The Writing Relationship

Heading into August and just over half the year is already gone. The dog days of another Texas summer is in full blister mode and the schedule of writing three weeks a month on the historical novel, We’re for Smoke, and one week devoted to a short story has now become routine.

While I am proud not to have missed a month turning out a short story, I have fallen behind on my page output on the novel. Research has slowed me down a little and one of the short stories ate up more than its allotted week but the main reason is I simply got bogged down on one of the story lines in Smoke.

The best thing about writing historical fiction is the plot line is laid out for you. The worst thing about writing historical fiction is, yep, I’m going there, the plot line is laid out for you. Writing affects your personality; at least it affects my personality. Two months ago I tried my hand at writing hardboiled pulp fiction and researched the slang and lingo. I walked around for two weeks saying things like ‘eat a peach’ and ‘that’s Jake!’

The fiction world sometime drips into reality and sometimes that causes the checkout person at the grocery store to look at you sideways because weird words slip out of your mouth. Don’t get your beezer in a bunch when I’m just bumping gums, I say.  

Most of the storylines in Smoke involve death and some degree of violence. A few of the storylines involve a ton of violence. The past few months have been brutal. A lot of senseless, brutal, wanton death and destruction. It wore me down. It made me avoid the butt in the seat, words on paper, writing.

I think I have bulled my way through. Writing is a relationship. Sometimes you don’t always like the person you love, but you don’t give up on them. You work it out, sometimes you just work through it until you come out on the other side. 

Tom Lee was a black man in Fort Worth who snapped under the burdens of racism. He may have just become fed up. He most assuredly suffered from some severe mental illness. I found him to be sympathetic.  

Sons of Ham

Tom Lee

Tom Lee awoke with blood boiling. Most mornings Tom Lee awoke pissed at one thing or another, but today he aimed to do something about the anger. Today Tom Lee decided not to drink to forget the humiliation of being less than a man; today Tom Lee would drink to bolster the courage to be a man. A man of action.

Tom Lee spent six days a week, twelve to fourteen hours a day on his knees at the feet of Fort Worth’s elite, shining and polishing boots and shoes at the Congress Barber Shop. Tom Lee was, according to the Congress’s owner, S.I. Rodick, a ‘good nigger,’ which meant he did what he was told, when he was told to do it and acted happy about it all the time. There was, however, nothing about Tom Lee’s life that made him happy or proud.

He spent most evening in the Acre, drinking rotgut whiskey and gambling.  He drank to numb the humiliation and he gambled because sometimes he won. A man needs to win every once in a while.  Most times he lost but the maybe one time in ten that Tom Lee won, it made him feel whole, even a little human.

Last night Tom Lee joined a craps game in an alley behind McGar’s saloon. On this night Lee lost badly. He had been foolish to leave his brother’s house with his entire bankroll but he had and within an hour it was gone. He had rolled dice with Pete Soles and Walter Moore. Lee had shot pool with Moore on a few occasions but had never laid eyes on Soles. Lee knew Moore never played straight in pool and hustled drunks and young men, too inexperienced to know they were being taken. Lee offered that Moore and Soles had cheated him out of nearly $100 and he aimed to take it back in hide.

Tom Lee left the lean to in back of his brother’s house where he laid his head and crossed into his neighbor’s yard. He knocked softly on the back door. Mrs. Heath walked over to the screen and the two exchanged pleasantries. Lee was polite and jovial, there was no hint of his real mood. Every black man that lived past the age of thirty knew how to laugh, joke and act pleasant, no matter the true emotions roiling in the pit of their stomach.

“I’s going bird hunting, Mrs. Health or I would like to,” Lee said. “Do you think Jim would mind me borrowing his shotgun? I’ll gladly drop off two quail for dinner when I return it, if I’m lucky enough to shoot three or more.”

“Of course, Tom,” said Mrs. Heath. “I’m sure Jim won’t mind a bit.” She opened the screen door and Tom entered. A few minutes later he left out the front door with the 12 gauge, double barrel shotgun and turned towards town, his pockets, front and back, loaded with bird shot.

