Making of a Writer (9780307820464)

by Nixon, Joan Lowery

  I learned that it is important for authors to connect with their main characters. It is important to like them. My characters live inside my head for many months—sometimes even years. Before I write more than a few notes about my story line, I begin to visualize and understand my main character, choosing the person who’s closest to the problem in the story. By the time I’m ready to write, I know my main character as well as I know myself. A little part of her is often a little part of me.

  Chapter Twenty

  Although I loved my mother very much, I didn’t always see life as she did. This was disappointing but not surprising. Most of the girls I knew had the same problem.

  At Hollywood High, Mary Lou and I had joined the girls’ drill team, and we were thrilled when we were told that our team had been invited to march in Hollywood’s Santa Claus Lane Christmas Parade.

  It was always a glorious parade, with movie stars riding on Santa’s float, and we felt just as glamorous as they did, picturing ourselves marching snappily along in our crisp white cotton uniforms with bright red belts, snug red cotton jackets, and red cloth caps.

  A guy in whom I was interested told me he was going to the parade to see me march and asked if we could get together after the parade was over. Since I knew it would be hard to find each other in the huge crowd that was expected, I invited him to meet me at our house afterward. Mary Lou had a date, too, and we were so excited we could hardly wait for the big day.

  But two days before the Christmas parade, Los Angeles was hit with a blast of icy weather.

  “That little cotton uniform isn’t nearly warm enough,” Mother told me. “You’ll have to wear a coat.”

  “I can’t wear a coat!” I protested. “We’re wearing uniforms! We have to look alike!”

  Nanny shook her head. “You’ll catch pneumonia,” she said. “At least wear a sweater.”

  “I can’t!” I insisted.

  “Then you aren’t going,” Mother said in her firmest tone of voice. “We won’t let you freeze to death.”

  “I want to freeze to death,” I argued. “I want to turn blue and get covered with goose bumps like the princesses usually do on the floats in the Rose Parade.”

  “Sarcasm won’t help,” Mother said. But I wasn’t being sarcastic. Sometimes, depending on the weather, the Rose Parade princesses’ skin did look blue.

  Neither of us would give in, and I went to bed in tears, desperately wondering what to do.

  In the morning, Mother had come up with what she and Nanny thought was a good solution. “We’ll make you a dress out of an old wool blanket,” Mother said. “You can wear it under your uniform, and no one will be able to see it.”

  “I’ll look weird.”

  “No, you won’t,” Mother said in a voice as firm as a solid oak door. “You’ll wear the blanket dress under your uniform, or you won’t march in the parade.”

  “I’ll die of embarrassment,” I wailed.

  “At least you won’t die of pneumonia,” Mother answered.

  I didn’t have a choice. Just before the parade Mother sewed me into the blanket dress, and I tugged my uniform over it.

  I felt as if I’d been stuffed into a sausage casing. As the uniform was zipped up with great difficulty and the jacket strained at the buttons, I found myself almost immobile. It was hard even to move my arms, let alone swing them.

  “I don’t mind being cold,” I wailed, but my protests did no good.

  When we reached Hollywood Boulevard, where the parade was to begin, I left my bundled-up parents, sisters, and grandmother standing on the sidewalk to watch the parade, and joined our drill team.

  A couple of the girls gave me strange looks, but Mary Lou told me I looked terrific and no one could possibly notice that I was also wearing a blanket. The night air was crisp and cold, and a few of the girls were shivering. I envied them. I wished I could shed the blanket dress and shiver, too. But I didn’t dare.

  Under the glittering tinsel and sparkling colored lights, we marched with precision—and, on my part, with some awkwardness. I couldn’t relax and enjoy our team’s glory, because I knew all eyes and the cameras of Movietone News were upon us. I cringed inside as I pictured my overstuffed self through the eyes of the guy I liked.

  Finally, the parade was over, I found my parents in the mob of spectators, and we returned home. I had changed into slacks and a shirt before my date reached our house.

