Character Sketch

Our next assignment was one on character sketch. What is your character, what isn’t it, its hopes, dreams, phobias, interests, loves, well, you get the picture. A character sketch can be done many ways. Mine takes a form suggested by the professor. 

The character sketch is broken into nine categories. I have noted where category crossover can and should be expected to occur. Summary is included as the ninth category but it is generally woven in and out of the other categories.  The writer has to be careful to not use too much summary in a character sketch. The assignment is bolded below.

CHARACTER SKETCH

Dialogue

“Mailboxes are for people who want to be found,” Dustin chided in big brother fashion.

“But why should we stop there?” Dustin questioned like usual. (Dialogue and Habit)

“God dammit, Dustin!” Bird Dog yelled. “How the hell are we gonna get that off the roof?”

“Yup, I’ll be home before summer is out, mom.  Boy has to get to the big city sometime. “

Interior Monologue

Bird Dog always wondered why. Sometimes longer than others, but usually only for a fleeting moment. Then he’d see Dustin getting that grin and twinkle in his eye, I just can’t say no to him, can’t say that it isn’t always fun. (Habit, Summary)

Why does it always have to be crawl spaces, he wondered.  Dustin was on his back, a miner’s head flashlight glowing a raging white, and a hairdryer in his right hand. He barely fit. God damn pipes never freeze out near the edge.  Good thing this is one of those super max air hair blowers that allowed the ladies to rock big teased hair. If it was his folk’s cabin he would have just taken a saws-all to the floorboards, but no, he had to agree to head out to Becky Jo  Anderson’s grandfolk’s place.  (Fear, analyze, physical description, setting)

Self Portriat

He knew he could question to the point of being contrarian but he always remembered what grandma would say over coffee and Lawrence Welk. “It is always better to question too much than not enough. Saves alota trouble in the long run.”

Outside Portrait

If it was up to Awls he’d put a fence across the state just north of Duluth and staff it like a checkpoint with barrel -chested bohunks toting one hundred pound male yellow labs.

Physical Description

He looked like the typical mining hillbilly—Carhart jacket and pants, ballcaps, steeltoes, lined leather gloves.

Setting

Dustin’s car was standard, heater and keys, that was it, no radio, no power locks, no ashtray, no lighter, just heater and keys, that’s it.

He grew up in a seemingly typical small town hosting parks, beaches, playgrounds, campgrounds, fishing piers, arena sports complex, a couple of grade schools, ball fields, outdoor rinks, and tennis courts to name a few. The only drawback is that this is a company town. A town planned for and by the company.  Gridded out lot by lot, block by block, street by street, every place placed exactly where the company meant them to be placed.  No main street, just a lonely little strip mall hosting  a bowling alley, grocery store, wanna-be hardware store, and a couple of liquor stores.

Habit

“But why should we stop there?” Dustin questioned like usual. (Habit and Dialogue)

Action

Dustin slouched in the chair listening to Cooper drone on  upon the backs of drum and guitar power.

She couldn’t help but love that smile.  It was practiced perfection.

DUSTIN AWLS…

Dreads enclosed spaces, large crowds, and congestion both geographical and physical. He is claustrophobic in regards to close personal spaces. A crowd could just as easily be one too many around a campfire ring or the Minneapolis cross-town at rush hour.

Worries about the planet’s dwindling resources and the commodification of culture by American consumerism.

Loves the smell of Becky Jo’s hair.  It is one of the last things he holds on to.

 Lies about his age. Not directly but lets people believe what they want to believe. He smiles without saying yes or no. He is given a timeless quality when spoken about through different circles.  Only a few can pinpoint his real age.

Dustin grieves for friendship lost.

Dustin rejoices in friendship gained.

Yearns to fit in but not by giving up his core values.

Wonders if there are more ball cap wearing, roughed grouse shooting, mother earth loving, beer drinking, poets out there? Up there, up north?

Suspects he is not quite right either.

Plans to be self sufficient.