Tom Lee walked with a single purpose down East Eighth Street, he drew a few stares from the white men on the street as they looked uneasily at the black man carrying a shotgun down the center of the street. The few carriages and cars on the road gave him a fair berth. When he was dead center of McCampbell’s Barbeque he turned and eyed Pete Soles who was standing at the street side counter eating a plate of chicken, his back to the street.

Jack finally had a moment to step back the grill and wipe the sweat from his face. The lunch rush was easing up and he finally had a chance to step away from the heat of the grill and collected his thoughts and right now he was thinking he needed a long draw of water.

 “Would you look at the no account pig sloppin’ down on a plate of chicken,” Lee said to Soles.

Soles looked around and saw Lee addressing him. “Unless your carrying more money to lose shooting craps, take that shotgun, stick it up your ass and walk back home,” Soles responded with a smile across his lips.

Jack looked out from behind the counter and quickly sized up the situation. It was not good, he surmised. The man in the street toting the shotgun had a blank, cold stare, like he had already pulled the trigger and cared not of the consequences.

Stock Your Writer's Toolbox

Hello, my name is Mark and I am a hoarder. I’m not a hoarder in the traditional sense. I don’t have every Star Telegram and Life Magazine from 1978 stacked up creating pathways through my living room or a giant ball of tin foil.

I am a hoarder when it comes to tools I use for writing. As an example, I have lists of names. If I hear a name I think sounds cool or interesting, I write it down. I used to walk through cemeteries and write down names from headstones. At least I don’t do that anymore. I have a collection of sentences I’ve heard and think might come in handy one day, broken into categories. I collect words, phrases and insults. I love a good insult.

I have a folder on my computer filled with fragments of scenes I dreamed or simply dropped from the ether into my mind. I also have a couple dozen movies and series saved on my DVR and paused at a certain scene that makes me happy, sad, thoughtful or helps me slide into that slipstream you need to be in to write sometimes.

I have all these tools because my main difficulty in writing, besides keeping my butt in the chair, is plotting. I hate plotting. I am absolutely no good at plotting. Left to my own devises my characters just wander around aimlessly. They say clever things. They insult the hell out of each other, did I mention I love a good insult, but they don’t do anything. There is no arc, sometimes, outside of the insults, my stories have no conflict.

If you look at my body of work it is almost all nonfiction. I love history, so that kind of accounts for my love of nonfiction but mainly I am attracted to it because the plot comes ready made. Nonfiction and historical fiction are cheaters for me. I have also recently started to write memoir short fiction, or creative nonfiction. Again, it is a cheater, ready made plots that I can mold.

My point in this post is every writer has weak spots. Weak spots often turn into excuses not to write. How many times have you heard a writer say, “I’m stuck on one of the plot lines in my story, so I haven’t been writing for a while.” Worse yet, how many times have you said that sentence? Yeah, me too.

Get a toolbox. Fill it with things that can help you when you find yourself in a pickle. No your weaknesses, and find your cheaters. Don’t give yourself excuses not to write. You can always write something.

When I was little my uncle had a dog named Suzy. I loved that dog. My uncle is only five years older than I so we grew up almost like brothers. We had a ton of adventures with Suzy. My uncle and I were the only two people present when Suzy had to be put down from cancer. It was my first experience with death, close up and personal.

“Out of the Blue” is a short story about family, shared experiences, growth and death. It is mostly true, at least from my perspective.

