I am speaking at the Cedar Hills Powell’s Books in Beaverton, Oregon on Thursday, August 16th at 7:00…

Each book I write starts with a journal.

Sometimes I glue photos from magazines into the journal, sometimes I write right through it. Words, thoughts, partial sentences, full paragraphs, scenes, random ideas, bad ideas, creative ideas, ideas that will work and ideas that will definitely not work.

I did this for A Different Kind of Normal, too. There were many thoughts rambling and kicking and pushing through my head at the time.

Sometimes in my journal I’ll jot out notes about other books I’ve written to make sure that each book is going to be completely and utterly different than the last.

I’ll start to play with occupations for my main character. That’s always one of the first things I do, because what a person is doing for work is key to who they are. Now, they may hate their job, but it says something about where they are in their life. They may love it. I have to find out who they are and part of that is their employment. I actually love this part of writing because I can start to live vicariously through the character.

With Jaden Bruxelle, I made her a hospice nurse. For people who know me, they know that I have been on the receiving end of the kindness and extraordinary competence of hospice nurses with my dad, my mother-in-law, and my father in law as they were critically ill and then died.

I will never forget how hospice nurses called me on the phone repeatedly when my beloved mother-in-law was dying, as my own mother had died eight months before and they knew I was struggling with losing both beautiful ladies in such a short time.

I also heard such miraculous stories from hospice nurses about people who were dying, the things they said to indicate they were seeing heaven, dead relatives coming to chat with them as they were in their last days, or how patients now and then packed up suitcase and said they were going “on a trip.” Even in their delirium, their illness, they knew they were leaving.

So, I have a special place in my heart for hospice nurses.

I gave Jaden a son, a boy with a big head. He’s brilliant and writes a blog, something I was trying to do at the time on a regular basis. He loves basketball, as my son does, so both went in.

I also was really interested at the time in my ancestors, so I put an ancestral theme in there, taking the reader back to London in the 1860’s, and for fun I threw in a story about how Jaden’s ancestors believed they were witches. In fact, I start the story with a curse that has been cast through the generations.

I had images in my head of a 150 year old home in the country that her ancestors had built, antiques that could tell stories of the ancestors if they could talk, a greenhouse, and herbs and spices that Jaden smells death in when she mixes them together. As always, I was thinking of food, so I tossed in some delicious recipes that I could never cook myself, but they sounded yummy.

I love all my old books from my parents. My father – in – law’s harmonica is up there, too, and a bit of the chain holding my dad’s dog tags from his time in the Navy. In A Different Kind of Normal, Jaden, too, treasures all of her old books from her ancestors and pictures them reading them, as she does.

I know how a story will end when I write, I have an idea of where it will it will go in the middle, but I always leave a ton of room to follow the characters around and let them breathe.

The themes I was working with for A Different Kind of Normal?

– Letting go of children when they need to fly on their own. (Yes, that’s been hard for me as a mother).

– Appreciating and learning from the seasons of life, the ups and the downs, and how those life-seasons change week to week, month to month, year to year.

– Accepting that death is a part of life, grief is a part of life, and loving the happy memories of a cherished family member or friend when they’re gone, the gift of their presence in your life, is priceless.

I truly hope you enjoy A Different Kind Of Normal

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Scene One as told by Jaden Bruxelle, a red haired woman with one blue eye and one green eye….

My mother told me all about the witches in our family.

She heard the stories from her mother, who heard them from her mother, and so on, all the way back to the mid-1800s, in London, where the twins, Henrietta and Elizabeth, started The Curse.

Henrietta and Elizabeth were inseparable from the time they reached across their mother’s bosom for the other’s hand. Their mother was considered to be the best witch of them all, whatever that silly statement means, and she taught the twins. They practiced their spells in the forest behind the fountains and statues on the manicured estate their mother’s wealthy, titled family owned.

    The twins eventually, reluctantly, agreed to marry wealthy, titled men. They did not feel it necessary to tell their husbands of a few wild years, sins committed and sins omitted, handsome men here and there, and their mother agreed, she of a colorful past herself.   “It’s our secret, dears,” she told her daughters, a pinky tilted up as she drank her tea. “Husbands don’t need to know much.”

The twins’ elegant estates, with lands adjacent to each other, soon held all the herbs they needed for their spells, plus Canterbury bells, hollyhocks, lilies, irises, sweet peas, cosmos, red poppies, peonies, and rows of roses, which is what their mother and grandmother grew, too.

Together Henrietta and Elizabeth had eight children who would later prove to be both saints and raucous sinners, especially the girls, as is often the case in witch families, or so I’m told.

Sadly, though, in their late thirties the twins’ friendship fell apart because of a fight over, of all things, a tea set. At least that’s what started it.  Henrietta bought the delicate white teacups, pitcher, and creamer with the pink flowers, knowing Elizabeth loved it, coveted it, but Henrietta could not resist. They were elegant, from India, hand painted, and the flowers looked as if they could talk if let loose for but a moment. There was only that one set and when Elizabeth found out what Henrietta had done, so sneakily, she was overcome with anger.

