What to Write?
Many years ago I went to Lakeside Writing Studio where I learned about the fine art of writing from Nancy Beckett. I have maintained contact with Nancy because she is simply the best teacher I have ever known. Recently Nancy has published a book based on her teaching method of using examples from literature, current and classic, to demonstrate a variety of lessons. Nancy then gives her students prompts to help stimulate and encourage their own writing. I received the book, Branches as a gift from another great teacher and inspiration in my life, my sister-in-law Denise. Denise became one of Nancy’s prize students. There are 70 prompts in the book accompanied with the source they were based on. I have decided to take them down one at a time in my Blog to see where they will lead me. Perhaps I will fall down the Rabbit Hole and who knows what I will encounter…. Remember, there may be rules for writing but content and imagination have no boundaries
Page One from Branches by Nancy Beckett with Molly Connolly
“Tell the story of a long, long car trip. Describe the interior of the car and the seating arrangements, games, food, scenery, clothing and all the insipid details of the conversation and weather.
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor
I love that this prompt came from a lesson taken from one of my favorite writers and one of the first short stories I remember reading. I simply went to my book shelf and pulled the Flannery O’Connor The Complete Stories out from its place and re-read this masterpiece. I am not sure I understand all the deeper meanings of what this story is trying to tell me but it sure made for a great read. I was inspired to write a story about a car trip with my mother and my fiance.
My first trip to Pennsylvania was over Thanksgiving in 1992. My boyfriend Marc was bringing me home to meet his family for the first time. I was nervous and excited. I was ready to settle down and had been searching far and wide for a single Jewish male to make all my dreams come true. I felt Marc’s invitation meant something. He thought “we” were going somewhere both literally and figuratively. Marc and I traveled well together. A year later, we would be taking my mother on the same trip so she could meet her future in-laws. And that car trip will live in my memory for ever.
Marc had just bought a new red Honda Accord and he could not have been happier. Marc was a typical male when it came to cars, he loved them. My mother loved to travel. She did a lot of traveling with her best friend Bernice. They took a trip to Europe. They would take Bus Tours to places like Mackinac, Michigan and Branson, Missouri. They went to Canada and Boston. As they got older their traveling days dwindled and eventually disappeared. My mother was thrilled when we offered to drive her to Pennsylvania. She loved long rides. She was used to having to take Buses so this would be an entirely new experience for her. I had to sit in the back while she got to sit up front with her future son-in-law. The Honda Accord is roomy and the back seat would have been perfect in my High School Days for extracurricular activities, but on this occasion I simply stretched out and relaxed with a good book while my mother talked Marc’s right ear completely off his head. He was a good sport about it. I knew “A Good Man Was Hard to Find” because I had been diligently looking for one for more than a decade. I finally found my good man. I was just hoping my mother didn’t scare him off.
When we got to Pennsylvania my mother fell in love with the Mountains. She got to meet everyone, Aunt Bert, Aunt Bea, Uncle Don, Marc’s mom Sue and his Step Dad Lou, baby brother Adam and miscellaneous neighbors and friends. We only stayed 3 days and then it was time to turn around and go home. The ride home is always hardest. By the return trip of a long car ride people are tired and ready to get out of each other’s company as well as the car. My mom performed okay, but on the way home I am afraid I was running out of patience. I freaked every time we had to stop and my mother ate some horrid fried food at a greasy fast food joint. I have always had issues about my mother’s weight (she is obese) and have tried desperately (the only way I know how to try whether looking for a husband or monitoring my mother’s food intake) to get her to lose weight. By the time we had reached Indiana I think I was ready to get out and walk the rest of the way home to Chicago. I casually looked out the window at one point to see exactly where we were and said something about our location. My mother was already going a little deaf at the time. I am not sure what she thought she heard me say but out of nowhere she yelled at me “You’re in LaPorte.” It sounded like I had just been condemned to death by a judge. What the hell was she so angry about? Marc and I started laughing our asses off. I screamed back at her “You’re in LaPorte!” To this day Marc and I scream that out loud for no reason. “You’re in LaPorte!”
We got home, unloaded Becky (my mother) and our suitcases. I would end up making that trip dozens and dozens of times more, but that was Becky’s one and only long car trip. She loved it. She just turned 90 and she still remembers the time she drove to Pittsburgh with me and Marc.
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