So, I plan to use all, some, or none of this while I explore the world that Dustin Awls inhabits. Alot of this description feels familiar while also feeling not quite “right”. Maybe that not quite right feeling is right where the fiction inhabits.

The First Re-Write

We were asked to re-write our in class assignment from last week.  What follows is the first shot at fleshing out a few paragraphs. If your interested, take a few minutes to reaquaint yourself with final exercise in this post: http://jeffgregg.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/first-day-let-the-fiction-commence/ . Tomorrow I turn in the following.

Dustin Awls

     The first time Dustin Awls heard Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies he was down in Jonny Stacks folk’s basement on a warmth waning, September day. It was 1980, John Bonham just died, and Dustin was 14 years old. The Hamms could not slake his thirst for the heavy metal and acid rock he heard blasting from Dusters, GTOs, and Camaros mingling at the direction of their masters in the beach parking lot. Maybe Alice could.

     The Philmore turntable was perched on the corner of the wet-bar threatening to tumble stylus over platter into a pile of dead Hamm’s soldiers. The tune crackled like the crumpling sheet metal of a car wreck through speakers that have been abused by two much older brothers and a couple of hippy parents. Dustin sat in an overstuffed chair that would have shown a cat-claw rended teacup rose pattern framed against a butter cream colored backdrop if it had not been disguised by an avocado green, crushed velour chair cover. Cooper and Donovan sang in duet through the song as Dustin crack the top off another brew sired in the land of sky blue waters.  

     Jonny, known better to the boys in the neighborhood as Bird Dog sat flipping through his older brother’s album collection. The collection was incredible—Sabbath, Hendrix, The Who, Joplin, Bread, Canned Heat, Zeppelin. The dust jackets were art. Art that mattered to groups wanting to appeal to the grimy teenagers in a decade most known for, much to Dustin’s chagrin or anyone else with a clue, disco.

     Jonny stopped flipping and stared. Enamored. Patti Smith stared back at him from the cover of Horses with a smoky, androgynous gaze that asked him to come hither for a roll or a stomp.

     “Hey, Jonny, quit staring at that skank. What else does your brother have in his room?” Dustin scolded and tempted

     “Ummm, I don’t know. Well, I do. But he has beat me down before. Um forget it, I don’t know”, Jonny said looking for an extra push to get his courage up.

     “He’s not here, man. Come on let’s check it out,” Dustin coaxed with just the whiskey Jonny needed to get his guts up.

     “Alright, alright. He keeps a locked wooden box under his bed.”

     Jonny would not see October.

First Day, Let the Fiction Commence

     Today was the first morning of Advanced Writing of Fiction. I arrived early and made my way through the hallowed halls of UMD to the new library, walked up four flights of stairs to the chagrin of my old creaking body, found the tiny yet windowed seminar style classroom and proceeded to place myself in the midst of a pack of twenty-somethings muttering about being up at such a god awful hour of the day. The instructor was there and was actually what I pictured—silvery grey hair cut into a stylish bob coiffure, librarian glasses, and a wondrously bright glint in her eyes. My classmates were also what I expected. Serious students willing to work and ready with a comment, opinion, or joke fitting for the time of morning. They are the youthful lieges holding the lien to the future. The first fifteen minutes proved that I would need to work hard to keep up with this bunch.

     But now, on to what’s promised, an unedited look into the quagmire that I like to call writing.

     The first exercise was simplistic but valuable. Something one could twist any which way they want to motivate, inspire, or crack the concrete layers of writer’s block. Remember the game Othello? This exercise also takes only a moment to learn but a lifetime to master. Now on to the exercise and my response- going forward from here through the rest of my blogs you will note the exercise, instructions, or assigned task from my instructor in BOLD— my soul laid bare will follow.

Write a six word autobiography. (I wrote two, there is no limitation on how many times one can write it but you may only use six words in each)

Iron Range dude scoffs at mines <end>

Two marriages, one worked, blended family <end>

     See, not too bad, eh? The next one was a bit more daunting but I am posting it in its unedited form anyway. Who knows, some spit, some shine, a buff here and there and it may turn into something worthwhile. The prompt is as follows. Remember, this is a fiction course, names have been changed to protect the innocent, “I” does not always necessarily mean me, well or does it?

