SPOILER ALERT…THIS POST CONTAINS PLOT POINTS THAT MIGHT RUIN YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE NOVEL.

So I’ve got Stella in Park Rapids. It’s 1959, December. She’s 16 and pregnant. No one knows she’s there except Jeanine (the woman who’s sheltering her) and Mrs. G. (the woman who brought her there).

Then something happens. Now she doesn’t trust either one. She’s ready to flee, fly, take a powder. She whips out her cell…she whips out her credit card…she fires up her SUV…okay, so what the hell DOES she do?

(Can you tell that I’m blogging because I don’t know the answer?!)

We talked this week about rules for zombies and vampires and shaghouls (OH MY!). What are the rules for pregnant teenagers in 1959? My mother was 19 and pregnant with me in 1959 but also married and living on a naval base so all she can help me with are the clothes.

Maybe Stella could simply walk away? My “waning gibbous moon” friend is telling me to get off my keester and do some research. Maybe it was unseasonably warm in north central Minnesota on a December day in 1959 and a long walk would be just the tonic for a teenager. (And if I go this way, I can always ask my intrepid “baby oil and dog dirt” friend to advise me at which mile the blisters will likely appear.)

The bus seem promising, but can she figure out the schedule and round up cash for a ticket?

Finally, I consider having her call Mrs. Donahue.

There is the phone on its own round mahogany table. There is the heavy, black phone perched neatly on the doily. There is the tastefully upholstered overstuffed chair next to the table and the phone, because in 1959 talking on the telephone was still a social pleasantry. You did it in your living room, not in the bathroom or while you were also clipping your toenails.

(June Cleaver rises in my mind and I can see the precise way her hand is gracefully cradling the unwieldy receiver against her pearled ear.)

And when Stella picks up the phone, I realize, it will have to be an operator who helps her. 1959. No direct dialing in a small town like Park Rapids. Will her voice squeak? Will she have the courage to ask for the person she really wants? So far in this story I don’t think Stella’s asked anyone for help, but now I think that’s all about to change.

This post was originally written April 4, 2007 for the private blog of my writing group, Novel-ties.

SPOILER ALERT…

I finally made Aggie hit Stella. And not just hit her. Burrow her fingers into the soft flesh in her upper arm and pinch. A hidden cruelty, shielded by the mother’s unwashed body, which is pressing Stella so tightly into a corner the girl is afraid she might faint. Pain, pressure, body odor—I threw it all at the poor, helpless child.

I didn’t cry when I did it, but I wanted to.

I did it right there in the middle of the second chapter, after the morticians take Roy’s body away. I did it so no reader can say they didn’t know things would only get worse.

You guys told me I had to do it, and I knew you were right. Describing the already yellowing bruise or the memory of the sting of the slap wasn’t enough to be honest about the stakes. Now what happens to Stella and what she does can all make crazy sense.

Since you told me I had to do it I’d been stalled. And now that I’ve done it other parts are falling into place too. I hope it’s worth the damage. I don’t mean to me, because I can take it. But oh, my poor Stella.

This post was originally written February 21, 2007 for the private blog of my writing group, Novel-ties.

Outside my office window, the Mississippi is flowing by. Today it mainly reflects the blue-tinged white of the sky, then a darker gray where the banks cast their shadows. I am on the north bank watching its now westerly meander.

Amid the office chaos, I’m trying to writing, trying to throw myself down into that lazy drift from the eighth floor of this lovely old bank building where I (and a thousand like me) earn my daily bread. Then my neighbor coughs, I tighten in fear. I remind myself to breathe, look again out the window and remember that I can flow that easily too, let the words gush onto the page and dive to the depths of the poignant ache of Stella’s heart as she misses home but fears returning to it.

Eddies turn me around. Should Stella take up the great metaphorical hobby of knitting? How will this battle between the two mothers conclude? Does Willie crave war or cigarettes? Will anyone ever care as much as I do about these small matters of their lives?

Oh, yes, this river is very deep indeed.

This post was originally written January 10, 2007 for the private blog of my writing group, Novel-ties.