Another scene, via Jaden Bruxelle, about her love of herbs and spices…and her fear of what they tell her….

I grow herbs in my greenhouse to make my meals yummy. I grow herbs and flowers because then I feel connected to my mother, Grandma Violet, and all our women ancestors who grew the same herbs and flowers that I do.  I grow them because I love to nurture living things, especially since I deal with death so much.

I also grow herbs for therapy. I call it Herbal Therapy.

Here is the weird part of myself that I do try to keep somewhat secret: Several times a week I plug in white strands of Christmas lights and light a handful of scented candles that match the season, for example strawberry for summer, pumpkin spice for fall, vanilla for winter.

  Next I stand at my butcher-block table and I cut a handful of herbs up and inhale their scent. I have to touch them, crunch them in my fingers, rub them between my palms. I have a spice rack in there, too, and I add sprinkles of this and that.

I use crystal plates owned by Grandma Violet and silver spoons owned by Faith, and I mix herbs and spices together.   I have normal spices and less known spices including: Szechuan pepper, boldo, annatto, lemongrass, wasabai, galangal, peppermint leaves, black lime, and zedoary. I mix cinnamon with nutmeg and lemon mango tea. Parsley and oregano and mint leaves.  Szechuan pepper and garlic. Bay leaves and dill.

The scents wrap me up soft and tight, soothing me. There are flowers blooming and growing all around, my favorite books and journals are on a nearby bookcase, and when I leave, after a cup of tea, I feel better. I call it Herbal Meditation.

We all have our odd quirks; herb and spice obsession is mine.

But there’s been a problem the last weeks. When I start my chopping and blending and mixing, I smell death. Not the death that is usual with my work as a hospice nurse, either.

Death, as in someone I know is going to die.

A Third Scene written by Jaden Bruxelle’s son, Tate…

Tate’s Awesome Pigskin Blog

            My name is Tate Bruxelle.

            I am seventeen years old and I have a big head.

            I was born this way.

            What’s it like living with a big head, with one eye higher than the other, with a face that looks normal on one half, but odd on the other?

            Not damn easy. I have been made fun of my entire life.  In preschool, the other kids wouldn’t play with me, except for two twins named Anthony and Milton, Milt for short. Their mother is from Jamaica, she’s a doctor, their dad’s an attorney, they live across the street from me, and we have always been friends.

            Some of the kids in my class cried when they saw my face, I remember that. I was three.  One kid said I was ugly, another kid said I was scary, like a sea monster. A girl with braids told me I had a face like a person on one side, and a face like pigskin on the other. I remember going to sit in a corner and crying almost every day.

            Now you know why I call this blog, “Tate’s Awesome Pigskin Blog.”

            Some kids are jealous of others because they have cool hair, or cool clothes, or cool parents. When I was in preschool I was envious of people’s heads.

            One time I went home and told my mom, “I want a small head. Can you get me one?”
She told me that God had given me a big head because I had big brains…

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I want to be the type of writer who thinks deep thoughts and writes in a blue cottage overlooking an ocean.

I want to be the type of writer who has a tree house specially built that I can imagine and daydream in every day after climbing up its spiral wood staircase.

I want to be the type of writer who has remodeled a cool attic with a view of the mountains and her horses frolicking.

A cool view would help.

My hair would be brushed and up in a spiffy ponytail, I would be skinnier and have the snazzy jeans with all the scrolling on the pockets. I would travel the world and bring home marvelous souvenirs from South Africa to Paris to Vietnam.

But no.

I am not that type of writer. I am married to Innocent Husband and have three teenagers.

In the last two weeks I have had many glamorous things happen.

1. I got poison oak up my arm. At least, I think it is poison oak. It itched so bad I wanted to bite my arm off. I used creams and potions. I had to take Benadryl. I can only take half a benadryl at a time because it makes me sad and tired. So, basically, the choice was: Itch so bad you want to remove your arm or be sad and tired. I chose sad and tired because I need my fingers to work so I can write stories from my daydreams.

My arm has gone from welty and swollen to looking like I’ve been burned, but I am winning the battle. I think I got the poison oak from running in the woods…

2.  Speaking of running in the woods. I had two bugs fly into my mouth during my runs in two days. Not only do I not like the taste of bugs, this also violated my stringent rule of  “No coughing and running at the same time.” You ladies who have had children know what I’m talking about.

One of my sister's horses. She lives in Montana. Maybe I will move to Montana.

3. For two days I didn’t write. Too much going on. (Note: Three teenagers)  This meant that I spent Friday sitting on my unmade bed writing 5,500 words to keep up with my own self – imposed word count deadlines. I did not shower until 4:30. My hair was clipped back against my head. I was wearing a ratty t-shirt and my floppy U of O shorts. I drank too much coffee. I was muttering. I was gross.

4. One night I only knew where one of my three teenagers were. I found a second via Facebook. I like to know where my teenagers are because then I can pretend they are not doing something troublesome. It is a nice delusion. For parents who have teenagers, you know what I’m talking about.

5. I spent time studying my rash. I wondered if it really was poison oak. That worry tripped my slight hypochondria. Perhaps it was going to travel to my brain and I would have poison oak brain. Perhaps it was leprosy. Perhaps it was The Plague.

