You're Invited
Elise Is Hosting This Party
Elise! This needs a few typos!
Okay, I’ll accept the “Wanted” poster being reversed/flopped. But I urge everyone within … Wait, what’s the address? Elise? Where’s this happening?
Lawrence, Kansas, Elise says. Find it here. Or here.
Elise was an excellent Kangaroo Helper in Kansas City last year. We owe her some loyalty.
Being a writer means strip mining your life for material. Yeah, and strip mining your friends’ lives until you no longer have friends.
Fuckit, friends are just something you have when you’re between books, right?
This weekend I’m packing the boxes for the Pixie Project donors. Pet toys and Easter candy. Years ago when I’d buy dozens of heart-shaped boxes of Valentine’s chocolate, the cashier would ask, “Looks like you have a lot of girlfriends …”
Wow, microaggression much?
Later in life, as I bought candy for gift boxes, the cashier would marvel, “Wow, how many kids do you have?” Yesterday I bought a heaping shopping cart full of Easter candy, and the cashier said, “You must have a LOT of grandchildren.” Now I want to deescalate back to the microaggressions.
So strip mining…
Do you remember when you were little and you bit into a honking big chocolate bunny on Easter (or thereabouts) and you saw that it was hollow?! That’s the brand of core, original emotion we’re looking for in stories. Personally, I was pissed. What looked like a ton of chocolate ended up being only a few ounces. If you can ground a character’s emotion in an experience shared by many, then you achieve emotional “heart” authority.
Whenever you recall these core emotional events—anger, love, grief, whatever—collect them to use in your work. Again, it’s the Vicodin simile from The Contortionist’s Handbook.1 And you can use those relatable events at any point in a story, where you need for emotion to land in the reader’s mind. ‘Swear, it will make a million people think the book is about them.
Now go to Elise’s party! It’s Tuesday.
God forbid I repeat an anecdote and have Colton come down on me like a ton of bricks.
“Imagine waking up on the Monday morning filled with dread. Another satisfying week looms. Another soul crushing day at work doing something you’d never planned to do for the rest of your life. You’re growing older, your life wasted, your dreams lost. And then you realize it’s actually Sunday morning, that rush of relief… that flood of joy and bliss that fills you and buoys your whole body with euphoria, multiply that feeling with ten, and that’s how Vicodin feels.”
Can’t make the party. 😢 but does anyone else recall walking in on their parents nailing? That moment you lost all sense of reality? Possibly it’s the moment you actually came online. That’s it. That’s my chocolate bunny story.