NoJoMo 14 -- Stories in The Common Room

No, I don’t have any copies of the book. I have the original outline only.

Momma was a kinda hyperactive kid. She drove Granmama nuts running around wiuth the boy cousins , yelling, climbing trees amd such. When it would get too bad, she’d make Momma sit still for a while. She didn’t mean it as punishment, so she’d give Momma a boojk to read. That seemed like punishmen to Momma, so she hated to read and did it badly. I guess writing got stained with the same brush, because she didn’t care for that either.. We’ll just barely mention that Daddy was often “scratchin’” when she wanted his attention.

When the letter arrived from the publisher, the men of the family were gone. Granpa L. was in New Mexico building for the Los Alamos project and Granmama was with him. The only person Momma had to talk t was Aunt Fern, an aunt by courtesy who was really just Momma’s best friend since girlhood.

With no men and boys to listen to, I was reduced to lilstening to women . I “played quietly” on the back porch while Fern and Momma drank tea and conversed in the kitchen. Momma was very unhappy that I seemed to be following in the scratchin’ habit. She was determined to pt a stop to it, but Fern advised her not to actually forbid it because if Daddy or Granpa found out they wouldn’t like it. Momma said that, if the men of the family had their way, I’d grow up “peculiar” and so she decided to just not mention it to anyone, sure I would forget about sending the story if I didn’t hear anything else..

I never saw the publiasiher’s letter or the little book. Even my copy with Daddy’s cartoons disappeared from my drawer. Only the outline of the story survived, and that because it was in the “secret drawer” of my little desk. I did go to the bank with mother and signed my aame below hers on a strip of paper, for which the bank gave money. Momma asked if I wanted to give the money to the USO and of course I did.

I didn’t understand Momma but I didn’t want her to be unhaappy, so I kept my “scratchin’ to myself until Daddy came home again, when I contentedly fired off things to Jack and Jill magazine like hundreds of other kids – sometimes it got in the magazine and sometimes it didn’t. All the magazines got spoilt when the tornado took the garage roof some years later. They were not important to me any longer.

NoJoMo 15 – The Novel

School years were full of themes and book reviews. I could always find a reason to write. We were seldom asked to say anything aloud. It was mostly write, turn it in and shut up, which suited me fine then.There were essay contests to enter, with ribbons to get from the men’s clubs like Lions, Kiwanas and Elks.

Through those years, one person and I were friends. Sometimes he “liked” me and sometimes I “liked” him, but never at the same time. Whenever there was an opportunity to write, either he came in first and I came in second or vise versa. By a funny quirk, he was Senior Class President, which he hated. I won the National Merit Schlorship and he was runner-up. Since I was about to be married (didn’t happen) I stepped down and let him have it. At graduation, I was one ten thousandth of a point ahead of him., Somehow, that senior year, we both washed up upon the shores of the Wideawake Cafe plying the jukebox and solemnly discussing philosophy from the depth of our seventeen years, not just once, but Saturday night after Saturday night..

My friend was writing college applications and our discussions of those morphed or migrated into a discussion of writing in general and, somewhat sourly, the exchange of writing for filthy lucre..

My friend had the idea that genuine talent was enough but I maintained that , for money, one had to follow the pattern, which I now called a formula. Of course, the pattern had changed from the time when I wrote childrens’ stories. Paperback books with stupid tales of unlikely romance were all the rage. They were not even profane, just silly. After too much talk, Friend suddenly said that we should both write a book and see whose sold first. A lawyer on retainer to someone I had met agreed to handle the business of the thing, and to submit the novels. I wouldn’t have my name used and all rights and profits were assigned to a charity.

I strongly believed (and still do) that good friend had his book partly written. We set a date for completion and retired to our seperate corners and typewriters.

Three night before graduation, we met at the Wide Awake and exchanged manuscripts. His wasn’t bad. It wasn’t particularly good either - not enough imagination. He read a couple of chapters of mine asn said, “I MAY vomit.” I assureed him that he was welcome to do so,. I had, several times.
We went to the postoffice and mailed the manuscripts.

Halffway through the summer his rejection notices began coming in. They were not very kind. It’s probably important to say, here, that my friend later became the head of the English department at a major university.

It was a little later when the lawyer contacted me asking which publisher I preferred. I refused to have anything to do with it and he chose. It didn’t exactly make the bestseller list, but it came close.

Yes, someone might be able to find it yet. No, I will not assist that endeaver. Stink, stinkj, stink.

Blessed Be