September Newsletter

By Jessica Page Morrell

A Year Later...

In the next few weeks the media will be filled with stories and remembrances of September 11, 2001. Survivors, the still grieving and those left behind will tell stories and spin memories of love's longing, of empty places that only the dead can fill. And perhaps, you too, will have a searing memory, a poignant realization, or some tale about the awful day of the terrorist attacks, or how you've been forever changed in the past year.

At the center of these media events will be pundits, journalists, memoirists all penning their comments, analysis and remembrances. So while in the past year we've learned much about loss and fear, while we've re-examined our notions of safety, we've also realized that the word is still mighty. That words can carry the weight of our emotions. When we're frightened. When the world snatches away our faith in everyday goodness. When we're searching for answers and making sense of senseless tragedy. When only a song will lift our hearts.

In this complicated and often messy world, words can be our tools, our solace, our means to leave a trace of who we are behind. We write to witness. But to witness we must write.

I would like to use this column space to urge everyone to write at least a few lines about how you've coped with not only the September 11 tragedies, but all the griefs that have befallen you. Because while writing cannot not always change the outcome of events, it can wring a heart dry, it can help welcome the dawn after darkness. It can lead you down paths of discovery you hadn't imagined. It can be your voice in a world gone mad.

But of course we cannot get stuck in our losses and furies, bogged down by our grief, stranded in the past. Leaving a trace means tracking yourself and the world in all your moods. It means finding the courage to write when your courage in all else is dwindling. And we've redefined courage after last September.

What I remember about September 10 is meeting one of my favorite authors, Amy Bloom, and publicly thanking her for her contributions to writing. I remember on September 11 and the following days that the sky was impossibly blue. I remember perfect weather in a world irretrievably changed. I remember the stillness of no airplanes overhead and as an eerie stillness descended we all asked why.

These days I appreciate beauty more. I treasure friendships more, and I'm more aware of my fierce loves and the ways I need to grow. I've learned with a terrible keenness that we humans are so fragile, mere machines pumping blood easily stilled.

And evil is real.

That day something inside me changed. I see stupidity and intolerance everywhere and I hope that it will pass.

As Shakespeare said, "Give sorrow words." Transform your grief or worries or insights and see the world anew through your writing. So feel this sorrowful anniversary with your heart, but remember it with your pen. Bear witness. Leave a trace. Live the writing life.

September will always remind me of the first Autumn leaves, the smell of new pencils and rows of desks in an elementary class room. In those first days of the school year, I'd sit in my white Peter Pan collar blouse and scratchy pleated skirt, thrilled at the start of a new school year, listening, examining each new book doled out by my teachers--Mrs. Schultz, Mrs. Nichols, Mr. Becker, Mr. Peterson. I'd add my name to the plate on the front cover, giddy with anticipation. Books meant promises and I loved all things school.

Which is perhaps why as another September approaches, I'm always energized. But this September, while fresh with school beginnings, will also make us look backward at the world before September, 2001. When we were all more innocent.

Tips for Secondary Characters

"...fuzzy characters and fuzzy setting do not add up to depictions of the human condition. Humans are too vivid for that-too individual, too ornery, too hard to pin to generalizations. To create the universal, create the particular, and create it in such a way that you take us below the surface of both character and setting. Then we'll notice. We'll care. And we'll say, 'I loved that story. It really said something about people, you know?' And we will know'." --Nancy Kress
Minor characters are not mere stage props-readers should be aware of their appearance, emotions, personality and relationship to the protagonist.
Give minor characters a physical tag, or at least one characteristic that make his or her appearance memorable.
Minor characters can shade in aspects of the majors-represent alternatives the protagonist did not take, represent different opinions, choices or fates.
A major character's friends and family can say volumes about him, just as having no friends or strained relationships can.
Use secondary characters to draw out the emotions of major characters and reveal conflicts.
Use minor characters to show the readers how protagonists treat vulnerable types-children, the elderly, homeless people, etc.
The way your characters speak can reveal as much about them as what they say. Use dialogue to reveal background, education and ethnicity.
When a reader cannot tell minor characters apart without going back to check on their names or somehow trying to keep them straight, the story is in trouble.
We read fiction to delight in meeting characters we've never met before and these include minor characters.
Minor characters create the impression that the fictional world is vivid and alive.
Minor characters can serve as devices that push your characters into action. They can make demands, dare them into action, draw them into trouble, or dangle temptations.

Inspiration:

"The best advice on writing I ever received was this: Invent your confidence. When you're trying something new, insecurity and stage fright come with the territory. Many wonderful writers (and other artists) have been plagued by insecurity throughout their professional lives. How could it be otherwise? By its nature, art involves risk. It's not easy, but sometimes one has to invent one's confidence.

My own best advice to young writers is: follow your curiosity and passion. What fascinates you will probably fascinate others. But, even if it doesn't, you will have devoted your life to what you love. An important corollary is that it's no use trying to write like someone else. Discover what is uniquely yours." --Diane Ackerman

"I think underneath it all, everybody has a longing to express themselves. To connect with themselves. To write, you have to have a relationship with your own mind." --Natalie Goldberg