Linda McHenry

Linda McHenry is a novelist and freelance writer.

Do you pick up your marbles and go home?

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My mother used all kinds of clichéd sayings, many of them directed at me:

          I have a bone to pick with you…

          Don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.

          Oh, so you’re going to pick up your marbles and go home, are you?

Mom’s been gone for 20 years now and I can still hear her voice when she was disappointed and we were about to have a discussion that would portray me in a very poor light: “Linda Ann, I have a bone to pick with you.” I’d rather have been smacked, grounded, and placed in solitary confinement than take part in the conversation that followed those words.

Each one of us disappoints someone. We irritate and piss off other people, too. Just like other people disappoint, irritate, and anger us. It’s the way of the world. This became crystal clear to me when I began teaching. I wanted all my students to like and agree with me and went home crying if I got a less than stellar evaluation. But it stopped bothering me when I realized I didn’t like all my students, either. (So there.)

In case you don’t know me, I’ll let you in on a secret: I’ve been accused of being stubborn and wanting to be right. Because I’m a basically honest person, I’ll concede to having those qualities. But when I was younger, I hated being wrong. Hated with a capital “h.” I would refuse to accept that I could be wrong.

An old family joke involves me memorizing the names of the presidents. You know the 11th president, right? James Knox PLOCK. I insisted that’s what my teacher told me his name was, so that’s what it was. (Everyone knows that when you’re wrong you blame it on someone else, right?)

I’m the butt of another family joke, this time about the lyrics to the song America. Bet you didn’t know they began with, My country ’tis of SWEET, did you? I went to bed without supper because I refused to read the lyrics in the Encyclopedia my parents pulled off the bookshelf.

You’ll be happy to know my face is intact and I’ve learned to think about the consequences before sticking to my guns.

Quitting is something both my parents frowned on. You never quit. Never. And neither of them ever did. They always reached for the brass ring and always wanted their first choice. But they had second, third, and fourth choices waiting in the wings if needed. Because no matter how much you hoped, believed, and prayed, they told me, things don’t always go the way you want them to. (My Dad always used to say, Life is a series of plans gone awry.)

I remember a couple of times in my youth when I wanted to quit. Moving forward in a certain direction seemed pointless. Impossible. When you’re faced with a brick wall, you don’t keep banging your head against it, you turn around and go home, right?

Actually, no, you don’t. According to my Mom, you dig a hole beneath it, you keep walking along it until it ends, or you climb over it. And if none of those solutions work, then you use your brain and come up with one that will. Because your strongest weapon is your mind.

For some reason, I believed her. I also followed her advice, for the most part, as I’ve lived my life. When I think about the few times I did quit, I think about the opportunities I may have missed. I don’t quit any more. I seek compromises, solutions that aren’t readily apparent. If I never reach out for that brass ring, how am I ever going to grab hold of it?

When things don’t go the way you want them to, do you quit? Or do you pick up your marbles and go home?

February insurance CE webinar schedule is now available

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I just uploaded the insurance CE webinars I’m teaching for A.D. Banker and Company during the month of February. Topics include:

  • Cyber Security
  • Disability Income Planning
  • Annuity Suitability
  • Homeowners Endorsements
  • Medicare
  • Driving into the Future: Uber, Drones, and Driverless Cars
  • P&C Risks and Catastrophes
  • Professional Liability

For more information, or to register, click here.

Can you use more kindness in your life?

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I think it’s normal for people to reflect about their youth as they age. Some of us remember special times and people we’ll never see again: our first loves, that summer vacation that just can’t be topped… And some of us are incredibly grateful we don’t have to relive sitting home the night of the prom or that godawful first job.

Either way, I think most of us agree life was different then. No, we didn’t have to walk 5 miles to school in the snow, uphill both ways, but we all remember things our children and/or grandchildren never heard of, like carbon paper, 78s, and party lines. As we look back, the nostalgia of kinder times fills our minds and we can’t help but compare them to the way things are right now. Kindness is what I seek when I look backward, probably because I’m experiencing less and less of it these days.

Psychologists say that to overcome the harm of a single negative comment, a person needs to receive seven positive comments. Do you know anyone who praises more than he or she criticizes, let alone seven times more?

When I grew up, my parents told me to always reach for my first choice, that good old brass ring. They also cautioned I wouldn’t always reach the brass ring, finish first, or get exactly what I wanted. And when that happened, I needed to be prepared. I had to have second, third, and fourth choices waiting in the wings.

Which is why I wanted to be a mother … a writer … a musician … a doctor … a teacher … and a ballerina. (Note: I always knew I couldn’t be a ballerina, but I still dreamed.)

The worst thing in the world isn’t failing to get what you want, Mom said, it’s quitting. Well, actually, that’s not the worst. The real worst is not getting what you want because you didn’t even try to get it or because you sat around and waited for someone else to get it for you.

When you expect other people to do things for you, you set yourself up for failure because they’re too busy searching for their own brass rings. Sure, they love and care about you, and might take a rest from their own searches to help you once in a while. But let’s face it, everyone’s more concerned with themselves than they are with other people.

Which, in some ways, is sad. Yes, we need to take care of ourselves. But we need to take care of each other, too. On our quests for whatever it is we seek, we need to walk around people instead of stepping on them as if they were staircases. We need to listen to the things we say and imagine if those very same words were directed at us. (The Golden Rule isn’t really as obsolete as carbon paper, is it?)

Tell your coworker you love the color of her sweater. Let the driver who’s been waiting patiently at the stop sign pull out in front of you. Give your dog an extra treat. Tell your child, spouse, parent, AND brother you love them. Why? Just because.

