Hymns in My Fiction

Since my fiction frequently focuses on characters grappling with religious issues, it is not surprising that hymns show up at odd times. Until I did a global search, however, I had not fully realized how often two particular hymns appeared. “How Great Thou Art” and “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” appear in three of my novels. The other thing I discovered is that these and other hymns usually appear at pivotal moments in the story, usually when the protagonist confronts the pull of a childhood religion. That longing is best expressed by the following passage from Hidden Warriors. In it, the main character finds herself at a church service after a lifetime’s absence:

“The harmonies were ambrosial. I reveled in them even as I warded off the memories, but it was no use. I could bludgeon my lips into obedient stiffness, but my shallow breaths betrayed me.

"Stop getting so emotional, I thought over and over. It’s unseemly. You don’t want to make a fool of yourself. But the unruly tears still threatened.

"More prayer and songs followed. I barely kept up, carried along in a wave of yearning no amount of self reproach could hold back. This service had been a staple of my life for eighteen years of Sundays. It called now with plaintive, hypnotic voice, and I finally let myself glory in it, even as I reminded myself that I did not belong, that this church or any other one like it could never be a true home for me. I told myself that the songs I was hearing were simply the lullabies of a childhood I now missed and that I had to remain vigilant. They still cloaked a dangerous theology.”

I hope I have treated this common yearning of my characters in sufficiently unique ways. If I haven't, that would be interesting since my characters range in age from childhood to middle age, and they include businesswomen, a courtesan, a photographer, a welder, a few ministers and, yes, some atheists. If I’m lucky enough to get all my novels published some day, maybe some enterprising student will take up as his or her thesis topic the issue of whether I’ve written the same novel multiple times.

Below - A Short Story

"His vomit was the color of the sea--turbid gray with flecks of white. It emptied over the side just ahead of the wave arched high above us. To keep him from tumbling overboard, I grabbed a fistful of his shirt. With my other hand, I gripped the wheelhouse doorjamb. I might be left holding torn cloth when the wave hit. Or he could pull me down with him. I released some of his shirt. It billowed and flapped in the unlucky air swirling around us. He turned his head toward me, his face ashen with contrition. He had lied to us and realized I knew it. "

That's the first paragraph of one of my already published cruising short stories. You may read the rest of it at the following link:

http://judithmercadoshortstories.blogspot.com/2009/09/below.html

Why I Love Stephen King

I don’t like horror or violence, but I love Stephen King. Why? Because the man can write! What’s more, if I’m stuck or find myself sliding into bad habits, I can pick up his common-sense memoir On Writing and suddenly know what to do. Do I then only love his book on the writing craft? No, I just prefer Stephen King stories like The Green Mile to ones like Carrie. I guess that makes me a non-purist fan. What his novels and short stories have in common, though, is that they’re superbly written. Here are some favorite Stephen King “wisdom teachings” that helped me reduce my Choosing Sides novel from 115k words to 98k words.

· Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.

· It’s always about the story.

· If you do your job, your characters will come to life and start doing stuff on their own.

· I distrust plot for two reasons: first, because our lives are largely plotless … and, second, because I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.

· My basic belief about the making of stories is that they pretty much make themselves. The job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.

· … starting with the questions and thematic concerns is a recipe for bad fiction. Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story.

· All novels are really letters aimed at one person … Every novelist has a single ideal reader.

· Editing formula: 2nd Draft = (1st Draft – 10%)

· The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting. Stick to the parts that are.

Grampa

No, Grampa is not my grandfather. My grandfathers, who lived in Puerto Rico and whom I rarely met, were not Brahmin Episcopalian ministers fallen on hard times. Nor is Grampa a stand-in for my father, also a minister, albeit Pentecostal. Yet Grampa plays an outsized role in my fiction. In my novel, The Old Prophet’s House, he appears in the title though he is only a secondary character and, what’s more, he’s already dead. In the mysterious fashion in which characters, conflicts, and events sometimes appear in a novelist’s head, Grampa emerged in a story I wanted to tell and, lo, there he was, larger than life, and he never left. Recently, I even wrote a short story, taking place 19 years earlier than the novel, in which Grampa is alive, this time as the protagonist driving the story. I submitted that short story to a literary journal and have no idea whether it will be accepted for publication. We all know what the odds are. I can’t rid myself of the feeling, though, that Grampa still wants to be written about. Since my current work-in-progress novel has nothing to do with the fictional world in which Grampa first appeared, it will be interesting to see what happens. I only know that I have a vague sense that my time with Grampa is not finished.

