Piles of Unfinished Stories

My mother a woman of great vision, imagination, and versatility. She was also a woman with many unfinished projects. She was a painter and an renowned stained glass artist. She made glass sculptures and sand-blasted glass creations, did batik painting, created wearable art, and occasionally mixed several media in a single project.

After she died, I looked through the sizable stack of water color pieces she never had framed. Some were obviously practice or experimental pieces. Some seemed unfinished. Others may have been finished, but she hadn’t framed or hung them. How sad, I thought, that she had left so much unfinished work. With her talent, it seemed that she should have had more to show for her efforts.

Today I see that scrap pile quite differently. As I look around the houses of my siblings and children, as well as my own, I see her art hanging in places of honor. And now I recall that her work hung in many galleries, and lots of pieces sold.

I compare her work to my writing. Both are creative, but different in a fundamental way: words don’t disappear like a sold painting. I keep it all. And unlike art, story scraps can be revised and recycled.

But our work is alike in another way. I have a huge and growing pile of unfinished stories. Most will never be finished. Perhaps the thought was incomplete. Perhaps I started it awkwardly and failed to find a way to smooth it to a finish. Maybe I got distracted halfway through, lost interest, or covered the subject in another story. Whatever the reason, I’ve kept those scraps. I may finish them one day. I may combine some into longer stories. Collectively, they record my progress as a writer.

I also keep them because I practice what I preach: “Any lifestory you write is better than writing nothing.” And, “Someday somebody is going to appreciate that scrap.” Who knows whether anyone will ever take the time to read all the stories on my hard drive? All I know is that if I delete anything, they won’t have that choice.

If anyone does go through it, I no longer care what they think of my pile of unfinished and unpublished stories, and it no longer matters to me how many pictures my mother may have sold. I’ve come to understand the joy in the simple act of creation, and that it’s often enough just to get those words on paper, whether anyone reads them or not.

But I know that Mother would be happy that her work will be admired by her family for several generations to come as it is passes from one to the next. And although it’s enough to write for my own satisfaction, I do hope my stories will be appreciated at least as long as her art.

Write now: Read through some of your old stories and find inspiration for new ones, or ways to move a few along. But more than that, reread for your own pleasure and joy.

Story Album to Memoir

Adventures of a Chilehead initially began as a simple story album – a term I use in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing to describe a collection of free-standing short stories. But a funny thing happened as I began assembling the loose stories into a document: they evolved into a memoir. Here’s how.

I began with three stories, two of which appeared in The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing. I’d already written the third back then, but decided to save it for later. Through the years I wrote other stories on this theme. When I put the collection together for this album and arranged them in chronological order, I thought of a couple more. As I wrote and edited, I shared each story with a writing group.

“Great story, but tell us more about this, this and that,” they said. “This line would sound smoother like so.” I love my writing group. My writing is always better with their help! Although they hadn’t said it in so many words, they wanted more reflection, They wanted to know what I was thinking, what the experiences meant to me. They wanted reflection. Oh, yes! That’s something I teach and advise others to include. But it’s easy to overlook in my own stories.

Adding reflection forced me to explore simple stories and memories more deeply, to dig for more significance. I had to confront the key question: why do I love chile so much? Why do I keep scorching my mouth? And what else was going on that made those stories stick in memory? The answer was a little different each time, and it made the stories richer.

Another aspect of the collection the group didn’t see was overlap among the stories. Some stories have short flashbacks to previous memories. In a collection, such shared stories should be told in full only once. Later stories can refer to them in passing as “the time my father …” without repeating the details. I pruned that overlap and tucked in a few mini-memories to add further insight and interest.

As I continue to fine-tune those stories, working on the reflection and thinking from one story to the next along the time line, a story arc gradually emerged. My thoughts and preferences have evolved over time. I have evolved from girl to grandmother with the perspective of several decades. With no specific intention, this project has organically morphed into memoir with continuity, focus, and evolution of the story.

At first I was reluctant to add much reflection. The original stories were funny. I often read the unpublished third at public events and it’s hard to keep from laughing myself. Would I lose that comic edge?

Simple story albums need no conclusion, but an integrated collection or memoir needs resolution. That concluding chapter gave me fits. Then I had one more adventure that I would never have recognized as such if I hadn’t been working on this chapter. After a dozen false starts, a very different story emerged. Meaning became laser clear. Whether anyone ever reads this memoir or not, my life is richer for that.

More work remains to be done before the project is finished. I’ll keep you posted.

Write now:  select an assortment of stories you have written and assemble them into a story album. If you have several on a theme, so much the better. Or maybe you have several from the same time era. Read through them all at one time and see what else comes to mind. Perhaps it will remain a simple short story collection, but you may find it becomes something more.

