May 01

Grasshoppers Popcorn

65 years ago I was about ten years old and I had seasonal activities.  In winter and early spring, I played hide and seek around the block under the dim street light with a bunch of girls.  During the monsoon season in the summer, I caught small fish in the rice field.  Under the blue sky with cool autumn winds, I caught grasshoppers in the dried rice field and brought them home to make snacks, grasshoppers popcorn.

Rice was our main dish, and still is, but not to the same extent as fifty years ago.  Then we were solely dependent on sticky rice as the staple in our diet.  Now we have a mixture of wheat, barley, red beans and other grains with white rice for a healthy diet.  We called it “zagokbob” meaning mixture of rice and grains, the other one was “hynbob” meaning white rice without any grains.  The rice was packaged in 100 lb. bags made of rice straw.  At that time, the symbol of wealth was the number of rice bags that were harvested in the autumn and stored in the barn.  Now, the biggest package of rice in the Korean grocery store is only 25 lbs.

In the early spring, farmers needed hands to plant the small rice plants in the field.  Even elementary school students helped out for one or two days during the planting season.  Farmers put the thread throughout the field to plant the shoots in a straight line  at one foot intervals in one foot deep water.

The leeches sucked my blood near the ankles and 90o bending in order to plant the shoots was an extremely terrible job at such a young age.  However, I did finish the job without crying.

In Korea the monsoon season is between July and August.  It rained every day, with 100% humidity.  In 1950, we did not have washers and dryers.  We did hand washing on a washboard and dried by air.  Occasionally we got mold on freshly washed clothes.

Despite the pouring rain and getting soaked to the skin, I enjoyed catching the small fish that were flowing down at the terrace of the rice field with the round sieve that was formerly used for separating the dry grains.

My mother was not appreciative of bringing the fish for one additional dish for dinner because of the fish smell, I was scolded instead for taking the sieve that was only for dry materials.  But I had a great time hopping around the terrace following the streams of small fish..

I was told “In Korea the so-called autumn has blue sky without any clouds and with abundant harvest to make the horses fat”.  The saying meant it was the most peaceful season, with bountiful harvests of rice, fruits and vegetables.  The lazy horse was getting fat without concern about the lack of grass to eat.  The rice field was getting yellowish brown and the grasshoppers and birds were in the heavens to eat the crops.  My activities in the rice field were no exception in the autumn

After endless requests, grandpa made me a net to catch grasshoppers.

“Grandpa, don’t tell mommy you made me a net,” I begged him.  “Mmm,” was his slow response.

At that time we did not have any steel wire for making grasshopper nets.  I don’t know why.  Anyway, grandpa used a thin bamboo stick as a ring and sewed the cloth around it to make a net to catch grasshoppers.

I grabbed it and ran without wasting time to say “thank you,” and went to the rice field a couple of miles away.  The early afternoon sun was hot compared to the chilly morning.  After running for two miles, my light cotton blouse and pants were all wet like being soaked by the rain.

The farmers often said, daytime heat will accelerate the ripening of the rice.   Several scarecrows stood in the field to chase away birds and grasshoppers.  At first the sparrows and grasshoppers were frightened by the scarecrows, later they were getting smarter and were even landing on the heads of the scarecrows with loud chirping.  When I ran to a small trail between the rice fields, a couple of boys were already catching grasshoppers and filled half of a one pint glass jar.

Gee, they got here before me, I said to myself, and continued mumbling.  If I am behind them catching grasshoppers, I will come back later to make up.  I cannot be behind.

“Hey, Kook-Wha, no girls are coming here.  I will tell your mom you were here again at the rice field.”  A boy with a bald haircut and a lanky figure like a small telephone pole threatened me.

“My grandpa said it was ok,” was my timid and naïve answer.  If my mother knew I was in the rice field again I would be in big trouble.

When I arrived in the middle of the field, a bunch of grasshoppers flew away with a loud noise from flapping their wings.  There were so many grasshoppers, gray, brown and green, I could almost catch them in my hands.  By swirling the net, one, two, three — I put the grasshoppers into the jar.  I got a full bottle of grasshoppers.  “Oh, great.”  I was thrilled, but I wondered how could I ask mom to saute’ or roast them for a great snack?  I continued to talk to myself, I might get spanked again and continued, But today grandpa is at home, so it will be okay.  With these thoughts I ran home with the bottle full of grasshoppers.