6. I will not admit to spending time thinking about the Bachelorette and who she should choose to marry. I don’t admit to watching the show. I think it should be Ari.  Although Jef really is a perceptive, worldly, intelligent, compassionate, free ranging thinker. I think it should be Jef. No, Ari. Jef.

7. I procrastinated. I read Storm Large’s book. I read Under The Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer until I lost the book.  They are better writers than me so I cursed them out loud as if they could hear me.

I want to take a private jet to Maui and snorkel with turtles.

8. I listened to a song by the Dixie Chicks as I drove through the country. Here are the lyrics:

I come to find a refuge in the
Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me

I cried over the lyrics. I listened to the song again. I cried again.  I listened a third time. I am such a sap.

9. I decided to delete the mom or the grandma in my next book. This was hard for me as I am attached to both women. I reminded myself they are fictional characters and it is not personal and no, they may not argue their case.

10. I thought about moving to Montana. A lot.

11. My insomnia had the best of me. I slept four hours a night for many nights. This was not helpful and my brain was both skittish and wiped out.

12. I regaled Innocent Husband with all thoughts of my leprosy/poison oak/The Plague.  He listened patiently. He did not think I was going to die soon. He bought me a magenta colored bra with lace through our daughter who has a job selling lingerie for the summer. I modeled the bra for Innocent Husband. He said that even with the poison oak I was still a Cute Wife. I gave Innocent Husband a kiss.

I am not going to say anything about this pig except that sometimes I eat too much and I like it.

I am hoping for glamour next week.

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When I wrote June’s Lace for my story in Beach Season, June had been searching for an intact black “Butterfly” shell but couldn’t find one. Every day she would leave her wedding dress design studio on the top floor of her blue cottage overlooking the Oregon coast and walk through the waves.

All the butterfly shells she found were broken. She would walk on the beach for miles and miles, always searching, and – nope – no black butterfly shell that wasn’t crushed or broken somewhere…

Searching for the perfect black butterfly shell came from my life, as some of the issues, situations, problems, story lines, curious details, quirky stuff, hilarious stuff, odd stuff, and adventures do….

I have been to the Oregon coast tons of times but have never been able to find an intact black butterfly shell. They were always broken, chipped, missing half of it, etc.

And I looked! All the time!

But, voila. Yesterday I had a day to escape. My son is in Texas with friends, my girls were at the beach on the northern coast of Oregon, also with friends, so I drove down to Lincoln City for what I call,  “Beach, Sand, and Sanity Time.”

I walked and walked, I laid on the sand, I watched the seagulls, admired the waves….And kept searching for that elusive black butterfly shell…

And, FINALLY, I found one! I couldn’t believe it…

Later, after I ate clam chowder sitting on driftwood watching the white froth of the waves…and after I thought about friends and family and my next book, and a couple of worries, and a few funny things, and indulged in daydreaming…I walked again and I found….drum roll….a SECOND  intact black butterfly shell.

I don’t know what that says…but it seems like a fantastic and splendid coincidence, that right after June’s Lace came out in Beach Season, I would FINALLY find black butterfly shells…

….just like June’s fiance found them for her and tucked them into her bridal bouquet…

I’m still smilin’.

It’s the tiny things that bring such joy to life, I think.

A sunny day, a walk on the beach, a perfect view of Mt. Hood, a “laughing lunch” with girlfriends, a hike in the woods, time alone to think, pizza with your kids.

And discovering something in nature after years of searching….

Happy day to you all.

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• Recently I wrote this on Facebook:
  Okay, ladies. Help me and my tired brain out with my next book. When groups of women are together, what do they talk about?
  These are the answers…so enlightening and interesting….
  

  Patty Carlson Pachta books (of course!)

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  Lisa Rosen Banks Their husbands or kids.

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  Malissa Ann Heinen anything that is bothering them from husbands, to kids, to weight, to friends that they can’t believe did something.

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  Parri Van Dyke Sex, husbands, recipes, health, sex, their kids, how tired they are, sex, boyfriends, gossip, sex, weather, vacations, etc, etc…hahahaha!

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  Jennifer Cramer-Hughes We talk about receipes, great books, television& movies to watch, how we will EVER survive teenagers…..and how this is NOT what we thought our lives would be …” how did I get here??”

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  Katy Shandil ‎…kids….family, Men, and their hobbies. Mine is golf

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  Valerie Strilko where they scored a great bargain, recipes, new food plans, latest book they read, new movies, men being stupid, menstrual cycles, exercise – esp pilates or yoga!

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  Lisa Jensen men they date, shoes, weightloss or weightgain, shopping, aging parents, food, family, gossip, work, people’s crazy posts that show up on facebook, etc. 😉

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  Marie Bostwick sex, menopause, food, kids, favorite tv shows (or movies, or books) people they don’t like, schedule comparisons (as in, who is busier), bargains they just nabbed

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  Patricia Phelps the things we fear (not to be an awfulizer but..) i worry about whether my son will fit in in the world, one friend has 1 son who is in jail, another believes her child is gay but he won’t talk about it, another has 3 grown children and she worries about them all for entirely different reasons. When our parents die we talk about being orphans. And then we sometimes worry about dying alone. We talk about our bodies changing, health issues that begin to come up in your 50’s. We notice we have become our parents and we now read the obituaries even though we made fun of them for doing so. And we like to share good books, naturally!