     The first time (person’s name or I) heard (insert song here) by (band/singer here) (I, he, she, it) was (down, up, over, in, under, ect)(place)(action begins)

     The first time I heard Billion Dollar babies by Alice Cooper I was down in Jonny’s basement flipping through his older brother’s album collection. It must have been ’75 or ’76, I was ten years old and had an unquenchable thirst for the acid rock that I heard booming from Dusters, GTOs, and Camaros that the bell bottom jean and polyester shirt wearing high-schoolers would blast from the beach parking lot.

     The collection was incredible—Sabbath, Hendrix, The Who. The dust jackets were art. You know, art that mattered to groups who wanted to appeal to the grimy teenagers in a decade most known for, much to my chagrin or anyone else with a clue, disco.

     “Hey, Jonny, what else does your brother have in his room?”, I asked like any pre-teenage boy longing for his first pubic hair might.

     “Ummm, I don’t know, well I do, but he has beat me down before, ahh, I don’t know”, Jonny said looking for an extra push to get his courage up.

     I responded with just the whiskey he needed, “He’s not here, man. Come on let’s check it out.”

     “Alright, alright. He keeps a locked wooden box under his bed.” <end>

     So, there you have it, day one and two unedited pieces. I don’t know if either one will go anyplace but if they do I will post them. Who knows, maybe there is a kernel there someplace. I will catch you next time.

The Final Stretch

Tomorrow, I start my final semester of graduate school. Providing the skids do not come off of the sleigh before June 1, I will hold a Master of Liberal Studies and be ready to make my move to the front of the college classroom.

Why is this post blog worthy you may ask?

Well, I will tell you.  One of my final courses is Advanced Writing of Fiction and I could not be more nervous. I consider myself a poet and a writer of creative non-fiction (some minor published success– emphasis on minor), but I have not formally taken a fiction course nor been published in that realm. Over the next four months I plan to bear my soul to you through this blog. The posts will capture the writing I do in class, from first drafts, to re-writes, to polished submissions– all will be fair game. Read them and comment them or send an email instead, call me a hack or a natural, revel in my psyche or roll your eyes at my mental demise– I only ask for your unmitigated response.

This could be a complete trainwreck, an authorship epiphany, or it may light someplace in between. Nevertheless, I expect it to be a wild ride.

Birch Trees Are My Favorite

      Just outside the front door of the Old Hardware Store in McCarthy, Alaska a young birch roots right between the road and the yard. The tree stands a few feet taller than me and embraces young bark that glows pale purple in the shadows of the summer’s late afternoon sun. Its young leaves cling to life tenuously as fall returns early to this part of the world. This tree strikes me, causes me to pause a moment, and commands me to think.  I smile, recalling that late Fall day back when November gifted below freezing temperatures and snow banks for young boys to play in. November  in Alaska reminded me of those back on Minnesota’s Iron Range when I was a boy. This particular tree outside the Old Hardware Store causes me to stop and think of those times– Birch trees are my favorite.

      A Birch was where I took my first snowshoe hare–  in the woods past a fern swamp that I had to walk through. During the summer those ferns stood a good three foot high providing ample cover for the small creatures that called those Fayal Township woods home. One time, a black bear that Uncle shot for getting into his garage picked that fern swamp to die in. I remember the hesitation Uncle carried as he went into the tall fronds to find it. The light flickered against the wood’s blackish greens as he managed a flashlight and his Savage semi-automatic 12 gauge loaded with double-ought buckshot. Dense fronds parted just above Uncle’s waist and luckily he found the old boar gut-shot and dead in the swamp’s lavish greens. His companion is now mine. That Savage and I share a present and expect a future together roaming through fields, and swamps, and woods.

