I’m great at beginnings and pretty good at endings. It’s the middles that give me problems.

This is a pretty serious issue if you’re a novelist.

Heretofore, I’ve just made it up as I went along. By incredible good luck, this technique worked in the writing of To Love Mercy, my first novel. But I’ve written some 200 pages of a second novel the same way and I view this project as a hopeless mess. Somewhere around P. 100, I lost my way. I’m stumped as to how to save this work-in-progress.

Hopefully I’m on to bigger and better things. I’ve written three chapters (plus two half-chapters) of To Walk Humbly, the second novel in the “Chicago Trilogy.” This time I’ve vowed to figure things out ahead of time. But I’m not doing very well at it. The hardest thing, for me at least, is to stare at a screen and make stuff up.

I was bemoaning this issue to Patrick Grace, my publisher, and he volunteered to brainstorm it with me. The moment he suggested it, I knew he was onto something. Brainstorming is how my mind works. As uncreative as I am when locked in a room by myself, I’m just the opposite when engaged face-to-face with another person.

Patrick is in Huntington WV, a five- or six-hour drive from where I live. But members of the Holey Roaders, my stellar writing group, are nearby. Gingerly, I contacted three who I feel are (a) in tune with what I’m trying to write and (b) available during the day on weekdays. I vowed to return the favor — or any other favor for that matter. I promised lunch, dinner, whatever. That wasn’t necessary. All three immediately saw the potential of the idea, not only for helping give me a jump-start but also to jump-start their own creativity.

This feels a little like cheating — “Playing tennis with the net down,” as Robert Frost immortally said about non-rhymed poetry. I’ve never heard of other writers doing it (I’d be interested if any of you have an experience to share along these lines).

But writers are expedient people. For example, one celebrated author (name escapes me) recently wrote about dictating his novels into the computer using Dragon Naturally Speaking. (I use Dragon myself, for note-taking while reading microfilm, though I haven’t tried it for creating.)

If he can dictate, I can brainstorm. Whatever works, right?

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Fruits of the Obscure Yiddish Word Challenge:

Sid Goldstein: “The pages of To Love Mercy were the first place I ever saw the word shocher in written form. I had heard it within the Jewish community in Alabama in the 1964-65 time frame. The way I heard it pronounced, I thought the word might have been spelled ’shucka’ or ’shucha.’ I was led to believe it meant ‘colored;’ at least, it was used the same way. I did not hear the term ‘black’ applied to African-Americans until around 1968, with the following exception:

“On the Birmingham police beat, it came to my attention that criminal pedigrees were organized into four categories: white males, black males, white females, and black females. (Don’t ask me about ‘other,’ because I don’t remember that coming up.) I recall that the terms ‘black male’ and ‘black female’ were jarring to me at the time, because, as I say,
African-Americans (then known to themselves and others as Negroes) did not start calling themselves ‘black’ until several years later.

“[On another topic], there may be a gender issue in your latest message. Although I am neither a Yiddish nor Hebrew scholar, it is my understanding that aleva sholom means: ‘May he rest in peace.’ In remembering a grandmother, as opposed to a grandfather, one would, I think, say: Ahava sholom.”

Beth Rubin: “I remember ricious (for anti-Semitic). Haven’t heard it since I left home in the ’60s.

“Anecdote: My ‘aristocratic’ grandmother on my dad’s side didn’t readily admit to being Jewish. Her husband Is (Isadore, my grandfather) had a marvelous sense of humor and loved to tease her. In the 1930s (as the story goes), they were first in line for a table at Ruby Foo’s in New York. A diner walked up to my grandfather, dressed in a tux, and asked, ‘How long for a table?’ My grandfather turned to my grandmother, and in a voice loud enough for Brooklyn to hear, said, ‘See, you always tell me I’m too Jewish, and this man took me for a Chinaman.’

“I use Yiddish frequently in my writing. Ain’t nothin’ like it to spice up dialogue.”

Colette Seymann: “My grandfather referred to my daughter as the knuble pronounced ‘k-nuble’ … because she had such a round head as a baby. A few years ago, I heard someone use the word knadle which means a round dumpling, like a matza ball. After looking up knuble, I found the word to mean a head of garlic. My grandfather is no longer around to ask the question, but even if he was I don’t think I would out of respect.”

Gary Goodman: “Shocharim is something I heard spoken by only one person in my life (my uncle). I’m about 99.99% certain that you didn’t hear a comment from me about your usage of its singular in To Love Mercy. But, having grown up just a few years behind you, I can truly relate to what you wrote in your book reference to the ’s’ word (or words) from your zayde. Good Luck at City Lit!!”

Frank Joseph
www.tolovemercy.com

P.S. And speaking of the CityLit street festival, it’s NEXT SATURDAY (May 12) inside and outside of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Cathedral and Mulberry Streets, Baltimore. I’ll be signing books all day, and I’m on a panel of young-adult writers from 1-3. CityLit features literary stars including Connie Briscoe (”Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over 50″), Kevin Merida and Michael Fletcher (”Supreme Discomfort,” the new Clarence Thomas biography), Jabari Asim (”The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why”). Please come if you can. Check out the full program at www.citylitproject.org/index.php?q=node/167