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  Sarah Ragsdale What we thought life would be compared to what it actually is…. how nobody is ever really prepared the first time shit really hits the fan

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  Vanessa Duncan Being overweight, wishing we were taller, how our kids (God we love them) make us crazy and how our husbands can be asses sometimes…….. 🙂

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  ILene Kat Hamende Body changes, tv shows, who’s hot now (tv/movies), books, job, sig others, sex, ….

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  Astrid Valencia Hodgson Kids, husbands, boyfriends, weight issues, shopping, food…

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  Barb Dowdell MacKenzie men, lack of sex, kids, what they like to cook

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  Cyndie Burke Pelto Husbands, sex, kids, weight, food, wine…

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  Aron Carleson DREAMS! Should have, could have would have. Messy houses, the news, our relatives…ok, our spouses relatives, work, Kids, old boyfriends, bad haircuts, vacations,

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  Debbie Wenzel It depends on the stage of life they are in. Here’s a few that have come and gone or are currently in my life:the joys of potty training, how much time we spend driving the van to and fro, how we never get to go to the bathroom alone, how hard it is to get our kids to perform basic hygiene, how much time our kids spend monopolizing the bathroom performing basic hygiene, the horrors &/or hilarity of teaching a kid to drive, the horrors and hilarity of teen looovve or heartbreak or angst or mouthiness or just about anything else teen, how my mother’s face got in my mirror.

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  Frances Jurvakainen Williams Flowers :), sex, gossip, grand kids, kids, economy, reality tv shows….housewives of …. , recipes..whatever is in the news..oh and yeah this woman likes to talk sports.. esp the Trailblazers.

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  Renee Hand Morris Young mother: is my child normal??? Middle age: am I normal???? Older age: Who wants to be normal??????

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  Vanessa Duncan ‎@Renee!!! That is true!!! lol

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  Kelly J. Phillips Always our kids, husbands but now it also includes what we want to do w/ our lives now that our kids are becoming more independant, and how we aren’t sure we like it now that our kids are becoming more independant.

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  Jennifer Riga Manuel I think they covered it. However…some get together and talk about stuff in a positive productive way, and LAUGH at themselves and their kids and their lives and their weight. SOME get together and awfulize and lament and kvetch and perpetuate their victimization by life, their family, their jobs….

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  Heather McNear Arellano Sex

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  Renee Hand Morris Kelly — yes. SO MANY of my friends are also thinking of chickens! With no small children, 46 year olds in Georgia — my world — are knitting, spinning, weaving, baking with fresh eggs from chickens. It’s a back to nature sort of thing, about creativity and the spiritual aspects of simplicity.

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  Christin Hamilton Peterson Husbands, kids, jobs 🙂

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  Erin Maureen Mast this is great”

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  Kimberly Cook Wright We plan our next Race for the Cure…and laugh a lot…

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  Mary Meredith Drew Each other and other women, sex, politics, families, how to do stuff like cooking certain foods, gardening, etc.

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  Lisa Sizemore Poss Men, books, other women and why they aren’t as cool as us.

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  Terri Johnsen Achieving the ultimate orgasm, men, sex, books, sex, money, sex, wine, sex, toys, sex toys, kids, sex, aging parents, sex, food, oh and did I happen to mention sex and the ultimate orgasm~

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  Terri Johnsen Oh and last book club we talked about you, Costco, and a basket full of watermelons!

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  Cynthia Dix Books, chocolate, hair (to cut or not to cut, to color or not to color), how we’d like to be fit but not worry about the weight, how we never expected to be like our parents! And since we aren’t “normal” we create characters and stories to share with each other 😀

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  Romi Sussman each other…the ones who didn’t make it to lunch that day, unfortunately

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  Shelley Marquardt Nowak My friend and I dream together and hash out the choices we have made in our lives. We talk about paths taken and sometimes regrets about paths NOT taken. Ultimately we drink a lot of wine and reassure each other that we are EXACTLY where we should be and that every path, mistake, and decision has led to that moment! 🙂

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  Cathy Lamb Love all the comments! Thanks, ladies!

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  Cindi Bush Hayes About how the curses our parents laid upon us are coming true!

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  Gretchen Ross SHOES!!!!

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  Julie Mays Little things that make them happy when the guy they love do for them or say to them.

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  Dana Pixie Bokelman Me and My Friends?.. how when our kids get older we are going to buy a cabin in the woods get rocking chairs (not cause we’re old mind you tehehe) but because WE ROCK!! and have Parties every night … Grown Children not allowed.. .. And just BE!!!

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  Kitti McConnell The group of women I associate with talk about sustainable gardening, cooking, religion (ALL kinds, from goddess worship to Catholicism), politics, polygamy, historical clothing and accoutrement (especially jewelry!), children, learning disorders, hair, natural beauty products, arts and crafts, how to make your own _____, and canning.

