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Post by Stacy on Jul 1, 2010 21:56:28 GMT -5
So, if you're my friend on LJ, you know that I am trying to write a story about a gentleman named Farmer Brown. I've decided to pretty much base it on home. Yeah, okay, I may be a little homesick at the moment. So here are some things I've found so far. First - at the moment I'm thinking the main action of the story occurs in a field next to a graveyard. There's a field next to the one where my father is buried. And I actually found a picture of the church online. Round Peak Primitive Baptist ChurchI grew up on Round Peak Church Road. We lost the house after Daddy died because he didn't have a will, so note to any stalkers - I don't live there anymore. Some more searching led me to this page. Round Peak Banjos On that one - check out this line from the About page. Music has always been dear to the heart of the Round Peak community, and continues to be to this day. My Daddy played guitar in a bluegrass band before I was born, and he'd play for us on Sunday nights. Oh man, the pictures on that site are driving me crazy. I think we're supposed to go visit my mother this weekend, so I can go home soon. OMG, I never knew we had a Surry County anthem! Sally Ann Wow! Surry County MusicFound the documentary on YouTube, for greater control over pausing and skipping around. YouTube DocumentaryMy mother lives in Lowgap. And I remember Granny talking about going to parties and dancing when she was young. See, I have the right to use the accent I'm using 'cause I grew up hearing it and talking it. Oh man - so many parallels with my writing. Intense, driving, and enthusiastic eh? Here's what I have so far. Farmer Brown looked up at the sky. Bright blue, not a cloud in sight. "Killin' frost coming. Reckon I ought to go down to Tate's and help him cover his pumpkins." "You be careful out there. Boy got his head tore plumb off down that way the other week. They found his body on Ol' Knocky's grave. Ain't found his head yet."
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moondaisy
Full Member
locked in a moonbeam
Posts: 254
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Post by moondaisy on Jul 8, 2010 16:15:27 GMT -5
I didn't look up all the links but will do so soon. The first lines you came up with sent a chill down my spine! This promises to be an amazing story...
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Post by Stacy on Jul 8, 2010 23:16:26 GMT -5
I didn't look up all the links but will do so soon. The first lines you came up with sent a chill down my spine! This promises to be an amazing story... Awww, thanks. *hugs* LOL, I don't really expect people to watch the documentary - it's nearly 30 minutes long. But hey, it's there if you want. You can see my hometown - my mother lives in Lowgap and the guy I had a crush on in high school lived in Toast. And I grew up on Round Peak Church Road. Oh, and I went to college in Dobson. And I recognize all the last names they mention - went to school with people with those names. You can hear how the people I grew up with talk, which may help you hear the dialogue in Farmer Brown better in your head. And you can also learn a bit about the society I grew up in. Which that was sort of why I linked it. I think it explains a lot about me and my writing and my experience in the Sims community, really. Like the bits about Tommy Jarrell and how someone who didn't grow up in Surry County was talking about him and how he was the most open person they'd ever met and he was just like "Yeah, come on in and sit down." See, that's how I grew up. And I love the bits with the old timers talking about how "We have our own style. We didn't copy nobody's style" and "I might say they was trying to play it pretty, you know, pick it all out and all that stuff, but we just fired down and played and just put the drive to it." And, of course, "Make your instrument sound like it's a'dancin'." And the intensity and "and they're serious about it while they're doin' it - they're havin' fun - they're really tryin' to do their best." See? I was raised around people who take their hobbies seriously, damn it!
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Post by Stacy on Jul 11, 2010 13:02:58 GMT -5
So my mother is here visiting, and I showed her the documentary.
Turns out two or three of the old-timers are my great uncles, and I am distantly related to Tommy Jarrell and my grandmother was great friends with him. Oh, and in the dancing scene she recognized the aunt and uncle who lived across the road from us when I was growing up.
And my father played guitar with all these guys and would tell her stories about going over to someone's house every Saturday night to play.
To directly quote her "You got that music in ya."
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Post by Stacy on Oct 4, 2010 21:37:16 GMT -5
So, for the Halloween theme here and at Boolprop, I pulled out the little bit I had for this story.
And I have added to it!
The draft as it presently stands:
Farmer Brown stood on the porch of the Jessup supply store. Behind him, old man Jenkins sat in a rocking chair. The worn floorboards creaked as the chair rocked back and forth.
"What you think 'bout this weather?"
Farmer Brown looked up at the sky. It was a bright hard blue, not a cloud in sight. The air smelled of smoke and dead leaves.
"Killin' frost coming. Reckon I ought to go down to Tate's, help him cover his pumpkins."
"You be careful out there. Boy got his head tore plumb off down that way the other week. They found his body on Ol' Knocky's grave. Ain't found his head yet."
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Post by celebkiriedhel on Oct 4, 2010 22:08:08 GMT -5
I love that paragraph! Very nice.