Mom was in the kitchen and grandpa was in the yard taking care of the pigs.  I was relieved because in the presence of grandpa mom had never yelled at me and never, never spanked me.

“Mom, I caught some grasshoppers.”  Mom was quiet.  “Mom, can you saut’e or roast them, like Soodal’s mom did for him?  He is having them for snacks all the time”.  Soodal was the lanky boy.  I begged mom, holding two hands tightly.  “Soodal already came and told me that you were at the rice field,” mom answered.  I noticed the cold expression on her face.  “Mom, please.”  I asked her one more time with my head down without staring into her face.

She started to make a charcoal fire in a very small stove.  It was one foot high and about a foot in diameter with two layers inside.  The upper was for charcoal layers and the bottom had a side wall with a small inlet for the air flow.  When the charcoal had a red flame, mom put the pan on that was coated with soybean oil and waited for the pan to get hot.

“Mom, thank you,” I almost screamed.  She did not answer, but just did it for me.

I did not remember how I poured the grasshoppers from the narrow mouthed bottle into the hot pan, but I do remember that as soon as they were in, I put the lid on the pan.   Mom and I could hear the popping noise of the grasshoppers as they jumped inside the pan.  “Grasshopper Popcorn”.  The smell of soybean oil was permeating the air and stimulated my appetite.

The tension between my mother and I was reduced, and I saw a beautiful smile on her face.  It was a rare occasion to see that she was happy about my odd behavior instead of punishing me.  Mom, thank you.  I am so happy,  I mumbled to myself.

When mom opened the lid of the pan the grasshoppers lay down in the pan.  Some had wings, some didn’t.  I grabbed them into my mouth.  They were hot with a soybean oil smell.  “Yummy, mom,” I was exhilarated.

One week ago, in the middle of September 2010, I read in the Wall Street Journal about a gourmet food restaurant with insects; crickets, grasshoppers and others with a bug theme, for dinners, snacks and main dishes, in Brooklyn, New York, and Boston area,  promoting “Insects are tasty and nutritious”.

Now, I must decide whether to have gourmet meals with insects.  It may be a wonderful memory re-created, but will my guests enjoy it, even myself?  That is a great question, besides, how will I catch live grasshoppers around here?  I haven’t seen any rice fields in Michigan.  The smile on my face said it all.  I was one of the first pioneers with creative gourmet snacks with grasshoppers popcorn.

Apr 24

What’s Magic in a Million Words?

In addition to being a ‘word’ person, I’m also a ‘numbers’ person.  So when I hear someone say, “You have to write a million words before you will have something good enough to publish,” both sides of my brain start to fire up.  Can you imagine?  A magic number to work toward, and when you reach it all your writing dreams will come true.  Sounds wonderful, but I know it doesn’t work like that.

Nonetheless, a lot of people seem to be striving to meet that magical number.  Do a search on the internet for the phrase ‘write a million words’ and you’ll see what I mean.  So what’s the allure?  I think the draw is due to several messages the phrase communicates:

1)       Practice Makes Perfect – This centuries old bit of common sense is motivation to keep at it and work to improve at what you do.  I would modify it to say, “Practice, with feedback, makes perfect.”  You can do a lot of your own editing to improve the quality of your work.  However, getting feedback is important in order to avoid the blind spots you get from being too close to your own writing.  Don’t take the ‘million word’ phrase too literally and wait till you hit the one million mark to show your work to anyone.  The better way is to get feedback as you go and be open to constructive advice.

2)       Persevere – Rejection comes with the job so don’t take being turned down by publishers and agents personally.  If you self-publish and don’t gain an audience, don’t take that personally either.  There are many reasons why your work might not be accepted.  You may never find out the reasons, and if you do it may not make any sense or have anything to do with your talent.  So when a rejection letter comes in, resolve to keep going and continue on your writing path.

3)       It’s Helpful to Have a Goal – No matter how much you love writing, there may be times when you can use some extra incentive to keep you moving along.  Getting to the million word mark can be a fun way of challenging yourself, or creating a friendly rivalry between writers.  Organized events such as the National Novel Writing Month offer support and resources to help and encourage you toward your goal.