      I traveled over a primitive snow machine bridge of felled Ash and arrived near a wiry grove of Tag Elders that protected the Birch from the swamp. The hare’s frozen gaze and ground that wasn’t overly trampled told me I made the snare right. The wire gripped the thin Birch trunk and held fast. Everything worked out just like he said it would.

      Uncle Loren was my outdoors’ field guide for most of my young life. He was wiry and battle scarred, hard-working, and hard-drinking– a living throwback to the 1950’s.  His ironworking days were stolen by a stroke, but that didn’t stop him from living. He adapted with self made contraptions and stubborn determination. He climbed the roof, plowed the driveway, puttered in the garage, and continued to fish out of a twelve foot Alumacraft for many years after the stroke. I saw him take headers into the snow far many more times then I care to admit. The stroke didn’t steal his mind though. He knew what sat in every rusted Folger’s coffee can on the garage shelves. We hunted the hardwoods of northern Minnesota, fished lakes created by retreating glaciers ten thousand years ago, and explored every mile of Iron Range Red dirt road. He even gave me my first lesson on snares.

      “That wire, hanging right behind the woodstove, is what ya want for those rabbits back there. Go ahead and bring it over here,” he said the morning before the day I took my first hare.

      Piano wire, one of the many treasures found in Uncle Loren’s care, hangs behind the double-barrel woodstove near the back of the garage. The stove built from two old, 55 gallon drums is coated by a decade of rust that obscures any Shell, or Mobil, or Standard label that might have been painted on them. I could see fire belching inside the steel belly, and the heat radiated through the garage providing the warmth of an early May day. The wire felt supple yet unforgiving to my touch and surprised me with the warmth it gathered from the stove. Uncle took the roll of wire from me, grabbed an old, oiled-up sidecutter from his bench and stripped off a thirty inch piece.

      “Find a small, sturdy tree close enough to a rabbit trail for this to reach right over the tracks and tie it off,” Uncle Loren said while twisting a small loop at one end of the wire and running the wire back through it to fashion a seven inch loop, “make sure the loop is about four inches off the ground.”

      I worked in the garage all day putting tools away and making a dozen snare sets for the sprawling rabbit trails crisscrossing the woods behind Aunt and Uncle’s house in Fayal Township. Uncle was there the whole time, changing out oil on the riding mower, sharpening its blades, and preparing it for winter put-up. The lingering smell of burning Birch dried since last Fall roamed through the garage and the warmth kept us in our short sleeve shirts. Dry firewood is a drafty garage’s best friend. The Birch would go full circle the next day. It became the living stake that held my snare.  Birch trees are my favorite.

not Outside

Dusted rose tenderly traps tectonic

plates borne of Her arousal,

near breakfast time the sentinel sleeps silently missing

breath languishing from parted lips

lingering longingly,

two Magpies maneuver molasses skies

framing the Alaskan Range.

Sea shale succumbs to titan tidewaters

tantalizing toes.

Sentinels watch here, hovering, waiting, immortal to all but wind,

water and time. Dying like us

eventually. We live though through time, traveling tempestuously

toward that which we seek. Sometimes found,

sometimes not.

Beholding the bruin bounding beyond bowers,

fear rushes silently inside, moments hang immortal,

Turning, turning, turning.

Lichen weeps anxiously atop the dome the bruin roams.

Hearts hearken to one another—we both fear.

Away, away, away!

Breath bellows because, I love.

Black pearls gleam through me, mid-morn sun stolen by looking glasses,

entrancing, the muse reminds, she demands attention.

Warming to allow the Copper’s rage, always coming–

Coming, always coming, break-up brings boons– but too slovenly,

so I wait, withering, wonderful, wistful. Wanderlust wakes

like the sunlight always coming,

always waiting.

Mea Culpa

Okay, for those of you who care, and for those of you who do not, I beg forgiveness. My three month abandonment is over. Grad school caught, drawed, and quartered (semestered?) me. Good thing a strand of DNA was left behind. Onward with reanimation.

