Keeping Up

Keeping up... 

There are eight children in my family, that I grew up with. I was born seventh. 

I actually wrote 'The Red Dust Healers' about my life experiences and renamed all eight of us for the novella. My brother John may remember when I was writing it because I visited him, before they built the house they are now in, and he invited my son, and I, to go for a drive because he had to visit a jobsite and pay an employee.

So, I was talking about the novella, I was writing, and I said, "I just haven't put the oldest brother into the novella yet because I'm having a lot of trouble with finding an alternative name for him." (The reason I called my oldest brother, his brother, in that moment, was because they had been business partners since they were in their 20's.)

"Well, John replied, "your novella isn't complete if we aren't all in it."

I felt reasonably chastised and after I returned home, to Winnipeg, I worked hard to find a alternative name for my oldest brother... I finally settled on a name and, if coincidence could yet be called prophecy to the more religiously informed... the name I used for my oldest brother was the middle name of my Bruce, who died. 

When choosing names, for my novel (published) or my novella, (unpublished, as yet), I tried to, somehow, match a name to how I saw them and perceived their strengths and weaknesses. 

The old- fashioned way of naming children, of my parents' generation, was to give us each only one name... that was Biblical. Have you ever noticed that everyone, in the Bible, only has one name?   

I had purchased a very old book, written in 1915, and the mother, in the fictional novel, had named the children with names she was hoping they would live up to. That novel inspired me to come up with names suitable to each personality. You see, the serendipitous maybe of naming a child, at birth, could be a book unto itself. We, parents, name our children for all kinds of reasons... mostly, to inspire a good life... if you're wise. 

A really strange thing started happening after I wrote my novella... nobody knew what I had written, or what names I chose for my family members. I tried to choose names of people whom I had never met. Strangely, in the next 16 years, I met or the news featured some names I had called my brothers and sisters.

You know when you do something, before it happens, it's a creative verve I was working within and nobody can foresee if that might, somehow, become meaningful. 

When I wrote my fictional novel, I put all the appropriate disclaimer on the second page...

"This is a work of fiction. Though some incidents are based on historical record, the work as a whole is the product of the author's imagination and inspiration." Copyright 2013

My novella was a creative writing project but my novel was, as quoted, above, a very difficult and long project... self- published.

The reason I have started writing, on my blog, about my family, is because notoriety has not always been something my parents, now in heaven, would have considered of humble character. Now that they have passed into eternity, I no longer feel the need to hide my talents or refrain from speaking out about the issues of life that really matter to me... human rights... in a world where our rights are so often violated.