Making of a Writer (9780307820464)

by Nixon, Joan Lowery

  Daddy designed and made a folding frame that could be taken apart and transported in the trunk of our car. Mother redesigned the drapes to cover the frame and wrote scripts adapted from traditional fist-puppet plays and fairy tales. Our entire family helped make and paint fist puppets, their heads papier-mâché, and Mother sewed their costumes. Then Mother, my sister Marilyn, and I memorized our parts.

  Pat, who was only three at the time, was given a small part, too. Her job was to sit in the audience, a darling doll with a big bow decorating her blond hair. When Punch called out, “Where do you think I got my big red nose?” Pat had to shout back, “From eating red apples!”

  Because I loved Pat so much, I suffered for her each time she dutifully yelled out her line and everyone turned and stared at her. Pat was a trouper, although she admitted many years later that she had hated playing that part. Shamelessly, in spite of my love for my youngest sister, I was thankful Pat’s job hadn’t been given to me and I could work invisibly behind the scenes.

  Although the behind-the-scenes work appealed to me more, it didn’t always go smoothly. The space was small and crowded with three people, various backdrops, Mother’s folding chair, and countless puppets to manage. If I happened to move too close to my five-year-old sister, Marilyn, she would pinch. Marilyn was a cuter, younger near-image of me, but she had definite ideas about what she wanted, and she took no prisoners.

  Unless I had puppets on both hands, I’d naturally pinch back, and on a couple of occasions the stage rocked dangerously. I don’t know how she did it, but somehow, without missing a line, Mother managed to threaten us into good behavior, and the show miraculously continued without mishap.

  For three or four years we were volunteer entertainers with our puppet show wherever there were children—at hospitals, schools, and orphanages. In spite of occasional—and sometimes painful—pinching contests, I enjoyed performing with the puppet show. I loved hearing the children laugh and shout back to Punchinello in our Punch and Judy script, but it wasn’t until we performed at a Maryknoll orphanage for Japanese children in Los Angeles that I suddenly realized the magical, transcending power of suspense.

  The children in the orphanage shrieked with delight and shouted to Punch when a ghost puppet appeared, attempting to warn Punch about his wicked ways. The ghost would rise at the right of the stage, but Punch would be looking in the wrong direction and miss it. When he’d turn back to where the children were pointing, the ghost would have vanished. As Punch was distracted once more—with the ghost returning—the children screamed and laughed, some of them jumping up and down with excitement.

  We were told later by the director of the orphanage that the children did not understand English. But I saw that they understood dramatic action. They understood suspense. Action and suspense. Two important elements writers need to use. I planned to use lots of action and suspense in the stories I’d write so that they’d come alive to readers in every country of the world.

  My promise to myself came true. My books are translated from English into many languages so that children in other countries can read them, too.

  Chapter Eight

  On one damp, drizzly day when I was nine years old, my sisters and I decided to play a game of indoor hide-and-seek. Looking for a new hiding spot where no one would think of searching for me, I hid under my grandparents’ bed.

  I made myself comfortable by rolling onto my back. I looked up and was surprised to see, through the uncovered coils of the box spring, half a dozen magazines on Nanny’s side of the bed. Since I was an avid reader, intent on reading anything and everything that came to hand, I pulled down the magazines and examined them.

  True Confessions, Modern Romances, True Love … There were a number of magazines of this type, and they were filled with stories. Eagerly I began to read.

  My sisters gave up trying to find me and began playing with their dolls, so I read until Mother and Nanny called the family to dinner.

  I certainly didn’t mean to get my wonderful grandmother into trouble, but some of the words I had read were unfamiliar to me, and later that evening I asked my mother what they meant. Surprised, she asked me where I had heard them, and before long the entire story came out.

  Pa, who had emigrated to the United States from Luxembourg when he was only a child, was self-educated, but he avidly read both classic and current literature, and he blamed himself for never having introduced his wife to good literature.