Irony

I lay awake at night worrying all my words

will not get out, for lack of trying and commitment,

I sometimes write them, speak them less, and wonder,

Acedia, the monk’s temptation might explain it

would be worn like a battle scar of courage

with more purchase than sheer sloth

like the lazy rain falling this spring between

bouts of late fall temperatures assaulting tomatoes,

tomatillos,  and tarragon waiting for the hot

water canner bath that precedes— plink, plink, plink.

What is not written but said between the lines?

This cold slate Minnesota summer stays

sealed like July jams and September salsas

like words that should be spoken.

Signs: A favor of communication or a slow acid burn of place?

         Place is one of life’s grounding aspects that provides a shared experience between locals regardless of class, religion, sexuality, color, or creed. Intimate sense of place only comes through invested time and sharing the experience of living there with others. Residents are in on the joke. They own cherished knowledge like the discerning smile passed between two lovers as they pass the multi-carved Ash tree, or the quickened pace of two young girls pedaling past Crazy Aunt Nanny’s dilapidated stick built house, or the not so hidden, but elusive, sand bar known to teenagers living on the Iron Range of  Minnesota . These places can be stolen. A handful of soil, a stadium seat at a closing ballpark, or the thousands upon thousands of square miles sequestered by the Louisiana Purchase are physical examples, but, more importantly, there is intimate loss when place is marked.

           In December of 2001 I moved to Valdez, Alaska. I explored every inch of town and the surrounding countryside to begin my connection to place. Determined to immerse myself in the local scene I resisted being the average Alaskan transient. I did not want to be that guy who visits Denali, takes a Stan Stephen’s Cruise to see Prince William Sound, or watches the 1964 earthquake video at the local community college to steal knowledge of place. I sated a bit of my hunger with backpacking trips into the bush, fishing the Prince William Sound on a re-fitted trawler, and pouring over old maps tucked into a barrel in a Prince William Sound Community College back room, but it was searching for the old town site of Valdez that provided me with a gem.

            Many old roads and narrow trails crisscross the landscape between the Richardson Highway and the Valdez Arm as one heads east out of Valdez. I happened upon an interesting place during my first trip looking for the Old Valdez. It was not marked, and judging from the overgrowth and lack of litter there was little trace of human use. A grassy path led me toward a small iron fence set in a rectangular pattern with rusty gates hanging askance from its hinges. Devil’s Club and tall grasses protected the view but curiosity beckoned me forward. Realization soon took hold— a grave. I looked deeper into the dense Alaskan flora and noticed more of these forlorn iron borders standing like sentinels against time. My nape hair stood telling me to leave. Chills crept along my spine until the Silverado was well on its way back to Valdez.

            “Oh, you were at the Chinese Graveyard”, a colleague told me the next afternoon. I was thrilled. The information was authentic, not from a guidebook or the City of Valdez website, but straight from the mouth of a true Alaskan Sourdough. I felt intimacy with place for the first time since arriving to Valdez. I was finally in on the joke.

             Fast forward a few years later— driving home from work after a long day working at Prince William Sound Community College.  It was the same drive, but it never was dull because there was always something new to see in the Chugach Mountain Range. The idyllic drive and living in the moment with no radio, Zeppelin CD, or cell phone call to distract me from the inspiring peaks soon gave way to a mild sadness. Plastered on an immense brown Alaska Department of Transportation historical road sign was the following: Chinese Graveyard Next Right. Now everyone will know, I cussed, as I made a hard right into the sight. All those tourists rolling into town for the June Pink Salmon run will take their two ton rented recreational vehicles down the muddy road to see and sully this “new” sight.

             Naming, framing, and elevating this small graveyard had a profound effect on my quest to become local. From behemoths like Denali Park and Mount McKinley to something as small as the Valdez Chinese Graveyard, Alaska is riddled with sights elevated and made sacred. I hope Alaska will never get there but she is slowly giving away its status as the Last Frontier.

            When will there be nothing left to find? Will everything be one big sight to see? What have you lost to a sign? Look around, wherever you are, and you will find that the soul of your place is gone.