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  Rosemary Liniger depends on our age – in my 30’s & 40’s it was wine, food, books, movies, husband, kids, work and the people at work who annoyed us. Today close to 60, it’s wine, my health, menopause, my parents and their health/deaths, my husbands health/death, my children/grandchildren, food, books and movies are still there but not always at the forefront anymore.

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  Rosemary Liniger Something I forgot at my near 60 years of age and with my very close friends, our fears. Fears and regrets. There is a point in life where you are hit square in the face with the shoulda coulda woulda’s and it takes a strong fortitude to accept all of those. Aging is not for the faint of heart!

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  Renee Hand Morris ‎@Dana Pixie Bokelman: I wonder why we must wait so long to just BE. Is it our circumstances, or our SELVES? Cathy Lamb, I hope you are getting good material from this. I am loving the perspectives on this topic — and how very similar women are across culture, age, and region…

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  Holly Forsberg I don’t have kids and when I get together with my friends who don’t have kids, we talk about wine, wine tasting, food, recipes travel, work, but mostly travel – where we’ve been and where we want to go next! And of course men.

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  Dana Pixie Bokelman So True Renee, so true…

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  Audrey Bland Dawson Just leaving for our “girls week” in Nelson, BC. We do discuss your books of course, our friends who won’t admit that their marriages are falling apart, kids that are sucking us dry, parents who are now more our worry than our children, menopause and the stupid men who will never get it, how the body we used to have has gone missing, sex or the lack there of, men we date and wonder why, but the best is how after almost 30 years we are still friends.

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  Cathie Hedrick Armstrong Sex. Lack of sex. Arguments about sex. Too much sex. Not enough sex. Sex dreams. What turns us on.Seriously…my best friend since FOREVER was here visiting last summer, and I swear every conversation touched on some aspect of sex. I was complaining that men sometimes don’t “get it.” Our ideas of foreplay or so different. Nothing turns me on more than when my husband picks up a piece of something that’s normally “my” job. For example: doing the dishes just out of the blue. It’s such a small thing and it takes a huge load off my shoulders.So, while here, my BFF did a load of dishes. Teasing her I said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you for doing dishes! If you were my husband, I’d almost feel like having sex. In fact, I’m damn-near attracted to you right this minute.” LOL! I was totally kidding (about being attracted to her), but you get the picture. 🙂

  16 hours ago · Edited · Unlike ·

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This last weekend we went to the Metolius River.

I was a little sick, the kids wanted freedom and fun, and Innocent Husband needed a fly fishing pole in his hands.

A new front door to walk through...hello cottage, hello time to quiet my brain

We stayed at an incredible cabin where if you stood in the living room and looked out, all you would see is the river rushing underneath the deck. The water was our backyard.

Visiting a cabin on the Metolius River...Exhale stress, inhale the scent of pine tree

I needed to write, imagine, think, and plow through problems I was having with the latest book I’m writing.  All this is best done when I’m in nature.  Give me trees to stare at, a lake to swim in, waves to watch, and the ideas in my head flow. Most importantly I needed time to hug Innocent Husband and a few hours of poker with our wonderful, noisy, opinionated, funny kids at night.

Ah, the Metolius River...what a gift for sore eyes, a worried heart, a tired mind.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t think where I live.

There’s too much stuff.  Family busyness and pressures, work that always needs to be done, a house I really don’t like cleaning, piles I need to organize. A bunch of people around me in this city I’ve lived in for 35 years, most of whom I really like, some of whom I love dearly, and a few I really don’t want to see and if they moved to Russia I would slam a vodka down in celebration even though I very rarely drink and have not tasted vodka since I was twenty and think it tastes vile.

A deck for thinking and day dreaming and believing in possibilities.

Getting away with family or laughing friends, or alone, takes the edge off of life.  The beach, the mountains, the high desert….

A wee bit of advice? Go see something new.  Go talk to friendly strangers. Stare into a river.  Marvel at a mountain.  Splash in the ocean waves. Eat soup at a picnic table or make s’mores over a camp fire. Write in your journal by a duck pond. Paint outside on a hill. Or sit and don’t think at all unless you see a yellow butterfly, then you can sit and think about how much beauty butterflies bring to the world.

A winding river....why did the river double back? Why did it change course? Can we change course? Should we? What would the new course look like? These are all the strange things I think of when I'm out in nature...

Go adventuring.

Take a break.

Please.

It’s summer.

You’ll feel better.

Cheers and happy exploring.

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Cathy Lamb writes a lot. And like many authors, she traveled a bumpy path to success. She’ll be talking about those bumps and will be leading an interactive workshop on building characters at Summer in Words.

I first met Cathy years ago when I started teaching writing at local community colleges. I know immediately that she was going to make it because she was mastering the basics like pacing and dialogue, but she also had a sort of “I need to write” gleam in her eyes that is so necessary for those days when the words just don’t jell or something goes awry. Visit her blog here.