  “You looked great!” he said as he greeted me. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  As I stood there blushing, totally miserable, and wishing he weren’t trying so hard to be so kind, he said, “You were easy to spot, since you were on the end in the front row.”

  I blinked with surprise. Front row? On the end? The girl who had that position was as tall as I; we both combed our dark hair nearly the same way, and we even looked something alike—especially in the evening light. If someone watching us didn’t have twenty-twenty eyesight … Oh, wow! This guy was perfect in every way.

  “Thanks,” I said, beaming.

  Later I told Mary Lou what he’d said. “That’s so romantic,” she told me. “You could write a story about it.”

  I tried, but I couldn’t make my story sound believable. The girl who was my main character didn’t do a thing to solve her own problem, so the ending of the story was pure coincidence. I had learned from all the books and stories I read that readers don’t like coincidence. And they don’t like main characters who don’t have the spunk and intelligence to solve their own problems.

  Lots of interesting things happen to people, I decided, but they don’t all make good stories. It’s a writer’s job to know which is which.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  During each summer after he became auditor of Los Angeles County in 1938, my father attended a statewide convention that was always held in San Francisco.

  Mother enjoyed attending the activities planned for wives, such as luncheons, fashion shows, and flower arranging demonstrations, so as soon as I reached my teens, I was given spending money and the care of my sisters.

  I had always been good with directions, and I soon learned the layout of the parts of San Francisco we most enjoyed. We’d ride the cable cars to Fisherman’s Wharf and eat shrimp cocktails in paper cups—walking cocktails, they were called. We’d stroll up and down the streets of Chinatown, browsing in the fascinating shops. And we’d take the bus to the aquarium in Golden Gate Park and the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, walking afterward to the Japanese Tea Garden for lunch.

  I loved San Francisco, I loved entertaining my little sisters, and I particularly loved the freedom that I had been given to explore.

  Each convention ended with a dress-up dinner, complete—for the women—with hats and gloves. Marilyn, Pat, and I were always included. So the summer I was sixteen, an hour before we were to leave our room in the St. Francis Hotel to appear in the banquet room, I dutifully dressed in my short-sleeved black dress—the fashion uniform of the day. I added the traditional string of costume jewelry pearls and white gloves. I stopped, looking hesitantly at Mother, who was brushing Pat’s hair.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  Mother looked up, suddenly wary. “What does uh-oh mean?” she asked.

  I tried to seem nonchalant. “Nothing much. It just means I forgot to pack my hat.”

  Mother dropped the hairbrush. “You couldn’t forget to pack your hat! You’re old enough to be responsible!”

  “I am responsible. I just happened to forget it,” I said.

  “You can’t go to the dinner if you’re not dressed properly. And you aren’t dressed without a hat.”

  I glanced out the window of our hotel room, across a corner of Union Square to I. Magnin’s elegant store on the corner of Geary and Stockton. On the sidewalk next to the building rose a rainbow of color—one of the large street-corner flower stalls for which San Francisco was famous. But its beauty did nothing to dispel the dark mood in our hotel room.

  “I coul
d run over to I. Magnin and buy a hat,” I quickly suggested.

  “No, you can’t,” said Mother, who never bought anything unless it was marked down in a fifty-percent-off sale. “We couldn’t afford an I. Magnin hat.” She looked at her watch, her voice rising. “Besides, all the stores closed at least half an hour ago.”

  She was close to panic. “What are we going to do? We can’t leave you up in the room, and you can’t go to the banquet if you’re not properly dressed! You know that your hat is as important as your stockings and shoes. How could you be so careless?”

  I took another look out the window and got an idea. “I’ll be right back,” I told her. I snatched up my handbag and ran out the door.

  When I arrived at the flower stall it was empty of customers and the flower vendor was getting ready to close for the evening.

  Out of breath, I poured out my story and asked, “Could you possibly make me a hat out of flowers?” I held out all the money I had—three one-dollar bills.