Out of the Blue

By Mark A. Nobles

Danny and I had spent the morning playing along the banks of the Bosque, no doubt chasing outlaws and Indians. The family dog, Suzy, a spry, red dachshund, accompanied us. She ran along side us, occasionally dashing into the brush chasing an unseen squirrel or critter of some sort.
When the sun climbed directly above us Uncle Danny declared time out and we scrambled up the bank. It was lunchtime. Best to head back to the house before Ma-maw had to shout out the back door. The Bosque was only a trickle but the riverbed was wide and steep. We climbed the bank, grabbing exposed tree roots and kicking toeholds in the soft clay. When Suzy saw us ascending the bank, she ran in a circle several times, barking up a storm, then lit out for a bend about a hundred yards downstream with smaller banks she could climb.
Geography is bigger when you are young. In my six year old mind the banks were twenty feet tall and were followed by a tree line forty feet thick, but the banks were likely less than five or six feet high and the tree line only a few feet thick.
We scrambled out of the tree line at a slow trot, Danny at the vanguard by six to eight feet. There was a massive field of Johnson grass between the tree line and house. Again, it seemed a far piece to the house in my six-year-old mind.
We had beaten down a slightly winding path in the waist high Johnson grass between the river and the house. Danny slowed to a brisk walk as we waded through. In the distance we saw Ma-maw poke her head out of the back door to call for us. Danny spotted her and waved. She retreated back in the house, the screen door making a cracking sound as it shut.
Slamming the screen door like that would have gotten me a good talking to or worse but for some reason, grownups were allowed. This seemed a mighty injustice to me.
In the distance we could hear Suzy barking her approach. I could not see her as I was barely twice taller than the grass but I could judge her distance away by the sound of her bark.  We were approaching a slight bend in the beaten path when Suzy’s bark rose in pitch and urgency. Danny, half way round the bend, froze. He raised his arms horizontal, palms back, signaling me to stop. But I had to see what the commotion was about and walked a few more steps.
Suzy was circling a coiled, ready to strike rattler. She ran frantically around it, breaking off every three or four rotations to run towards Danny and snap. Her running at us, teeth bared and snapping scared me at first. She had never even hinted at biting us, but I realized the snapping was not meant to be an attack but a high warning to halt and stay away.
The rattler looked fierce. I had never seen one before. It was coiled high and made lightning strikes at Suzy when she circled. Danny cried for Da-dad and he soon came running from around the front of the house, pistol drawn. He almost always carried a pistol at the river.
When Danny saw Da-dad running he began to shout ‘snake!’
When Da-dad arrived he commanded us to move back, which we immediately did, retreating back around the bend.
A single crack of the pistol sounded. Not as loud as I had expected. Da-dad took a step forward, momentarily disappeared below the Johnson grass and when he rose up he was holding the rattler by the tail end.
It looked enormous. Ten feet long. But that was impossible as Da-dad was only 5’9” and I could see the snake swinging.
Suzy got a large hunk of steak that night as a reward and the rattler decomposed on the fence line by the gate to the farm for a year.

Bessie Williams: The Woman of No Man's Land

Several years back I was making a short film chronicling the early days of the Fort Worth police department called Tales of Panther City. I had enlisted the help of the Fort Worth Police Historical Association and the archives of the Fort Worth Public Library. It was a fascinating, entertaining and fun project to produce.

One of the stories I came across was the saga of Bessie Williams, champion jail breaker. This little fireball broke out of the city and county jail more times than anyone could count. She received national coverage for her Houdini-like abilities.

In addition to constantly breaking out of jail she was also involved in a salacious, brutal murder trial. Bessie was never arrested for prostitution, usually only small time ‘theft of person,’ but she had no visible means of support and likely did whatever she had to do to make ends meet. It seems a married man had taken to strong a liking to Bessie and shot one of her friends and lovers in a fit of jealous rage. When the police arrived on the scene, Bessie was sitting on the bed, next to the corpse, out of her mind and chewing broken glass.

Taken as a whole, the life of Bessie Williams is straight out of a Coen Brothers movie.  Her story needed to be told but I wasn’t sure I was quite up to the task. I had everything I needed. The archivists at the Fort Worth Public Library had done an extensive search of Bessie. They had dozens of articles and the stories were well written. She dropped off the public record around 1916. A death certificate for a Bessie Williams who died in prison was found from the early 1960s that fit Bessie’s age and general description but there was no way to be certain it was her. I was thinking of writing a historical fiction piece, so I could fill in the blanks as I saw fit.

After much pondering and many false starts, I started to look at all the stories I had accumulated and found I had several fascinating story lines all weaving between the years 1910 and 1919. During this period, Fort Worth was struggling to shed its Wild West and violent frontier image and move solidly into becoming a modern, industrial city. It was a struggle that came with growing pains and casualties.