Q: You and I talked once about the difficulty of inhabiting a character who is much different from you–say one who like Stevie Barrett in Such a Pretty Facewho has lost 170 pounds or Julia Bennett in Julia’s Chocolates who has been abused.  Could you offer some advice on how to imagine fictional people much different than yourself on the page?

 A. Can I offer advice on how to imagine fictional people that are completely, wildly, utterly different from myself? Go to Pioneer Courthouse Square and sit there. Watch people, eavesdrop, study people. Or, try the Hawthorne district. Or Washington Square.

Tell stories about others in your head. Pretend you’re them. It’s wild what you can learn about your characters, or use in your characters, by people watching. I can go to downtown Portland and my mind is on fire for days, it’s smokin’ hot.  Also, get a journal and write.

Draw a picture of your character, as best you can, then start writing down every little thing about her that comes to your head. Do this with a decaf mocha in your hand from Starbucks. I swear those things make me think better, and I need all the help I can get with this menopausal fuzz in my brain.

Write down what your character likes to do, who she doesn’t like or is threatened by, what she cooks, how she walks, where she lives, how she decorates her home, her idiosyncrasies, habits, worries, write down all the problems she might have had in her life and go deeper and deeper into those problems.

Most often, when people have huge problems as adults, you can pin point things that happened to them as kids that helped this problem take shape. There’s something there. So, in your characters, go for it. Why is this person the way she is? Why does she cry? Why is she so angry? Why does she have a short fuse? Why does she let people walk on her? Why is she a loner? Why is she so scared? Where did her sarcasm come from,? Who hurt her, why did they hurt her? Why hasn’t she set up better boundaries for herself? Why did she just kick box that guy? Why does she drive so fast? What made her start singing outside?

Go into your character’s head and sit there for awhile. Ask her all sorts of questions. Honestly, she will answer back, and then, after you sketch and write and think and think some more, and maybe cry and wail, you will have a character that is completely different from yourself.  A really, utterly cool character that you can work and live with for months while you’re writing your novel.

And, just so you know, ALL of my main characters have something of me in them, yep, they do. So put something of yourself in your characters, too.

Q: Could you describe how you make choices about structuring your books? Is it organic, do you make decisions such as where to place flashbacks as you go along?

A. I love that word, organic. I heard it about five years ago in relation to writing books, and it confused the heck out of me and I thought about it endlessly until I understood it. When I found my answer as to why stories must be “organic,” I can’t tell you how much it  helped me.

Organic writing means that all of your characters, their issues, their actions, their problems, the flow of your story, the descriptions, the character arcs, they all have to be real to the plot, real to the people. True and honest and sincere. They have to come along with the characters naturally, they must not just arrive as if from Pluto. The author can’t force it, they have to know their characters so well, that the problems that come up, the problems the characters experience are an intrinsic, believable part of their lives.

However.  Yes, even though I try to write organically, there is definitely some practical cutting and pasting that goes along with organizing a book. Especially with my book Such A Pretty Face, which was a monster of a book. There was a lot of back and forth between Stevie Barrett’s early childhood, mid – childhood, and adulthood.

I had to hook the reader with what happened to her as a child in the first chapter, then fill in the blanks as the novel progressed, leaving cliff hangers here and there, questions unanswered, and tension as I went. I wanted to feed the back story slowly, carefully, so as not to overwhelm the modern story and to keep the reader reading, and wanting to know what happened in Stevie’s past.  I wanted her past, and how I weaved it into her present, to be – here’s the word – “organic” to the book, in that the flashbacks flowed naturally in and out of modern times.

A trick here is transitions. If something in Stevie’s life happens – her own nightmares or flashbacks, then that could be a good time to fill in a bit of back story.

So, it’s organic and it’s practical writing. Both. Blended. Shaken and stirred. A couple of ice cubes….

Q: It seems to be that when writing about the topics you’re drawn to–love, loss, healing, redemption, or finding a place in the word– that it’s necessary to portray finely tuned emotions and emotional subtext. Do you have any tips for would-be authors on how to achieve this?

A: Yes. Take your grief, your loss, your loneliness, your pain, your anger, your frustration,  your tears, your hopelessness, your despair, and write some bang up scenes for a book with it. If you’re going to experience all that stuff, ya might as well write about it, right?  Also, LISTEN to other people, read the paper, read tons of books, develop deeper relationships, really think about emotions, analyze how different  people would feel in different situations, analyze how you would feel.

Some of the best scenes I’ve written, I’ve written after I’ve been upset about one thing or another. You don’t have to be feeling vengeful to write a scene about revenge. However, if you’re feeling ticked off, well, it might be the time to sit down and write that scene where your character is furious and throwing things. Had your heart broken? Write a scene on anger or rage or loss, that brokenness will come out and your writing will feel real. Feeling lonely? Write that lonely scene or write the scene where your character is crying or grieving.

Use your own emotions to enhance and improve your writing and to make your characters more rounded, complex, layered, relatable. Don’t be afraid of dropping your own emotions into your writing, even emotions you have buried for years or decades, your writing will be more sincere and authentic, more touching, if you do so.

Q: How do you manage to mix heart-wrenching scenes and topics along with humor in your stories?