  When Nanny was only a child, living in Chicago, her father died, and her mother turned their home into a boardinghouse to support her three children. They all worked very hard. There was no money for higher education for any of them and no one to introduce them to good books.

  “It was my responsibility to have supervised my wife’s reading years ago,” Pa said to my parents, and I heard him tell Nanny that in the evening he would read aloud to her from Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Arabian Nights: Tales from a Thousand and One Nights.

  If storytelling was on the agenda, I didn’t want to miss out, so I arrived in their living room before they did and found a cozy, concealed spot behind Pa’s large upholstered armchair.

  Pa settled into his chair while Nanny perched gingerly and reluctantly on the edge of the sofa. Pa urged her to relax and enjoy the story. He waited while she settled back a bit, then gave her some background on the selection he was about to read. He said that the wife of the Sultan of India had been unfaithful, so the Sultan had her killed. Each night this untrusting Sultan took a new wife, and in the morning each unfortunate woman was killed.

  Nanny raised a disapproving eyebrow at this, but Pa quickly went on to explain that finally the Sultan married a storyteller named Scheherazade, who kept him entertained each night with a story that never ended, continuing from night to night. The Sultan, eager to hear how each episode would end, had to keep Scheherazade alive to find out what happened.

  Pa picked up the book, opened it, and said, “This is one of Scheherazade’s stories, ‘The Porter and the Three Ladies of Baghdad.’ ” He began to read.

  In the story the porter was asked to carry a lady’s baggage to her home. A second lady opened the door and was described in this way:

  Presently the door swung back, and behold, it was a lady of tall figure, a model of beauty and loveliness, brilliance and symmetry and perfect grace. Her forehead was flower-white; her cheeks like the anemone ruddy-bright; her eyes were those of the wild heifer or the gazelle, with eyebrows like the crescent moon; her lips were coral-red, and her teeth like a line of strung pearls or of camomile petals. Her throat recalled the antelope’s, and her breasts were like two pomegranates of even size.

  At this Nanny jumped to her feet and cried, “Twin pomegranates! Oh, how rude! There is nothing that vulgar in my magazines!”

  She stalked out of the room, and that was the end of her education in classic literature.

  However, I quietly latched on to the book and enjoyed it thoroughly … as soon as I found out what a pomegranate was.

  In reading the tales from The Arabian Nights, I discovered and remembered the importance of exciting chapter endings and the withholding of information from readers to make them want to keep reading. Scheherazade used this information to save her life. Today her suspenseful storytelling would earn her membership with other mystery writers in the organization Sisters in Crime.

  Chapter Nine

  It’s always miserable to come down with the flu, but it’s doubly miserable to catch it during the summer. One summer when I was eleven I went to bed so ill I wasn’t even able to read.

  On the second morning, still feeling terrible but eager to be distracted, I turned on my bedside radio and discovered with awe and amazement the world of soap operas.

  The soap opera characters were people whose lives were very different from mine and my relatives’ and friends’. Soap operas then were not heavy with sexual plots, as they are now. The characters had other problems to solve. Some problems we
re inflicted by their relatives and friends, but most of their problems had been brought on by themselves. I was fascinated by the unique approaches they used in trying to make sense of their lives.

  I was hooked.

  All summer long I listened to Pretty Kitty Kelly, Myrt and Marge, Our Gal Sunday, and a number of other fifteen-minute-a-day dramas. I still recall the deep, concerned voice that asked at the beginning of Our Gal Sunday a question that went something like this: “Can a girl raised from infancy by two grizzled miners in a Colorado mining town ever find true happiness married to an English lord?”

  Apparently, she couldn’t. At least she didn’t find happiness that summer.

  As I listened to the daytime radio dramas, I began to realize that there were reasons for what the characters did or didn’t do. Later, I discovered that the writer’s word for this is motivation, but at the time I only learned, with a sense of wonder, that people didn’t do a single thing without a reason behind it.