We’re For Smoke: Outlaws and Outliers in Panther City was born. All thanks to Bessie Williams, the woman of no man's land.

Here is an excerpt from Bessie’s story.

August 17, 1914
Fort Worth Star Telegram

Well, Well, Well! Bessie Has New Way to Escape

Bessie Williams, the most arrested woman in Fort Worth, got additional fame as a jail breaker Sunday night when she dug a twenty pound stone out of the wall in her cell, and battered down an iron door to freedom. Two other women got their liberty along with Bessie. The escape is supposed to have been made about 10 o’clock Sunday night.
City and county jails are patched in half a dozen places where Bessie has sawed through them in the past year, but battering down an iron door – a feat heretofore considered next to impossible – is a new method of escape not only for Bessie, but for all jail breakers.
Bessie Williams has the reputation of having broken out of jail more times than any woman in the world.
When Bessie got her supper Sunday night she is supposed to have held back a spoon. With this spoon she gouged the big stone out of the wall. Then she went to work on the iron door.

#

Assistant Chief Speight, Night Sergeant Little, Police Chief Montgomery, Patrolman Coffey and Deputy Sheriff Fitch stood silent in the run of the woman’s ward. All eyes were lowered to the iron door and large stone lying on the floor.
In the cell behind them and to their left, the door was slightly ajar; a large, gaping hole in the wall where the stone once was. Chips, dust and masonry bits were scattered on the floor. In his lowered hands Speight held the lock and chain futilely used to contain Bessie.
“If we just gave her the money we spend to keep her in here and repair the damage she does, she likely would have no need to thieve and whore and our jail would not be torn down stone by stone,” said Speight, more as a thought to himself than general conversation. “Before much longer we will be guarding a hovel. All the bars and beds will be gone. Washed down and floated away in the Clear Fork.”
Speight drew a heavy breath, closed his eyes then dropped the lock and chain. “I do not know what for,” he exhaled, “but put it all back the way it was.” No one moved, let alone spoke an acknowledgment.
Speight and Police Chief Montgomery walked over the iron door and left the run. Night Sergeant Little, Patrolman Coffey and Deputy Sheriff Fitch looked from the iron door to the hole in the wall then back to the door.
“Frank,” said Night Sergeant Little. “Go fetch the tool box.” Patrolman Coffey nodded and left.

#

No marks were ever allowed in Bessie’s house. She preferred to keep business away from her home and private asylum. However, there were different kinds of marks and exceptions were made on occasion.
Bessie had known John West for several years. He could be considered more of a benefactor than a run of the mill mark. West worked for Swift as an inspector and from time to time brought Bessie scraps of gristle and bone. Their relationship was simple, clear and unemotional.
West had lost his parents at age eleven. His father was killed in a railcar accident and his mother had died of consumption four months later. Relatives had made it clear John was not their concern and he had grown up on the streets like Bessie. Well, not exactly like Bessie, life on the streets for a boy old enough to have at least a little muscle on his bones was quite different from a girl of tender years.
Both had developed similar emotional detachments from people, places and things that made their relationship feasible. Without thinking about it Bessie knew she could let John into her sanctuary without worry or threat.
John had shown up at Bessie’s three days ago with an armful of Jake and the two had been on a bender. John knew how long he could miss work before he would no longer be welcome at Swift and was throwing up through a window when Jack Thompson walked in the front door. Bessie lay on the bed, full blown gone in a stupor.
When John entered the room still wiping the spittle from his mouth, he found Jack sitting on the bed with Bessie’s head in his lap, slowly caressing her cheek.
“What in the Sam Hill,” John muttered.
“You do not take care of her,” Jack said, glaring up at John.
“Of all the souls in this world needin’ took care of, she is not one of them.” John took slow but deliberate steps towards a chair across the room that held his shirt. Bessie stirred. She came back to consciousness with a jerk and lept from the bed.
“Jack Thompson, you Bedlam fiend! What in the hell are you doing here!” She screamed. Jack reflexively drew his arm in front of his face but Bessie threw no blows.
“Get out of here!” Bessie screamed.
“But Bessie,” Jack said, barely audible.
“Leave my house! Now!”
Again, speaking low, his head lowered, Jack whimpered, “I have money for you.”
“Good. Leave it, then git!”
Jack slowly stood from the bed, reached in his pocket and left two dollars and change on the bed side table.
“I mean it, Jack Thompson. I’m in no mood for you,” said Bessie.
As Jack reached the door John muttered, just loud enough for Jack to hear, “That ain’t no real man.”
Jack tensed, stood straight but said nothing. He did, however, walk with a little more purpose.

