steam engine trains that rode the rails hauling the coal out of the mines my Pap worked in.
Because stories aren't just about great conflicting characters. They are also about the world they live in, the past ghosts around them, the present that consumes their focus, and the future they are running into. They are about who, what, when, where, why and most of all they are tangible--threads of people, locations, histories and experiences we can relate to. When I think of writing two characters fighting for everything they want and have, I think of my family growing up with nothing but the land beneath their feet and the hard work they put in day in and day out. I think about seeing my Grandparents get a washer and dryer for the first time and how I use to watch my Gram work the old wringer before hand. How the home my Grandparents have was just a one room shack my Pap was born in and how they raised 7 kids on so very little. How they and my parents have both just received running town water and sewage for the first time, no longer being solely dependent on a single well between them.
I also think about the quiet shy woman my Gram was who nevertheless did as she pleased, no matter how afraid she may have been. We both learned to drive at the same time. She got her first job roughly when I did. She worked hard, on a high school diploma, to go from a caretaker at a nursing home to working at the local hospital where she retired. She raised seven kids, twelve grandkids and helped take care of twelve great grandkids. The woman never stopped and I idolize who she had become. People are not stagnant, they progress in surprising ways and these are the types of characters I write about, the type of stories that I seek to capture, because it is these Humble Seedlings that I come from that inspire me the most.
With my Grandmother passing unexpectedly last week, my family--which is large and spends as much time together as is possible--gathered and shared stories while we said goodbye. There was lots of laughter, more so than tears, and a very loving sense of endless time. An odd way to put it, I'm sure, but when you have so many generations collected together, you can't help but feel endless. It is something that has always been present with me, especially when I travel around where I grew up. It didn't matter if you only spent five minutes in a car or walking, you would undoubtedly come across something my family was, and still is, apart of. We have our own private cemetery, where both sides of my family reside, two secondary cemeteries we share with neighboring families and a church that is all our own. I have relatives with farmland that stretches on into the horizon, a homestead that has been in the family for almost a century at least and so, so much history.
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| My Grandparents Dating |
I love listening to my Pap talk. He still uses phrases like "she gave him a good cuffing" instead of saying "she punched him a good one"--and we share the same sense of humor, as well as an inherit wild streak. Most of all, I love getting to know about where I come from. About the railroad station I grew up playing baseball in when it was raining outside and we didn't want to go home just yet. About the dilapidated churches hidden in the woods that were simple in structure but so striking in their location. About the creek I use to capture crayfish out of that once was apart of a massive damn and water works that fed the steam engine trains that rode the rails hauling the coal out of the mines my Pap worked in.
Because stories aren't just about great conflicting characters. They are also about the world they live in, the past ghosts around them, the present that consumes their focus, and the future they are running into. They are about who, what, when, where, why and most of all they are tangible--threads of people, locations, histories and experiences we can relate to. When I think of writing two characters fighting for everything they want and have, I think of my family growing up with nothing but the land beneath their feet and the hard work they put in day in and day out. I think about seeing my Grandparents get a washer and dryer for the first time and how I use to watch my Gram work the old wringer before hand. How the home my Grandparents have was just a one room shack my Pap was born in and how they raised 7 kids on so very little. How they and my parents have both just received running town water and sewage for the first time, no longer being solely dependent on a single well between them.
I also think about the quiet shy woman my Gram was who nevertheless did as she pleased, no matter how afraid she may have been. We both learned to drive at the same time. She got her first job roughly when I did. She worked hard, on a high school diploma, to go from a caretaker at a nursing home to working at the local hospital where she retired. She raised seven kids, twelve grandkids and helped take care of twelve great grandkids. The woman never stopped and I idolize who she had become. People are not stagnant, they progress in surprising ways and these are the types of characters I write about, the type of stories that I seek to capture, because it is these Humble Seedlings that I come from that inspire me the most.
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