  He studied me. “Your mama’s real mad at you. Right?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “I have to come up with a hat.”

  He grinned, weather-beaten wrinkles crisscrossing his cheeks. “A pretty girl like you needs a pretty hat,” he said. “Sure, I can make you a hat.”

  He chose a handful of pale aqua carnations, and with florist wire and a bit of black netting, he soon fashioned a crown of flowers with a tiny black veil.

  I pinned it on with two bobby pins and peered into my pocket mirror. The hat was gorgeous, and I felt gorgeous, too.

  “The color makes your eyes sparkle,” the vendor said. “You are beautiful, so you are happy. Happy endings are the best. Right?”

  “Right,” I answered. “Happy endings are always the best.”

  I thanked him profusely and hurried across the square to the hotel and up to our hotel room, where Mother stared at me with her mouth open.

  “Now I have a hat,” I told her.

  Not yet ready to give in, she said, “It’s not a hat. It’s flowers.”

  “Lots of hats have flowers,” I told her. “Mine just happen to be real.”

  During the evening, quite a few people complimented me on my beautiful hat, and Mother thawed a little bit.

  But I glowed. The flower vendor was right. Happy endings are the best. I envisioned an entire lifetime of happy endings—my characters’ and my own.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Mother had been a kindergarten teacher, and she decided that I should follow in her footsteps.

  But Miss Standfast, whom I chose as my English teacher every single semester through my three years of high school, sometimes talked to me about my love of writing.

  Then one day she assigned a theme in which we were to emphasize sensory perception.

  As a couple of the guys in the class groaned, Miss Standfast said, “Don’t let the words ‘sensory perception’ worry you. They simply mean, tell us how things sound and taste and look and feel and smell as you use description in your themes.”

  I gave the idea a few moments of thought, then decided to write about my eleven-year-old sister, Pat, and Mary McKenzie, a girl close to Pat’s age. Because of the war, Mary had been sent from England to stay in safety with her aunt and uncle, who lived next door to us. Pat had blond curls that bounced as she walked and smiles for everyone; Mary had long, dark hair, usually neatly twisted into braids, and she had the serious demeanor of a child who had been separated from her parents and didn’t know whether they were safe or not while England was being bombed by the Nazis.

  I worked hard on my theme, using sensory perception wherever I could. When my paper was returned, Miss Standfast had written on it, “You are a writer. Come and talk with me after class.”

  I did, and she told me, “Don’t let go of your talent. When you move on to college, develop your writing skills. The local universities don’t offer majors in creative writing, but you can major in journalism.”

  I brought the idea up with my parents, and the result wasn’t too pleasant.

  Mother was shocked and asked, “Do you mean you don’t want to be a teacher—like me?”

  Daddy frowned. “I don’t want you to be a newspaper reporter,” he said. “They drink.”

  “I’m not going to drink. I’m going to write,” I answered.

  “No one makes money as a writer,” Mother said. “As a teacher, you’d have a nice, steady job.”

  “But I love to write.”

  “You’d love to teach, too. You haven’t tried it. Don’t turn down the idea until you’ve tried it.”

  “But I’m beginning my senior year,” I insisted, “so I have to decide what I’m going to major in when I begin college. I want to major in journalism.”

  “You’ll be attending the University of Southern California. Does U.S.C. offer a major in journalism?” Daddy asked.

  “Yes,” I said, still excited by Miss Standfast’s faith in me. “And that’s what I want to major in. Someday I’m going to be a published writer.”

  Mother made a little noise that sounded something like a sob. “Aren’t you the least bit interested in our good advice?”

  I tried to placate her without giving up. “It is good advice, and I appreciate it,” I said. “You loved being a kindergarten teacher, so you loved your job. Don’t you see that I love writing, and I want someday to have a job I love?”