A: Well, some of the scenes in my books are, as you say, heart wrenching. So, to lighten the mood, and to do a switch – back with readers’ emotions, I often deliberately put in a funny scene right afterwards. I don’t want the heart wrenching scenes to become too depressing for the reader.  I think both types of scenes drive a book well, and when they’re next to each other, the juxtaposition fuels the storyline and how much a reader will care about your plot and your characters.  Plus, it’s life, isn’t it? Some days are beautiful, funny, laugh filled, some days are terrible and filled with tears.

And, sometimes you get both emotions in one day, or one hour. I have readers tell me all the time they laughed and cried reading my books, and I just love to hear that, I really do. Women need to laugh, but women also need a good cry sometimes.

Q: Sushi or pasta?

A: Pasta. Are you kidding?  Bring it on. Would someone actually choose sushi over pasta?

Q: What books are on your nightstand?

A: Watermark, The Snow Child, The House of Velvet and Glass, Miracles on the Water.

Q: What’s next for you?

A: I am writing my next novel, due in December, currently hammering out 2000 words a day. I am trying to blog more.  I am trying to watch more sunsets, read more books, take more quiet walks, and elevate my day dreaming to new heights.

Q: What is something few people know about you?

Hmmm….well, I have two sisters who know EVERYTHING about me….but let’s see…I would love to have a beautiful garden, but I don’t really like to garden. I am obsessive about my work. Every word must be right, every sentence structure perfect, every character arc detailed, but I am not obsessed with anything else in my life and in no other part of my life am I a  raving perfectionist like that. I like to be alone. I have to be alone for a period of time every day so I can think freely or I get real edgy… sorry, no fun secrets to share. My life as a mother of three teenagers/talented bathroom cleaner is quite predictable…

Happy reading to all.

—- Interview by Jessica Morrell

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I’m teaching at Summer In Words this weekend, http://summerinwords.wordpress.com/  and Building Your Character is one of my workshops. Thought you might like to see one of the handouts.

A Few Things To Think About When Building Your Character

…A Short And By No Means Complete List…

By Cathy Lamb

What does your character do for a living? Why that occupation? No, really. WHY?

Delve deep into her family history. What did you find?  Is she close to her family or estranged?

Who are her friends? Does she have friends? Is she doesn’t have friends, does it bother her? Is she a group person or a loner?

Where does she live? What does her home look like? Does she like her home? If not, why?

Describe her childhood. Good? Bad?  Both?

How does her childhood still impact her life?

What does your character treasure? A family tea pot? Recipes from her mother? Cookbooks from friends and family?

Where is she now in her life? A good place? A lousy place?

Is she married? Divorced? Separated?

Does she like men? Hate men? Distrusting? What prevents her from being in a relationship if she’s not in one now? Does she like being in a relationship?

What does she want to do? What is motivating her? What’s keeping her back?

What are her stronger characteristics?

What does she hope for?
Where is she weak or flawed?
What mistakes has she made? What mistakes does she continue to make?

What does she do well? Poorly?

How does she dress? Does she like clothes?

How much money does she have? Is it important to her?

Does she have hobbies and activities? What are they?

What irritates her?  What will make her temper explode?

Is she a leader or a follower?

Does she have pets? Does she talk out loud to the pets? Does she think her pets are human?

What are the worst three things that have happened to her?

What are the three best things that have happened to her?

Is she aggressive? Shy? Depressed? Easily amused? Practical or a dreamer? Describe her personality.

What do other people think of her? Does she care what they think?

What has she overcome? What is she struggling to overcome?

Do you like her? Why or why not? Is it important to like her?

If you went to lunch, how would it go?

What advice would she give you about your life? What advice would you give her?

Where do you want her to end up? Where do you think she’ll end up?

What is she capable of doing? What is she not capable of doing?

Where will she be in ten years? Twenty?

What will she regret when she’s dying? What will she be proud of?

How is she as a parent, if she is a parent?

What are her quirks or odd habits?

What does she like to eat at two in the morning?

Does she like china? Does she throw plates when she's mad? What does she think of the color pink? Does she like formal dinners or picnics better?

What makes her laugh? What makes her cry?

Does she have a secret? What is it and how has it affected her life?

Is her inner life in uproar? Why?

If confronted by an obnoxious person, what would she do?

If she was fired, how would she react?

If she was falling in love, how would she feel?

What does she look like?

Is she successful? What has she failed at?

Can you see her? Can you hear her? Can you predict what she’ll do next?

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I’ve been taking a lot of drives in the country lately. I highly recommend it. It’s so inspiring to get out of your home, out of your office, and see new things. Sometimes I get out of my car, sometimes I don’t.

I was recently inspired to write a short story about a woman who inherited an apple farm after visiting Oregon Heritage Farms many times.  I’ve written about incredible sunsets I’ve seen over vineyards, chickens outside barns, an old, slanted country cafe, a river, a greenhouse, a winding road, maple trees and fir trees, and old houses.

The country is a constant source of encouragement for my writing, peace for my mind, serenity for my soul.

Maybe I’ll live there one day, in a 100 year old farmhouse with views over the mountains, but for now, I enjoy it through my drives.