Lessons Learned

That curve ball I reported in the previous post about my book title has been tossed all over the field. I appreciate the comments many left there. An update is in order about  principles validated, lessons learned, and conclusions reached.

Principle 1: Do your research.

When controversy arose over the spelling of chile or chilehead, I did do lots of research, and I learned many fascinating facts about chile/chili quite apart from the spelling lessons and history.

Principle 2: Check your references

When I called my father to double check my memory of what he told me, I was in for yet another surprise. Without knowing why I was asking, he turned my memory inside out. In his considered opinion, replacing the “e” at the end of chile with an “I” is an affectation that became fashionable about the time people began naming baby girls Christie rather than Christy. I never did understand how he could be at such odds with local custom, so although chagrinned at this outcome, I’m relieved to find him in character after all.

Lesson 1: Involve lots of others

I was beginning to wish I’d never mentioned this project to the Facebook group, considering in retrospect that asking forgiveness would have been easier. I had no intention of stirring up such a flap. But … I was using what I remembered as my father’s guidance in the first place, and his opinion trumps the rest. Had I not stirred up that Facebook pot, a permanent cloud would have hung over that book when I learned of my flub. This way I can still fix it. Community matters. Crowdsourcing helps.

Lesson 2: Double check your sources.

Memory is a tricky thing. We all know that. My memory error was legitimate and defensible. And I could have asked that question sooner. I just never thought of doing that. So, learn from my example and think about it. Root out and check out your assumptions to keep that egg off your face.

Conclusion 1: I need a new title!

It’s time for creativity. I’m considering options and open to suggestion.

Conclusion 2: It’s chile, not chili.

Case closed on that.

The story of compiling this collection from loose stories to memoir goes far beyond the title. I’ll continue the tale in the next post.

Write now: Think back through your old stories, or perhaps one you are currently writing and look for underlying assumptions. In my case, this was an assumption about spelling and remembered advice. Yours may be quite different. When you find an assumption, check it out. This is especially important when your assumption is based on things other people said or did. Mine was resolvable. Yours may not be. But it’s always worth a try.

Photo credit: Clotee Allochuku

Chili or Chile? Check It Out

Adventures of a Chilihead is the title I chose ages ago for what I intended to be a story album or themed collection of short stories about my experiences eating hot chili peppers and other blow-your-head-off food. As usual, getting the book pulled together is an adventure itself as it morphed from loose stories to mini-memoir, and part of that adventure includes resolving a quandary about the proper spelling of the main subject.

More years ago than I can remember, my father sorted me out on the proper spelling of chile. “Chile is a country in South America. We eat chili!” He grew up in New Mexico, staying there until he was a grandfather. He’s a reliable trivia consultant and can always back up his opinions, so as far as I was concerned, that settled it. I consistently used the correct spelling in my manuscript.

Or so I thought. I follow a couple of Facebook groups populated with people who grew up in Los Alamos. On a whim, I posted a request for comments testifying to their love of chili. Results were completely unexpected. A few posted short comments about their love of chili, their favorite varieties and so forth, but far more made sure I know the New Mexican way to spell CHILE!

The word was originally adapted by the Spanish explorers from Mexico’s native Nahuatl term, “xilli” o(alternately spelled “chilli”). The Spaniards adapted it as chile, which was subsequently rendered chili in American English. The Brits, whether by design or fluke, stuck to the Nahuatl spelling, chilli. Although most of the United States accepts chili as the proper spelling, many southwesterners assert that the word is of Spanish origin, hence the Spanish spelling should be retained.

New Mexicans are especially assertive about this, and on November 3, 1983, Senator Pete Domenici, R-NM, had a statement read into the Congressional Record 129 (149) entitled “The correct way to spell chile.” However, I know of no resolution introduced or legislation passed, so the question continues to loom.

Not relying strictly on a well-informed, but possibly biased, sample, or grandstanding Congressional hoopla, I turned to my own definitive resource, a decades old publications from the New Mexico State Agricultural Extension Service. The title says it all: CHILE.

You may wonder why I’m taking such pains to detail all this. Why I don’t just quietly make the change? Because of the cover. I’d like to be true to my roots, but I also want an instantly recognizable title. So, I’m asking you to help me decide. Please look at the two images below and leave a comment to tell me if you see any reason to stick with Chilihead rather than changing to Chilehead.

Stay tuned for more of the writing adventure.

Write now: make a list of colloquial terms specific to the area where you live or grew up. Select a couple of related ones to include in a story, and consider how to make them clear to your readers while remaining true to your roots and voice. Do any necessary research to support your usage. Involve others who share those roots.