Kindness doesn’t need a reason. It is a reason in and of itself.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

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I’ve always struggled with making decisions. Is it nature or nurture? Black or white? Free will or destiny?

Over time, I’ve realized that nothing is always black or white. Yes, some nights it’s so dark you can’t see your hand in front of your face. And some days, the sun is so bright you can’t see for the yellow spots in your eyes.

We’re always looking for answers … and we want those answers to be guarantees. We seek the absolute, because it makes us feel more secure. In reality, life is more often grey than it is black and white.

From the time I was in fourth grade, I knew I wanted to be a writer when I grew up. By the time I reached high school, my parents and just about everyone I knew told me that was an unrealistic dream. After all, everyone knows writers can’t support themselves with their writing.

Being a practical person when I’m not dreaming, I decided to change my mind about what to be when I grew up. Being a teacher of special needs students became my goal. All during high school, I traded study hall for volunteering in the classes with kids who had down syndrome and other developmental handicaps.

Fast forward through dropping out of college, getting married, having 3 kids, establishing my own business, getting divorced, establishing two more businesses, doing the marriage/divorce thing again, and having several other adventures. I am now officially all grown up and facing retirement age in a few short years.

Remember what I wanted to be when I grew up? First choice: a writer. Second choice: a teacher. Well, what I’m doing is writing and teaching because I AM both a writer and a teacher.

When I was young, I saw things in black and white. I could either be a writer OR a teacher. I could only write certain types of words or teach certain types of children.

No matter what life threw at me, I continued writing. Most of the time, I didn’t consider myself a writer because I wasn’t writing bestselling novels. And I didn’t consider myself a real teacher because I didn’t have a college degree.

Now that my hair is turning grey, and I’ve come to like and accept the color, I can see clearly that I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do and I have always been a writer (and teacher). For a long time, I let the different shades of other people’s opinions color my view of myself.

Don’t do that. Be who you are. Paint your own story and don’t pay attention to the lines.

 

 

Perspective on Plotting

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When writing fiction, my plotting skills seem to be weaker than my skills at creating enjoyable characters are.  If I attend a writer’s conference, the first workshops I register for are those that reveal the speaker’s view about how to build an engaging, riveting plot.

I attended the New England Crime Bake last fall, and (fortunately for me) Gayle Lynds’ plotting workshop was the first event I participated in. I walked away with an entirely different method of plotting because her advice actually enabled me to view plotting from a character-driven perspective.

Here were my takeaways from her phenomenal presentation, and what I now keep in mind as I plot fiction:

  1. The primary goal of plotting is to create a craving within readers, one that demands they continue reading to find out what happens next
  2. Show readers you’re going to deliver, then postpone making delivery
  3. Each character, including villains and other bad guys, must have at least one unique character trait with which readers can identify (villains who are ALL bad are not realistic)
  4. The POV character in each scene must have a goal, and one with stakes that have consequences
  5. It doesn’t so much matter whether the POV character achieves his or her goal, what matters is that complications occur to delay, prevent, or challenge achievement of the goal
  6. The plot is controlled by the villain (or whatever it is the protagonist in the story is battling with/against)
  7. The plot evolves from what the villain does/does not do, and how the POV character responds/does not respond
  8. Each person thinks/feels differently, therefore, responds differently

Here are a couple of scenarios to illustrate:
Example 1

Oscar (the bad guy) is a murderer who believes the strongest person always wins. Clearly, most of us will not identify with Oscar.

However, think about how you’d feel if you learned Oscar was beaten so badly by his father when he was 10-years-old that he spent 3 months in the hospital. And that when he was in the hospital, one of the nurses urged Oscar to live, to not give up, to be strong and survive–because the strongest person always wins. Are you going to view Oscar differently now?

Probably. I’m not saying you’ll be okay with Oscar being a murderer. But you’ll understand why he is, and why his thinking is so distorted from the way a “normal” person thinks.

Example 2

The villain/antagonist in a story is a killer snowstorm, one against which the Elliot (the protagonist) must pit his strengths.

Do you think Elliott’s chances of survival, and the events that threaten his survival, will be more challenging if he were raised in Alaska … or Texas? Because the snowstorm/Mother Nature is the villain driving the plot, the way Elliott thinks and feels (the character-driven aspects of the story) will dictate how he acts/does not act (the plot).

In short, the plot is always dependent upon the characters. When trying to move through a portion of a story where your plot ideas have dried up, simply put your character in a situation that will call for him or her to take action. If the result doesn’t move the story forward, or reveal significant details about the character or where the story is going, you haven’t placed the character in a good enough place.

Final Point (and a true story)

Remember that first love–the person you adored more than anyone in the world … and lost? Imagine how your life would be now if you two hadn’t been separated. How would you plot this story? How would you take what you know and spin it with your writer’s imagination?

When I put myself in this situation, I learned that when my first love was in his 50s, he wound up serving 5 years in prison for a conviction that involved molestation a teenage boy under the age of 16.

If I were plotting this alternative story, I’d wonder:

  • If I hadn’t moved away and continued dating him, would my life have become a horror story?
  • Would dating me have interfered with his life story and prevented a circumstance that contributed to his grisly behavior?
  • Had his path already been set by the time I met him, and nothing I did or said would have changed who he became as an adult?

(Note: These are just the first 3 things I thought of. If I were really plotting, I’d dream up at least 10 or 12 different scenarios.)

I thought I knew my first love. But, in reality, all I knew about the boy was that he had an older brother, his family lived in a pink house, and he was originally from Florida. God only knows what he experienced before he met me, during the 3 years we lived in the same town, and after I moved away at age 14.