Here are a few photos I took on a recent jaunt…

I don't want to be a chicken, but if I had to be one - well, those two are pretty interesting.

Chickens and their chicken house....

I love watching the clouds in the country.

Some things are so lovely, I can only stop and stare.

Oregon Heritage Farms - my favorite farm.

Soooo handsome, even with those golden rectangle eyes!

Oregon views towards the beach...

That's no bull.

Beautiful....

What an incredible walk this would be among the apple trees.

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I have recently started writing my new novel, out in December, 2013, and I am writing 2,000 words a day.

If I don’t reach 10,000 words by Saturday night, I don’t go to bed until it’s done.

Yes, I’ve had some very late, head banging Saturday nights.

This is how I’ve written all my books. Some nights I write more than 2,000 words. Yesterday I wrote 3,400 words.  My end of week count for this week was a total of 13,800 words – the story was in my head, I watched it like a movie, and wrote it down.

Other times getting to 10,000 words is a total slog, replete with pits and ravines and literary snakes.

I usually don’t let myself write less than 2,000 words a night unless a foot falls off or I’m run over by a peacock.

Neither has ever happened, so I write those 2,000 words.

Need inspiration for writing? Head to Glacier National Park. Awe - inspiring

You might be thinking: That sounds like torture.

And: Why 2,000 a day?

One reason for the 2,000 words is that I have a lot deadlines so I gotta plan for them.

But most importantly is that 2,000 words a day drops you into your story and leaves you there. You’re taking a swan dive straight in.

You have to let things flow in your story, and 2,000 words lets out the flow. Writing to that word count gives you time to think about your main characters. You can dig into them, hear them whispering or shouting, and watch their antics as a silent observer.

You can give them bizarre family and wild friends or cutting enemies, and those characters can start to develop into the disagreeable, flimsy, awkward, overly cheerful people they are.

You can get to know your characters’ challenges and threats and problems, too. You can move things right along, and pace the story naturally with long passages, shorts ones, medium sized, and back around again, as you feel it needs.

As you’re writing straight through, you can throw in setting and weather, or some sensory stuff, but don’t get too hung up on that, if at all. Most importantly, keep writing. It’s rough and it’s smooth writing all at the same time. Rough because it’s a draft, smooth because you can let the story grow organically based on the emotional guts and cores of the characters.

If you write only 100 words a day, or 200, not only will your book take foooorrrever, but that small amount of writing doesn’t allow you to feel the characters. It doesn’t give you time to cry with them, laugh, dance, see their flaws and weakness, their strengths, their past or their future. It doesn’t give them time to flesh out or tell you their secrets.

It’s hardly getting started at all with your story – and then you quit.

Natural beauty inspires and encourages. Make nature a part of your writing life.

Those first few hundreds are hard, but then you’re there. The story is 3-D in your head. Be patient with yourself. Be determined. Focus.

You have to set goals if you want to succeed here, and you have to stick to the goals, no matter how hard. You have to work in a progressive, efficient way, towards the end, no matter how you want to scream, don’t kid yourself on that one or that darn book won’t ever be done.

Is the thought of writing 2,000 words a day intimidating? It can be. Do it anyhow. Break it up. 1000 in the morning, 250 at lunch, 750 at night.  500, 500, 500, 500. Do you want to get a book done or not?

Don’t edit when you’re writing the initial 2,000 words, either.  I’ve heard of writers trying to write perfectly the first time around.  I can’t even imagine trying this. Great writing needs great editing. Great editing needs more great editing.

I edit all my books at least eight times before I even send it off to my editor the first time around.

If I submitted one of my books after I’d edited it only two times, it would be total crap. Truly. Total crap.

The problem with trying to write the perfect book the first time around, or to even think your book could be perfect after the first edit, or the second, is that that will never happen (Unless you are extremely, extremely talented. I am not. Therefore, editing is my friend).

In addition, trying to be perfect the first time around is like walking around with a wooden block on your creative juices in your head. It’s like writing with one of those red pens in your head that your teacher used to use on your essays.

As a writer, never pass up a sunset. Stop and enjoy. Let your mind and your spirit embrace it.

It’s too much negative, too much pressure, too much criticism.  It restricts you and your creativity. It ties those characters down to what YOU want them to do. It puts a boa constrictor around the potential fullness of the story. Keep away from those boa constrictors!

Write straight through the story. Put XXX where you have questions about anything – characters, their past, motivations, historical facts, medical issues, etc. You can come back to that later.

Keep a lot of dialogue in your story as you’re writing those 2,000 words, too. Dialogue moves a story along. Dialogue will let your characters out to breathe.  It will let your characters speak their minds.

You’ll start to hear their voices, intonations, anger, worries, fears, insecurities, how they respond to people, the conversations they initiate or are too scared to initiate.

Dialogue opens up your characters for you to play with and explore – and that’s what your story is about, your characters.

Keep writing. Keep imagining and daydreaming.

Yep.

2,000 words a day.

That’s what I do.

No matter how torturous it is.

Spotted near Kalispel, Montana. Don't forget to laugh, writer friends. Search for humor. Appreciate the fun and funny.

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