#

August 29, 1914
Fort Worth Star Telegram

Refuse Bail in Killing
Woman attempts to Swallow Broken Glass After Tragedy
Shooting in House
Jack Thompson Waives Preliminary Hearing on Murder Charge.

Jack Thompson, a horse trader, giving his address as Lampasas, was formally charged with murder Saturday morning, following the death late Friday of John West, 125 Maple street, from four pistol shot wounds. Thompson appeared before Justice Maben and waived examining trial and was remanded to jail without bond. J.J. Hurley, his attorney, would not say what his defense would be.
Bessie Williams, who is famous as a woman jail breaker, having escaped from the city jail only ten days ago by hammering a big steel door off its hinges with a rock, which she dug out of the wall, was a witness to the killing.
She was in the house, 125 Maple Street, Friday afternoon with West, whom she had known for several years, when Thompson came in, she said, in a signed statement. She had also known Thompson for a long time, she said. Both she and West tried to get Thompson to leave the house, she added. Finally West and Thompson quarreled, and Thompson left the place. In a few minutes, she said, she looked up and saw someone in the doorway. The shooting followed and West, who was sitting on the bed, fell back dead. Three bullets went into his chest, and a fourth struck him in the groin.
Small boys followed Thompson to the Delaware bar on Main Street, near Fourth. One of the boys tipped off his whereabouts to Patrolman Aiken. Thompson was leaning against the bar when Aiken stepped up behind him and grabbed a pistol away from him. Motorcycle Officers Langdon, Glosson and Davison, who had been in a chase for Thompson, came upon the scene a few minutes later. Thompson was sent to jail.
Sanitation Officer Ben Dollins was the first to arrive on the scene of the shooting, riding in a Robertson ambulance. He found the body of West sprawled on the bed, his head wrapped in a towel.

Woman Eating Glass

Bessie Williams was sitting on the side of the bed. She was screaming and was eating glass. Blood was flowing from her mouth where the glass had cut. She had taken a whiskey bottle and broken it, and then put the smaller pieces in a thick teacup and was pounding the glass into a powder. While officers were wrapping the body of West in a sheet, the woman poured the broken glass into her hand and then put it into her mouth. She tried to swallow parts of it, but couldn’t and was forced to spit it out again.
West’s body was sent to the Robertson’s morgue. Bessie Williams was sent to jail, but she threatened to break down the cell and officers put her in the dungeon on the men’s side of the jail.
The county attorney’s office took a statement from a woman in the Maple street neighborhood who said Thompson “shot up” her house about an hour before the killing of West. She said Thompson came into her home and demanded that she fix him his supper. She refused, she said, and he then took out his pistol and fired two shots into the floor at her feet.

Short Story Writing: Schedule & Plan

When I decided to concentrate on writing this year, I set a monthly schedule of three weeks on the novel and one week to write a short story. I had not written a short story in ages. It was scary.

I have always kept files of story ideas and half written scenes and character descriptions but none of them grabbed my imagination. A little over a year prior my father had passed away and I had gone to the Eastern Shore of Virginia to see him one last time. My father and I had never been close. I hadn’t wanted to make the trip but decided to go anyway.

The entire journey turned out to be surreal. It was a real life, ready made Lifetime Channel movie of the week. I decided I would write it up as my first short story. The plot was there, I knew all the characters, it was perfect. I wrote it pretty much as I remembered it. Now, if facts were changed or scrambled in the move from short term memory to long term memory, I don’t know…

As of this writing ‘Eastern Shore’ has been submitted to and rejected by The Sun, Three Penny Review and Carve Magazine.  The rejection from The Sun came in about a month and a half. Three Penny Review wastes no time, they throw it back in less than 48 hours. Carve took about two months. Currently ES is in submission to Ploughshares. I hope to hear back from them in September. If Ploughshares sends back the story it will be the fourth rejection and I will self publish.