  Daddy nodded, his decision made. “We’ll let you major in journalism, if you’re going to insist,” he said. “But we won’t allow you to become a newspaper reporter.” He lowered his voice and looked stern. “They drink,” he repeated.

  I had no desire to drink. My desire was to write. And now that I had a definite goal in mind, I was eager to reach it.

  I began my first semester at the University of Southern California at the age of seventeen, in June 1944, one week after I graduated from high school.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  To graduate U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps officers as quickly as possible, the University of Southern California offered three sixteen-week semesters a year, instead of two. I chose to begin classes as soon as possible instead of taking a long summer off.

  On the first day, I brought my lunch in a paper bag, as I had done in high school. I sat on a bench outside by myself, not knowing a single soul at the university, and tried not to notice the strange looks passersby were giving me. Brown-bagging your lunch to college was not the thing to do. Nobody had invented the term “cool” yet—not even Nancy Monegan and me—but I was decidedly not cool.

  I managed to survive my embarrassment, eating lunch at a drugstore lunch counter off campus until I discovered that the nonmilitary students ate in the student union and in a campus restaurant called the Wooden Horse. And I was soon in great athletic shape—not because I was a member of a sports team, but because my freshman journalism class was on the fourth floor of the student union, where the newspaper offices were situated.

  We composed everything we wrote on typewriters, even taking our exams on typewriters. This was fine with me because I had learned to type in seventh grade, and I had discovered a direct line from the creative part of my brain that ran down my arms and came out through my fingers. Composing on a typewriter was always what I did best.

  In Journalism 101 I was given the same rules of writing that I had learned from Mrs. Ammons. I knew them by heart and, even though I was a lowly freshman and not eligible to write yet for The Daily Trojan, I was eager to work on my journalistic skills.

  One afternoon, as I walked up the hill to our house, I picked up our mail, which was delivered to the box at the bottom of the driveway. As I tossed the mail onto the kitchen table, I dropped and then picked up a small magazine called The Ford Times. It was a magazine sent monthly to people who had purchased Ford automobiles.

  Normally I wasn’t at all interested in reading the magazine, but on that particular day I thumbed through it and noticed an invitation to readers to send in short articles ab
out how they and their families used Ford cars.

  I sat down at the typewriter, put myself into my mother’s shoes, and wrote a few paragraphs about how my husband and I entertained our three young children on short trips in our Ford sedan.

  I revised and polished what I had written, then typed a clean copy with my name and address. I mailed it to the magazine’s editor.

  About three weeks later, after I had forgotten I’d written the article, I received a letter from the editor of The Ford Times. He thanked me for my submission, told me it would be published, and enclosed a check. As I remember, it was for twenty-five dollars.

  My legs wobbled, so I quickly sat down, staring in astonishment at the check. I had been paid for something I had written. I hadn’t written a book. It was only a short article. But I had been paid. Just like Mrs. Jones. Just like Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie and the authors of all the books I’d ever read. And just like the fiction and nonfiction writers in McCall’s and Ladies’ Home Journal and the newspaper reporters of the Los Angeles Times. I was exactly what I had always wanted to be. I was a published writer!

  Epilogue

  I had four little children by the time I went to my first writers’ conference, in 1961. Afterward, I told my family what I’d heard about writing for children and said it sounded like something I might like to do.

  The next day Kathy, who was eleven, and Maureen, who was seven, told me, “Mommy, if you’re going to stop writing for magazines and start writing for children, then you have to write a book, and it has to be a mystery, and you have to put us in it.”

  To please them, I did. The Mystery of Hurricane Castle was rejected by the first twelve publishers to whom I sent the manuscript, but the thirteenth—Criterion—liked it, offered me a contract, and published it in 1964. Young Readers Press bought paperback rights, and the book was chosen as a selection of the Calling All Girls Magazine Book Club, so I knew the first twelve publishers had made a mistake. I hoped they were all very sorry. I enjoyed writing for children so much, I kept going and didn’t stop.