Tag: W. Lon Hutchison

Searching for Significance

I thought I had it. A clever evocative title with a double meaning. During two years of research and writing for a novel based on events in the life of my father W. Lon Hutchison, I used the title: Life Expectancy.

The term Life Expectancy could refer to what people expect from life or to a statistical average of how long someone might expect to live.

Two years after I chose the title, I decided to do a web search to find out more about the definitions of life expectancy.

WHOOPS!

In 2004, Dean Koontz, a well-known USA suspense/horror writer wrote a bestseller titled Life Expectancy. The book by Koontz, has a listing on Wikipedia. Rolling Stone hailed Koontz as “America’s most popular suspense novelist.”

Why didn’t any of the writers and bloggers’ tips that I’d read advise me to check if there already was a book with the title I wanted to use?

I’d written a draft of the book with the title Life Expectancy, had prepared queries to send to several publishers, purchased the domain name lifeexpectancy.info and was ready to launch a blog about writing the book.

Everything came to a dead stop. Better late than never.

I had to find another title. Meanwhile I felt as if my writing project no longer existed, had disappeared, becoming a vague memory of something never completed.

Where to get inspiration for another title?

Online, I read

  • all of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics,
  • phrases from Shakespeare and
  • a list of songs recorded by Johnny Cash.

I re-read some of my favorite poetry books by Kenneth Patchen, Gary Snyder, Eleanor Lerman…

A month of searching, hoping that a title would find me. No luck.

How did you choose the title for you book or books?

What is the significance of a title?

Your comments and feedback are most welcome.

Thanks!

 

 

 

 

Why blog?

Is it to write away sorrow and share joys?

Is it a living memoir?

Is it only for yourself? And maybe a few friends?

Is it to encourage people to continue their own writing or start writing?

Is it to exchange ideas and encourage other writers?

Is it to encourage people to buy and read my book, Tracking the Human: nobody’s a long time when it’s published.

All of the above

Here are some of the people I hope will read my blog and share their comments with me.

  • People who like to read, who learn through reading,
  • People who use the public library regularly.
  • People who are curious about other peoples’ lives and families.
  • People interested in the early to mid twentieth century in the mid West of the United States.
  • People interested in riding the rails, hobo culture, mental hospitals, and Christian Science.
  • People who are writers and write in order to know the world and themselves.

Here are some interesting people that might read my blog:

All of the above people were found on a shelf in our front bedroom. All are from an extensive collection of dolls that I inherited from my mother. Everywhere she went, my mother bought a handmade doll.

This person is particularly special:

Can you read what it says at the bottom of her apron?

Rebecca, who longs to travel. 

Rebecca would be my ideal reader… a person who longs to travel, who is curious, who wants to meet new people and exchange ideas.

Welcome to all those Rebeccas (and Robertos) out there.

Enjoy reading family and fiction.

Why do you blog?

Send in your comments.

Thanks!

 

A Giant Step Back

natl-mus-pamela-mirror-848

Here it is and here I am. Or am I? I thought I knew who I am as much as anyone can. Yet I finally understood that to know myself I must go back, not through ancestry.com to construct a family tree, but just one giant step back – to my father.

I never knew the man. Not really anyway. I didn’t want to know him while he was alive. I wanted to escape. I was already halfway out the door when he rejected me. I wanted a life that was not confined to making money in Kansas City Missouri USA where I grew up. I felt stunted by the environment – the limited ways of thinking of the time and place.

Post World War II, many families like ours were rising up and out of poverty and the working class into the middle class even into upper middle class affluence. At what cost? Who was paying for this? Who benefited and who did not?

This blog is about taking one step back and then jumping in to find my father. I am writing a novel, Tracking the Human: nobody’s a long time, based on events in his life.

Come with me as I try to learn about this man to write a fictional story that both is and is not his story.

Share with me your stories of research and writing for family reconciliation.   You can comment here or email me at pamela@tucacas.info.

Thanks!
Continue reading “A Giant Step Back”

Search for Significance

I thought I had it. A clever evocative title with a double meaning. During two years of research and writing for a novel based on events in the life of my father, W. Lon Hutchison, I used the title: Life Expectancy.

The term Life Expectancy could refer to what people expect from life or to a statistical average of how long someone might expect to live.

Two years after I chose the title, I decided to do a web search to find out more about the definitions of life expectancy.

WHOOPS!

In 2004, Dean Koontz, a well-known USA suspense/horror writer wrote a bestseller titled Life Expectancy. The book by Koontz, has a listing on Wikipedia. Rolling Stone hailed Koontz as “America’s most popular suspense novelist.”

Why didn’t any of the writers and bloggers’ tips that I’d read advise me to check if there already was a book with the title I wanted to use?

I’d written a draft of the book with the title Life Expectancy, had prepared queries to send to several publishers, purchased the domain name lifeexpectancy.info and was ready to launch a blog about writing the book.

Everything came to a dead stop. Better late than never.

I had to find another title. Meanwhile I felt as if my writing project no longer existed, had disappeared, becoming a vague memory of something never completed.

Where to get inspiration for another title?P1150955 Pamela Reeds copy

Online, I read

  • all of Woody Guthrie’s lyrics,
  • phrases from Shakespeare and
  • a list of songs recorded by Johnny Cash.

I re-read some of my favorite poetry books by Kenneth Patchen, Gary Snyder, Eleanor Lerman…

A month of searching, hoping that a title would find me. No luck.

How did you choose a title for your writing?

Have you checked to make sure no one else is using that title?