  It became obvious to me that the personality and actions of the main character of each story determined the direction the story would take. Because the story belonged to the main character, she—or he—was the most important part of the story.

  I also learned from the soap operas to see the action through the eyes of my characters—even the villains, who certainly didn’t think of themselves as villains.

  As the summer and I progressed through this unusual version of Psychology 101, I realized I should share my newfound knowledge.

  Mother and Nanny sewed together and cooked together, and often just had a cup of tea and visited with each other. Situations and problems of friends, relatives, neighbors, and even movie stars were discussed, and usually either Mother or Nanny would comment, “Wouldn’t you think she’d have done such and such?” or “Wouldn’t you think he’d have known such and such?”

  With my fabulous newfound soap opera wisdom, I felt strongly compelled to enlighten Mother and Nanny so that they could share this revelation about how and why people did the things they did.

  I interrupted them in the middle of a “Wouldn’t you think he’d …” as they were discussing one of the relatives, and carefully explained, “You can’t expect anyone to solve his problems the way you do.”

  As they stared at me in surprise I went on. “Everyone has his own reasons for what he does,” I said, “and—right or wrong—everyone makes his own decisions. We’re all different. We all think for ourselves. Your solutions to problems may be right for you to follow but not right for someone else.”

  I was impassioned. Before I had finished, I think I even brought in the religious aspect of free will.

  Needless to say, Mother and Nanny were not pleased to be enlightened. They sent me off to clean my room. And in their conversations with each other they continued to say, “Wouldn’t you think …?” Wanting to stay out of trouble, I kept my opinions to myself.

  But I thought long and hard about the soap opera characters. When I was a writer I’d be writing about people for people, so I needed to know as much as I could about why and how people chose to do the things they did.

  From that time on, I was a people-watcher, making mental notes about behavior, body language, and mannerisms. And I listened, not just to what was said, but to the way it was said. I loved unusual speech patterns and idioms and regional dialect. When I was in college I took electives in psychology and sociology, which helped almost as much as people-watching, but in a different way. I was determined to relate to and reach the people about whom I planned to write.

  Chapter Ten

  My parents drove a highly unusual car during much of my childhood on 73rd Street, and until they became used to it, some of the neighbors would turn and stare in surprise as we passed by.

  Our car was a long black limousine with two folding jump seats between the front and back seats. There were silver vases on each side and a glass window that could be rolled up or down between the front and back seats. The limousine had been previously owned by a famous movie star, character actor Adolphe Menjou, and still carried an air of glamour. My father bought it because it was the only car he could find that held all seven members of our family.

  My sisters and I took turns sitting on the jump seats so that our grandparents could have the comfortable backseat. If Nanny and Pa didn’t happen to be with us, and we grew too noisy, Mother, seated in front, simply rolled up the window that separated the front from the back.

  These were low-traffic years, so Sunday drives were common. In the spring we rode a short way out of town to walk through fields of wildflowers, and we picked armfuls of blue lupine and California’s golden poppies. In the summer we drove for less than an hour to the Long Beach horseshoe or to Alamitos Bay to swim. And in the winter it was a quick trip to Lake Arrowhead in the nearby mountains to play in the snow.

  I adopted these settings in the mountains and at the beach for my stories and plays. I didn’t have the knowledge to write about faraway lands and countries, so I didn’t try to use them for settings. I was aware that my stories would be more believable if I wrote about what I knew. That was easy. Los Angeles had a big backyard, and it was mine.

  Chapter Eleven

  My life changed abruptly soon after my thirteenth birthday. Pa died, and I missed him terribly. I hadn’t always liked being the eldest child in our family, since I was reminded often that as eldest I must “set the example” and “shoulder the responsibility.” But now being the eldest gave me consolation. I had known and loved our grandfather the longest. I had thirteen years packed with wonderful memories that I would always cherish.