Ultimately, writing is a journey with no fixed end and no roadmaps to sure things or dead ends.  If things don’t happen for you in the first one million words, maybe it will happen in the second.  Author Ursula K. Le Guin said “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”  Enjoy your journey, wherever it may take you.  That’s where the magic lies and the only person who can stop it is you.  Don’t let it end too soon.

Apr 23

Six Sensible Rules for Suspense

Amy stirs, half asleep and freezing cold with a putrid taste sticking to her throat. In the distance, her two dogs bark frantically. Much closer, the wind whistles in the fog and gently brushes her cheek, and that puzzles her…?

Amy wakes with a jolt and shivers with fear. “Glenn!” she calls, coughs and shoves the lump that is her husband. “Glenn! There’s a fire! Glenn, wake up!”

Glenn feels flaccid and clammy, and just snores through the thick smoke now rushing over them. She looks towards the dresser and the digital clock but sees only dark. “Glenn!” She turns him over, her voice hysterical, harsh. She swallows clawing smoke and stale booze. Glenn snores. Amy tries to get out of bed but the smoke and the heat beat her back.

“Brian! Bria! Jump!!” What was a putrid, cold fog only seconds ago is now an oven pouring out suffocation. “Jump!!”

She pulls the comforter over her head and thinks of her children as she clasps her throat. The smoke presses down and crushes all hope. She hears the roar of a locomotive drown out the dogs, and she whimpers with her last breath, “Please, jump!”

What did you see in this scene?

Did you see a cold, dark, two-story house on fire? Did you see Amy’s dogs downstairs barking to get someone’s attention? Her kids asleep, already dead, or hopefully jumping for their lives? Did you see fire roaring up the stairwell? A desperate woman trying to wake a drunk? Did you see Amy surrender to the sheer weight of her circumstances? In less than a minute, did you see what mattered most in her all-too-brief life?

If so, you’ve got a pretty good mind’s eye because the entire 60-seconds was clouded in smoke.

Amy couldn’t see a thing! She coughed the smoke, heard the dogs, the wind and the fire, felt and smelled the inebriated Glenn and the putrid of something toxic. Jump shouted that it was a two-story house, wind and roar brought smoke and fire rushing up the stairs. Stale booze gave you a taste of why Glenn was not waking up. Not one word was written for the eyes. If the only sense Amy had were her vision, she would have died in her sleep like Glenn. End of story. And that is exactly what writing to the other senses does – it wakes up your reader, it lets them see through the smoke.

The senses are five vital, but very different, utensils in the writing’s toolbox. Here are my six sensible rules for how to use them correctly.

General Rule: “Taste and touch follow what we see. Smells and sounds precede our sight.”
Where you can show better tension, wordplay becomes fuel for your fire and you’ll want to break the rules. That’s the fun bit, but that’s not the first rule.

First Rule. “Don’t stop to smell the roses in first draft, just get your hero to safe harbor.” In other words, don’t let the minutia bog you down; finish the scene. Finish your novel.

It is only natural for the suspense author to write through his/her eyes because we envision our story as we write it – We make this stuff up! In first draft, it is much easier to just paint the broad strokes while our fireworks are still in the air. Fair enough. But use your second draft to color in all the tiny, mind-searing, sparkling bursts with precision. Not just: “Stole a Jet Ski and zigzagged out into the storm dodging bullets.” (1st draft). Let your readers: “Inhale the salty air, feel the rumble of the engine through her thighs and hold on tight as the Jet Ski slams-hard-against-the-surf, while Sluggo’s bullets wiz past her ear.” (2nd draft). Save those salty, rumbling details for when you’re more relaxed and can take the time to study the scene carefully, with all five of your senses functioning freely.

Second Rule: “Cleverly, but clearly, break the rest of the rules where it adds suspense.” Do this where it adds more tension, comedy or calamity.

“Just slept on it funny,” he gruffed and limped away.

That works, in a lame way, because people don’t usually sound gruff when they are trying to be funny (or use the word lame when trying to be serious), and your actions or characters will become indelible.

Third Rule: “Hearing delivers more than just sound.”