I keep track of submissions in two ways. I created an Excel spreadsheet with columns for each short story and the magazines to which it has been submitted. I also have columns with a calendar tracking when I should hear back from the submissions. I have a color system where black indicates in submission, red indicates rejection, and blue means accepted for publication. So far there is no blue on the graph.

So it goes.

Below is an except from ‘Eastern Shore.’ I will edit this post when the story is either published or becomes available for purchase. Happy to announce 'Eastern Shore' will be published in Volume II of Panther City Review!  

Eastern Shore

By Mark A. Nobles

The desk was littered with a myriad of no longer sticky, sticky notes, scribbled up scraps of paper and several pocket sized composition notebooks in varying conditions of tatter. A pearl white coffee mug splotched with dribs of coffee sat on a cork coaster, which sat on a scrawled over desk calendar still showing October of last year.

I worked away on the upcoming festival with an open excel grid of the schedule, two press releases and an open email to volunteers all fighting for room on the computer screen. My hands clickity-clacked across the keyboard. The cell phone rang.

It was early on a Sunday morning and my phone never rang on the weekend unless one of the girls was in need. I knew that was not the case as the oldest was at work and the youngest was in her room, fifteen feet away. She kept a teenager sleep schedule. I kept a feed and clothe a teenager work schedule.

The display read Unknown Caller and the area code was unfamiliar. I never answer unknown calls.

“Hello,” I said.

“Hello, it’s Jo Ann.” Jo Ann is my dad’s second wife of some forty plus years. They married shortly (my mom said too shortly) after my parent’s divorce when I was thirteen.  Junior high, seventh grade, 1973, platform shoes, the Cisco Kid was a friend of mine and Nixon had one foot out the door.

“They took your father to the hospital last night,” Jo Ann continued in her deep south, West Virginia accent. As a Texan, that drawl was as unfamiliar and unsettling to me as the rapid cadence of a New Jersey car salesman. I never put my finger on why.

“They said he prob’ly wouldn’t be coming home. I can’t believe I just said that out loud.” The former Jo Ann said to me, the latter she said more to herself. 

“Well, shit.” I thought.

“Oh, dear.” I said.

“You really must come up as soon as you can.”

Besides being cold to me the few times we had ever shared air, the thing I liked least about Jo Ann, when I was a teenager, was how she ordered me, and everyone really, as if she were Joseph Smith and each word out of her mouth rose directly from Urim and Thumm and was to be followed or carried out unconditionally.
I usually took her words with the same skepticism as I took Smith and his translation. 
“Let me see what I can do,” I stumbled. “The festival is just over a month away. I’m swamped.” This was clearly a totally unacceptable reply when you are asked to go to your dad’s death bed. I knew this. 
“You simply must.”
I was unprepared for this conversation and had one goal only. Hang up and end it. Deal with the consequences later. 
“Let me see what I can do, Jo Ann. I will call you back shortly.” There was, I think, more to the conversation but blessed little and I was soon sitting at my desk. 
Thought less. 
After a beat or two the girlfriend walked in from the kitchen. The house we live in is small; two bedrooms, one bath, a kitchen and a somewhat large living area. My desk is in one corner of the living area just sitting out in the open. She did not have to eavesdrop to hear every word of the phone call. Acoustically speaking, there was simply no way to avoid overhearing. 
“When do you want to go?”
“I don’t know that I am going.”
“You have to go.”
“Hell I do.”
She sighed heavily; this was usually a reliable sign I was about to lose an argument. 
“You aren’t going for you. You’re going for him,” she said. “You have the opportunity to send the man off in peace.”
I’m pretty sure I slumped in my chair. I’m very sure I’m o’fer in arguments with this woman. It is hard to work up a mad about it however, as I lose because I am seemingly always in the wrong. The girlfriend picks her battles carefully.
She walked over, kissed the back of my neck tenderly, squeezed my shoulder and walked to the bathroom. I was left to sit and stew.