  That summer my parents decided to move across Los Angeles to a much larger home in Laughlin Park, an estate community in the Los Feliz hills, a part of East Hollywood. They bought a large two-story house on an acre of land, most of it planted in hillside gardens of ferns and lilies, roses, and gigantic dahlias. There were six rooms and two bathrooms downstairs and four bedrooms and three baths upstairs. My parents shared one bedroom, my sisters shared another, and Nanny and I became roommates in the third. The fourth very tiny bedroom and bath were designed for a live-in maid, and it wasn’t long before Mother hired the first of a short series of household helpers to fill this position.

  Mother and Daddy bought the Laughlin Park house from an elderly man, Mr. S., who planned to remarry. His second-wife-to-be refused to move into his house, so he priced it low, eager to make a quick sale. According to the next-door neighbors just up the hill, who couldn’t wait to tell us the story, for a number of years Mr. S. and his recently deceased first wife had not had a happy marriage. Mrs. S. had brought her crippled mother and blind sister to live with them, taking care of their expenses on her own, since she was wealthy in her own right.

  Mr. and Mrs. S. had made a trip to Bakersfield, California, driving on what was called the Ridge Route, a narrow road with many winding curves. Mr. S. had been speeding, recklessly increasing his speed as Mrs. S. begged him to slow down. He’d lost control of his car and crashed off the road. He was injured only slightly in the accident, but Mrs. S. was killed.

  After the funeral, Mr. S. evicted Mrs. S.’s mother and sister, abruptly sending them away—probably to some state welfare institution, the neighbors thought. Although Mrs. S.’s mother and sister had protested that Mrs. S. had provided for them in her will, the will had mysteriously disappeared and was never found.

  My parents loved the new house with the shaded patios dripping bougainvillea vines and hanging baskets of fuchsia. And they praised the rose garden, which had more than a hundred healthy rosebushes. But things changed for me after what I’d heard about the former owner.

  I reentered the house, and as I walked alone through the large, empty rooms, I couldn’t explain the eerie sensations I felt. A lost will … a death that could have been murder … If restless ghosts were looking for a place to prowl, this was the house. Maybe it was only my active imagination, but I was sure I could feel the years of sorrow from this unhappy
marriage that had seeped into the corner shadows.

  None of this bothered my parents, who bought the house because it was beautiful and because it was a great bargain.

  After we had moved in, I discovered something curious. The downstairs hallway connected two large rooms at each side of the house. One my parents had designed as an informal den. The other contained a Ping-Pong table and my mother’s sewing machine. Two bathrooms, one off each room, were back to back, and in front of the bathrooms, in the center of the hallway, was a linen closet, about five feet deep, with two wide doors that swung closed to meet in the middle.

  There was a lock on the outside of the linen closet, and, for no apparent reason, on the inside of the closet were two locks. One was a hook and eye and one was a snap lock, both of which could only be operated by someone inside the closet.

  Borrowing my father’s measuring tape, I did some sleuthing. “There’s a space about seven or eight feet wide and at least ten feet deep behind the closet,” I pointed out.

  “That’s where the plumbing from the bathrooms would be,” Daddy said.

  “I allowed for the plumbing,” I told him. “Besides, how much space can a few pipes take? I think there’s a room hidden back there.”

  Mother rolled her eyes. “There’s no reason for a hidden room.”

  “There’s no reason for the closet to be locked on the inside,” I countered. I was eager to see this hidden room. “Just think,” I said, “the room might hold, at the least, a missing will. Or at the most … well, the neighbors weren’t sure what happened to Mrs. S.’s mother and sister. Why don’t we take out the shelves? Why don’t we find out if the back of the linen closet is false and there’s a room behind it?”

  “Don’t be silly,” Mother said. She glanced nervously at the closet. “I’ve just finished unpacking the sheets and towels and tablecloths and filling all those shelves. I’m not taking everything out just because you have an overactive imagination.”