Sound is the hardest of all the senses to fool on the page, so it should be the easiest “other” sense to write to. Be careful: sound is also the only sense that we rely on with impunity. The other four work in harmony, they confirm or cancel each other out, but sound is a lone actor in the dark. Because we have two ears, we also get a sense of direction and distance which adds to the tension. When a sound beckons your character, and before they turn their eyes in that direction, their mind has already played back memories of what that sound – or voice – meant. Just reusing that sound and response in a later chapter can recall all the trauma in the first scene. You can now draw comparisons to that first scene without saying another word, without compromising pace or tension.

“A shot rang out! He heard the cock of an antique Winchester and knew who was behind it.” (2nd scene – I’ll let you color in the first scene.)

Your character will trust their ears before their eyes. They’ll likely first crouch, scream or run, or smile, laugh or pucker up based on what they hear, then see if they’re right. Or horribly wrong!

Horrific sights should freeze your mortal characters to a point where they cannot move. Frightening sounds should have them running first, thinking later.

Fourth Rule: “Touch and taste are secondary to sight.”

These two senses always confirm what we see. Well, almost always. Walk, barefoot through a dark cave and stepped on something cold and slimy that went hissss, and clearly you see a snake. But that only works in a dark cave, and because our ears confirmed our worst fears.

Touch and taste we can take as one because we rarely use them together – popcorn being one exception; sex being another. But touch and taste only work in only a limited way on the page because these two senses are internal by nature. If what you write is out of sync with dear reader’s preconceived notion, your tasty words will not be enrichment at all. One woman’s yum is another’s woman’s yuck.

No vegetarian is going to agree with your “mouth-watering” response to the question, how was the beef Wellington? (1st draft) But what if your character’s response were instead, “She rolled her eyes, held her tummy and tongued her lips.” (2nd) Carnivorous readers might still salivate, but your vegetarian audience might see gag me and make me throw up from the same three motions. And you haven’t carelessly taken a segment of your audience out of the story. That’s what I mean by be careful with taste and touch.

Generic feelings (kiss, hold, hug), and tastes (salty, cold, hot) work best with strong adverbs like humongous and dainty. Unique feelings (itching, stinging, horrifying) and tastes (briny, zesty, spicy) work best on their own.

Fifth Rule: “When in doubt, follow your nose.”

Scent is a different breed of cat all together. In my piece at the beginning, it is the smell of smoke that awakens Amy, and she has full command of all of her senses within a heartbeat. We cannot ignore the scent of fear. If something foreign gets past our nose, our subconscious instantly knows that it can’t let anything happen to our breathing. Scent is the only one of the five sense that will wake us up from a deep sleep with our adrenalin already pumping.

Scents stick with us, too. Some, forever…. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and take in memories like: That wonderful aroma of Grandma’s kitchen; your wedding corsage; your dog after it caught the skunk. If the last one of these got you to blink or your nostrils to twitch, I rest my case. “Wonderful aroma” and “skunk” don’t fit. But, you knew that.

So the only trick here is to use scents correctly, by appeal. Fragrances heighten a sensual scene, or turn the screws on uncertain moments. Aromas can instantly cast light on the dark, or call forth a forgotten memory. Odors tell time’s passage, they foretell danger down the road and quickly time-stamp past, traumatic events.

Sixth Rule: “Men focus on the hunt; women gather on the periphery.”

Which brings us to the eyes. Writing descriptive suspense for the eyes is as easy as carrying on a conversation with a close confidant. Just vividly put on the page what your mind’s eye beholds and don’t hold back. If you’re writing in third-person, imagine your friend is telling you instead.

Only, it is important to remember that your men and women will see things differently. And that difference is primordial. And that primordial instinct is the very essence of believable suspense.

In pre-historic times, the male hunters depended on silence to sneak up on their prey. They used their two eyes together to fix on the distance needed to throw their spear and kill dinner. Another hunter knew exactly what this man was thinking by just following his gaze. Gatherers – the women, children and one-eyed old men – depended on making noise and using their voices to scare the wild things from the berry bushes. For protection, women used their two eyes to focus on two or more things at the same time. They learned to depend on their peripheral vision to spot movements off to the side. One wrong move and they’d be stung or bitten, or become the dinner.