Why I Write

The following poem by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda describes well the nearly mystical impulse that drives me to write fiction. The Nobel-Prize-winning poet is speaking of the obligation of a poet, but what he describes applies equally well to me. The English translation is provided first, followed by the original in Spanish.


Poet's Obligation

To whoever is not listening to the sea this Friday
morning, to whoever is cooped up
in the house or office, factory or woman
or street or mine or dry prison cell,
to him I come, and without speaking or looking
I arrive and open the door of his prison,
and a vibration starts up, vague and insistent,
a long rumble of thunder adds itself
to the weight of the planet and the foam,
the groaning rivers of the ocean rise,
the star vibrates quickly in its crown
and the sea beats, dies, and goes on beating.

So, drawn on by my destiny,
I ceaselessly must listen to and keep
the sea’s lamenting in my consciousness,
I must feel the crash of the hard water
and gather it up in a perpetual cup
so that, wherever those in prison may be,
wherever they suffer the sentence of the autumn,
I may be present with an errant wave,
I may move in and out of windows,
and hearing me, eyes may lift themselves,
asking “How can I reach the sea?”
And I will pass to them, saying nothing,
the starry echoes of the wave,
a breaking up of foam and quicksand,
a rustling of salt withdrawing itself,
the gray cry of seabirds on the coast.

So, through me, freedom and the sea
will call in answer to the shrouded heart.


Deber del poeta

A quien no escucha el mar en este viernes
por la mañana, a quien adentro de algo,
casa, oficina, fábrica o mujer,
o calle o mina o seco calabozo:
a éste yo acudo y sin hablar ni ver
llego y abro la puerta del encierro
y un sin fin se oye vago en la insistencia,
un largo trueno roto se encadena
al peso del planeta y de la espuma,
surgen los ríos roncos del océano,
vibra veloz en su rosal la estrella
y el mar palpíta, muere y continúa.

Así por el destino conducido
debo sin tregua oír y conservar
el lamento marino en mi conciencia,
debo sentir el golpe de agua dura
y recogerlo en una taza eterna
para que donde esté el encarcelado,
donde sufra el castigo del otoño
yo esté presente con una ola errante,
yo circule a través de las ventanas
y al oírme levante la mirada
diciendo: cómo me acercaré al océano?
Y yo transmitiré sin decir nada
los ecos estrellados de la ola,
un quebranto de espuma y arenales,
un susurro de sal que se retira,
el grito gris del ave de la costa.

Y así, por mí, la libertad y el mar
responderán al corazón oscuro.

My Religious Primer

Reared in the Pentecostal religion, I was presented with two choices. The first, the only road to Salvation, required that I adhere to the precepts of a Bible-centered strict religious denomination. The second, considered to be the road to Perdition, was the worldly way, which included everything else, including non-Pentecostal Christianity.

I chose a third path, one which honored all religious traditions. In my view, religions often begin as an individual or group attempt to make sense of a complex cosmos. Except when they resort to violence and excessive proselytizing, I deeply respect the attempt of most religions to seek coherence and order in a world that intrinsically may be incoherent and chaotic.

Over the years, I have studied many religions, often joining them as a fellow celebrant, sometimes for extended periods of time. Given the "overdose" of churching in my youth, though, after any prolonged exposure, I start to suffer from wanderlust. As a consequence, I don’t “belong” to any religion, but can walk into a synagogue, church, mosque, shrine or ashram and feel at home, even if for just a little while.

It is not surprising, then, that in my fiction, I spend a lot of time in churches, with characters who embrace, characters who flee from, but always characters who try to make sense of religion and spirituality in their lives. In this, they reflect my own life's journey. Hence, the title for this blog: Pilgrim Soul.