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Post by dbloveshermac on Oct 5, 2010 8:20:16 GMT -5
"bright hard blue" is a perfectly evocative description of a cold fall sky! :-)
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Post by Stacy on Oct 5, 2010 10:18:42 GMT -5
Kiri and DB - Yay you guys rock! *hugs* Yeah - this is somewhere in between Gunky and 10, writing style wise. Not going for high literature, but it's supposed to be more spooky than funny - and yes, very much going for evoking the setting here, with the weather and the fields and everything. I have always loved fall - I remember freshman year I'd stop outside third wing every morning on the way to drama and look out over the cornfield behind the school to the blazing red and orange and yellow trees against the blue sky and just...be overwhelmed with beauty and love. So I want to show you guys that. While scaring you, lol. We had to do a Halloween story in drama, and I wrote a story about a homicidal clown and dressed up in a clown suit and took a plastic sword that would light up and make noise when you pushed a button, and used it to great effect while telling the story. And today is another beautiful chilly fall day here, and I really think - I'm really thinking about concentrating on this and finishing it before starting 10.08. It's like Interlude, which was done for a Boolprop contest when I got kind of stuck on Valley (and apparently I won that round and then everyone else abandoned the contest, lol). I figure this will be a nice break and something new and will recharge me and get the words flowing so I can go back to 10 renewed. And yeah - I'll publish it on the blog too.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 5, 2010 21:22:10 GMT -5
Went to hang out on the couch again with a pen and a notebook. It's nice - no distractions, no Twitter and stats and forum to check. And so here is the current state of the draft. Rusty Jenkins sat in a rocking chair on the porch of the old general store. The chair was almost as old as he was, and he was getting on up there. Nigh about eighty now. He rocked back and forth, listening to the floorboards creak. A man could sit out here all day, chewing tobacco and rocking. Shame about that Sutphin boy. He’d been sweet on that pretty young thing, that Thomas girl. Well, weren’t gonna be no wedding now. The screen door flew open and Farmer Brown stepped out onto the porch. The boards groaned under his weight. The door, worn out by all this activity and excitement, slammed shut behind him. By way of being friendly, Rusty spoke up. “What you think ‘bout this weather?” Farmer Brown looked up into the sky. Rusty followed his gaze. The sky was a bright hard blue, not a cloud in sight. The air smelled of smoke and dead leaves. “Killin’ frost comin’. Reckon I oughta go down to Tate’s, help him cover his pumpkins.” Old Doug Tate had lost his son in the war. Everybody felt bad for him and helped him out when they could. Shame about that Sutphin boy. Rusty reached down and picked up his Dixie cup, spit a stream of sticky brown tobacco juice into it. He thought for a bit, about war and loss and death and grief. “You be careful out there. Boy got his head tore plumb off out that a way t’other week. They found his body on Ol’ Knocky’s grave. Ain’t found his head yet.” Farmer Brown nodded and stepped off the porch. Rusty watched him get in his brown pickup truck and pull out of the gravel parking lot, headed down to Tate’s. Sure was a shame about that Sutphin boy.
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Post by raquelaroden on Oct 6, 2010 5:50:13 GMT -5
Oooh....awesome.
I like the atmosphere of the story already. I spent a lot of time in rural East Texas, and a lot of the imagery (and speech) is familiar. The description of the store makes me think of a feed store that was in my hometown. It had a higher porch because it made it easier to back up trucks to it so the huge feed sacks could be loaded.
More!
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Post by heredoncove on Oct 6, 2010 13:40:45 GMT -5
I really like it. I think you're painting a great picture and I might be biased because I have Southern roots too from my Daddy's side.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 6, 2010 23:56:34 GMT -5
RachelYay, thank you! I have a great aunt in Texas and I've been there before, but never for longer than a visit or driving through while taking the scenic route to Oklahoma (my mother's family lives in Oklahoma and we used to go see them a fair bit when I was a kid and sometimes we'd get bored and make up new ways to get there - once on the way back we drove through Indiana and she kept threatening to marry me off to a farm boy). It's cool that the speech sounds like that - I remember back when I was writing the My Little Pony legacy and using an accent, someone else was writing a legacy with a Southern founder. She said it was funny that she was using a Southern accent and my characters talked like the rednecks in her area. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was just writing what I heard growing up, exaggerated a bit for effect. Not exaggerating in this story, though. I like the feed store - still haven't decided on the exact type of store yet. Figured general store would be a good placeholder.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 6, 2010 23:58:12 GMT -5
I really like it. I think you're painting a great picture and I might be biased because I have Southern roots too from my Daddy's side. Awww, yay!!! Thank you so much! The point of this story is to paint a picture - good to hear I'm succeeding so far. *hugs* Like I said - my mother grew up in Oklahoma. So my Southern roots are all on my Daddy's side too. Although I have to say that my mother really assimiliated when she moved here, and most people who don't know her history would think that she'd been born here.