Those two unique survival traits are still in our eyes today. Men still look straight into who or what has their mental focus, and women are still much quicker at spotting movement on the periphery while looking you in the eye.

That’s true about not only the lady’s deep, baby-blue, mischievous, sparkling, haunting, adorned, oval, cat-like, vicious, emerald, crying, smiling, laughing, sad, happy or otherwise adorable eyes that we can clearly see, but her mind’s eye, too. Her sixth sense is broad. His is keen.

Six Sensible Rules for Suspense
1) Don’t stop to smell the roses in first draft, just get your hero to safe harbor.
2) Cleverly, but clearly, break the rules where it make more suspense.
3) Hearing delivers more than just sound: direction; distance; friend-or-foe.
4) Touch and taste are secondary to sight.
5) When in doubt, follow your nose.
6) Men focus on the hunt; women gather on the periphery.

Next Month: Information dumps. Those lumps of facts and timestamps that precede your storyline are so often the hidden, root cause for your character’s actions. Until you get them on the page your story remains convoluted where you want to be clear. But factoids are just the canvas, not the painting. You can’t allow them to slow down the action and quick pace that is suspense! They’re essential, and, at the right moment, need to be clearly conveyed, but it doesn’t have to read like a rap sheet. Next month we’ll look at how to backfill your story without slowing down the action.

Apr 22

More Voices from the Past

When I was thinking about my blog post for April, I had several ideas. But one gripped me and wouldn’t let go. It came from other letters I’d read and copied when I was in California last month. This time they were from my mother’s side of the family.

In Europe in the late 1930s and early 1940s, Hitler was annihilating the Jews as fast as he could. Grandma’s oldest brother, Abram Bonomi, was Jewish, born in Romania but an Italian citizen. He been knighted by the king of Italy and now he was stuck in Beirut without papers, and trying desperately to get to his family in the United States.

Grandma and Papa were doing everything they could think of to get him a visa to come to America. They weren’t having much luck. My parents were dating at the time and my father offered to help.

The letters are so frustrating. Apparently my father had written to his senator, Hiram Johnson from California, asking for help and saying that he and my grandparents would be financially responsible for Abram when came to the United States.

On February 5, 1941, Leslie Reed, the American Consul in Athens, Greece, writes back that “The records … show that on two occasions during … 1940 Mr. Bonomi called at the Consulate General requested a visitor’s visa to proceed to the United States for the purpose of travel and for visiting his sister Mrs. Clara Wein, 1855 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco. In the course of these interviews it was established that Mr. Bonomi had no fixed domicile in Greece and no occupation or interests which would require his return to this country or to Roumania, where he had formerly been in business, and that as a retired businessman with near relatives in the United States the inducements would be rather toward strengthing his ties in the United States and prolonging his sojourn there. Accordingly it was decided that Mr. Bonomi could not qualify under the regulations for non-immigrant visas.”

From reading the letter, I get the impression that the American Consul thinks he has all the time in the world. It doesn’t seem to faze him that there’s a world war going on, Greece is falling to the Nazis, and this man, as well as others, desperately needs to get out.

On June 10, 1941, four months later, never having been contacted by Leslie Reed, Abram writes from Beirut “My Clara dear, my dear Josephine (my mother), my dear Julius” that “the Palestine Government refused me the entrance visa, as there arrived a disposition from the Foreign Office, not to accept any Rumanian, who left after February 15th.”

He says he cabled my grandparents in San Francisco on June 2 but received no answer back. He “cannot continue to remain here, as my means are very anemic and I am not allowed to accept a position because I am a stranger. Besides, I am continually asked to leave the country, as they do not want us.”

He goes on to say that “The Mexican Counsul over here cannot understand why you did not succeed yet. If I get an engagement over there with a Company which needs me as specialist, the immigration visa is quickly granted. In case one wants to go there as a tourist for six months, he must have over there a deposit of 200 pesos for his monthly expenses (that means about 40 per month, total 240) and the visa is quickly given. If somebody goes there for six months, he easily can arrange to remain more. All other ways are difficult – he says.

Well! I’m sure you know quite well what can be done. Otherwise nothing new. I hope you are all well.

With best wishes,

Abram”

After that there are more letters to the person in charge of visas in Beirut, to the representative from California, etc., etc., etc.– all very bureaucratic and proper documenting the fact that they were doing nothing.

I keep thinking, what must it have been like for him, older, in his sixties, running out of money, not allowed to work, knowing he had family in the U.S. that wanted him and would take care of him and no one, no one would give him the paperwork he needed?

Only when they were prodded by Washington, would they do something. But only if Abram would come them. How was he to know that if he came back a third time, he might actually get the precious papers? They never looked for him, assuming he was no longer there. But he was for four more months at least, February through June and maybe even longer.

During this time, Grandma and Papa were frequently writing letters to Abram in Beirut, to the Red Cross and sending telegrams.

The saddest letter is the last one, written to Abram in care of the “Hotel Diana, Ekali (Athens), Greece, Europe”. My mother writes how much she misses him and of her coming marriage in August. My grandmother writes how they haven’t gotten any mail from him in a long time and “are very anxious to hear from you.” My grandfather’s ends with “We haven’t heard from you lately and hope to receive good news from you real soon.”

Stamped on the envelope is the message, “Return to Sender    Service Suspended.”

Apr 18

Does your car need a poetic license plate?

Bet’cha you’re a poet and didn’t even know it.

However, ask me if I’m a poet, and my immediate response is no.  After all, poetry is sing-songy rhymes sung by first graders.  Classic poets are older writers spewing stylized language for pages upon pages.  The new wave of poets are hipsters baring their raw, tortured souls for 20 minutes on coffeeshop stages, waxing on the dearth of the human landscape. I’m just a wanna-be hipster, but I do appreciate Spoken Word.  I just don’t “get” a lot of it.

Poetry intimidates me.  I feel pressured to find something meaningful from the long strangling paragraphs of confusing and deep intense emotions.  When I don’t get some passionate, life-changing insight, I feel like a numb, witless slug.  Shakespeare frustrates me because my reading flow is disrupted by looking up too many word definitions.  Again, I’m the imbecile.  Too often, poetry is dissected in a class assignment to study form and intention, not enjoyed for the words themselves.  Poetry becomes work, stale and tedious.  There are ways to make poetry approachable, and that is to have fun.

One of my Top Five Favorite College Projects actually came in a poetry class I took as a junior.  Our assignment had a list of specific rules, including writing in a particular meter with rhythm and using a specific number of words from the glossary provided.  The challenge was the intrigue, and my submission, “To Catch a Frog,” is the only poem I ever committed to memory.  This is the first stanza of the one page poem:

To kiss a frog, some say, may lead

to warts upon one’s foolish head.

So it occurred that fateful eve,

when I was lured to test belief,

departed with my sturdy trap

to catch a frog down Boggy Swamp.

 Poetry can be a space to play and experiment, even for the non-poet writer.  It is fractured storytelling.  You can choose not to follow the traditional rules of grammar or punctuation.  April is National Poetry Month, the NaNoWriMo for poets.  This is the time to celebrate something new or forgotten.

About 14 years ago, I discovered the appeal of haiku. My friend and I traveled to a book expo in New York City.  She is a poet, so it was no surprise that the haiku year caught her eye.  The book features haikus written on postcards and mailed amongst a group of friends.  The poetry form itself presents a limited commitment composing three lines of 5-7-5 syllables.  It is short and structured with some boundaries, thus user-friendly.  Perfect.

We both loved the creativity of it, so we emailed daily haikus to give out Inbox joy and mailed weekend postcards to keep our mailboxes from becoming jealous.  We still do this today, with our subject material less nature-focused and more snippets of life in the style of senryu.photo

I discovered an iPhone app, Heyku, which encourages anyone to post any type of poetry, with the option to add interactive sketches, photos, or sound to each poem. I do not know the size of this online community, but I find it welcoming because I have followers of my poetry.  I feel safe here, and thus more confident in my approach.  You can find me there at d.w.Hirsch, always under the #haiku tag.  Many of my haikus are now posted on Instagram (dwhirsch) where I can become more hipster with the trendy, special filters.  Whatever the format, whether the month is April or beyond, my writing is whimsical and casual, the way I think poetry should be.

Be your own poet.