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Post by celebkiriedhel on Oct 7, 2010 0:11:27 GMT -5
I'm not familiar with this sort of rural america - apart from what I read, of course. I'm getting a clear picture of what it's like though - people who are comfortable with each other, a slow pace of life, a working land. I love this sentence: The door, worn out by all this activity and excitement, slammed shut behind him. It's so full of imagery and feeling. Looking forward to more
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Post by Stacy on Oct 7, 2010 0:12:31 GMT -5
So we're now at 733 words. And just getting started, lol. Can I just say - I am really really really liking writing longhand on the couch. John went to bed kind of early and the only light on in the house was the one by the couch and I wrote two and a quarter pages. My hand is not cramping up for some weird reason. And I'm learning how to write in cursive again. It's reminding me of pre-internet days when I was writing just to please myself. All four of the cats came to hang out with me, and sometimes they'd freak me out by staring at the big picture window like there was someone outside. And Luna tried to eat my pen. I came in here to type up what I'd written and I heard this weird sound from the living room and I was so scared. Turned out a neighborhood cat was sitting on the window ledge and Midnight did not approve. She was batting at the window. OMG - okay, so I googled to see if the name I'd given the cemetary was a plausible cemetary sort of name. Well, okay - so it is, but it sounded a bit cheesy. Turns out I gave it the same name as the Sunset Valley cemetary. Yep. So I'm keeping it even if it is cheesy. It's a little bit of Seth.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 7, 2010 0:36:21 GMT -5
I'm not familiar with this sort of rural america - apart from what I read, of course. I'm getting a clear picture of what it's like though - people who are comfortable with each other, a slow pace of life, a working land. I love this sentence: The door, worn out by all this activity and excitement, slammed shut behind him. It's so full of imagery and feeling. Looking forward to more That's good to hear, because that was the bit I was the most unsure of and it would have probably been first on the chopping block when I got around to major edits. But still, I did like it. So yay, it gets to stay! Not gonna spoil the rest of it, so that's it for draft sharing. And OMG, yes - that's a perfect description! Okay, so Charlotte is the biggest city in my state and John and his siblings grew up here and had vastly different experiences than me. Still though, the other day Grace was talking about a school friend who moved here from New England and how the friend talked faster than Grace could think. So yeah, the slow pace is right on. And the comfortable-ness. And the working, very much. I don't know when this will be done - I'm working pretty steadily on it (which is nice, after getting all blocked on 10 - definitely trying the longhand trick with 10.08 after I finish this) but Saturday is my mother's birthday and we're going to the Mast General Store in Boone with her. But hey - excellent research for this story, right?
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Post by jenssims on Oct 7, 2010 6:03:09 GMT -5
Great story so far, Stacy! Lol, the old guys remind me of my dad when they talk. He sounds just like that, saying stuff like 'plumb' this and 'reckon' that. And my parents are from Ohio, not the south. Of course, they were born in the southernmost area of the state, across the border to Kentucky.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 12, 2010 12:47:17 GMT -5
Okay, so yesterday I totally felt like I was going to come home from the training thing at work ready to go and get a lot of writing done. Sure, okay, so I spent a couple of hours at the training thing vomiting because the chicken I had at lunch refused to go down my esophagus. But I was over that, right? And we did this guided meditation last thing and it was all cool and I felt good. Except I had a headache. So when I got home I threw back two pills and some water. The water didn't go down. I then spent the next two hours throwing it up. So yeah. Didn't write last night. I did, however, figure out a plot problem during the training thing. And and, omg - I just ate lunch! And it all went down! It'd been over 24 hours since I'd ingested anything, liquid or solid - figure the water with the pills doesn't count, since...yeah. So I feel all crazy good now with actual calories. So maybe tonight I will get some writing done? Great story so far, Stacy! Lol, the old guys remind me of my dad when they talk. He sounds just like that, saying stuff like 'plumb' this and 'reckon' that. And my parents are from Ohio, not the south. Of course, they were born in the southernmost area of the state, across the border to Kentucky. Aww, thanks. And my mother was born in Ohio, lol. They didn't stay very long after she was born, though. I think a fair few people from around here came up that way during the Depression - was reading very interesting things about the tensions between the Applachians who migrated north and the people who were living there. And Ohio and North Carolina have a weird relationship. I see plenty of Ohio people here visiting, and there is the whole thing with the rivalry about flight and the Wright Brothers.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 13, 2010 21:56:35 GMT -5
Posted the 855 words I currently have on LJ, because I can use the cut to hide it from people who don't want to be spoiled. The link will take you to the full entry. is.gd/g17hiThere are a lot more words to go. Bet I win for longest Halloween story on Boolprop, lol.
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Post by Stacy on Oct 15, 2010 9:38:52 GMT -5
So last night I went to sit on the couch and write, and for some reason I told John he could come too.
He then demonstrated the iPhone game Robot Unicorn Attack to me, the new heavy metal version and the original. Which, okay, that rocked, but then after the demonstration I had to ask if he was going to keep playing with the sound on because if so I would have to go write somewhere else.
He was all "Oh no" and picked up a book instead.
But while he was reading, he was flipping the iPhone around and hitting it against the seat cushion. Constantly.
He fidgets. A lot. My car's radio buttons don't work very well from back in the day when he drove it and messed with the buttons while driving.
So yeah. I didn't get a whole lot written last night and I'm not terribly impressed with what I did write.
I may have to try writing Farmer Brown on here, alone in my computer chair, headset and music to block out any noise. Sigh.
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