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Stephen King should help pay for our move.

September 13, 2014 By Talya Tate Boerner 14 Comments

What’s everyone doing this weekend?

I’ll be packing. I’ve been packing for two days, and I’m still packing books. How ridiculous. And yes, I’ve already driven a trunkย load to Half-Price Books. Stephen King or John Grisham or some author whose work is filling ourย shelves shouldย pitch in for the cost of our extremely HEAVY moving truck. Yes, we are book hoarders. Always have been. Always will be.

Stephen King should help pay for our move.

 

I read that you should only move books that are a) rare, b) have sentimental value, or c) will be read again. With these rules in mind, we still haveย enough books toย lay end to end from Dallas to Fayetteville. That sentimental value rule gets me every time.

The process is sloooowwww because I find books that necessitate stopping, reading, studying. ย The oldย book pictured below came from the Keiser High School Library. Obviously I didn’t steal it because according to the due date card, the return date was “Never Ever” (mysteriously in my handwriting).

old Keiser High School Library Book

Do you remember the post “Things I Don’t Need More of Even If I Live To Be 104”? Add to the list Christmas Cards! I have discoveredย sacks and sacks of brand new cards stuck away in closets or cabinets. I snagged them at after-Christmas sales. A word of advice…buying something on sale never to be usedย is not a deal.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

Smashing Pumpkins, Drown

 

on writing First Sentences

December 9, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner 33 Comments

In a recent article with The Atlantic, Stephen King describes the first line of a book as the reader’s invitation to begin the story.

“โ€ฆa really good first line can do so much to establish that crucial sense of voiceโ€”it’s the first thing that acquaints you, that makes you eager, that starts to enlist you for the long haul. So there’s incredible power in it, when you say, come in here. You want to know about this. And someone begins to listen.”

My friend and writing mentor Pat Carr says the first sentence is a promise to the readerโ€” a promise of what’s to come. The first sentence sets the story’s mood and tone.

The first sentence is a promise of what's to come...

What pressure! That first sentence is often a stumbling block to the second sentence.

I’ve been studying first sentences to test this theory. Here are the openings lines to a few of my favorite booksโ€ฆ (in no particular order)

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. (A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens)

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. (1984, George Orwell)

When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle, everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. (The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett)

It was a pleasure to burn. (Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury)

If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is when I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. (Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger)

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. (The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austin)

All children, except one, grow up. (Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie)

The terror that would not end for another twenty-eight years, if it ever did, began so far as I can know or tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain. (It, Stephen King)

When Augustus came on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnakeโ€”not a very big one. (Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry)

He understood what they were thinking and saying: Old man that he is, what’s to become of him? (To Dance With the White Dog, Terry Kay)

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. (Little Women, Louisa May Alcott)

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. (The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini)

At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. (Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier)

At sundown, when they led him to the chair, Nail Chism began to understand the meaning of the name of his hometown, Stay More. (The Choiring of the Trees, Donald Harington)

What’s your favorite first book line?

Cold Mountain - On  Writing First Sentences

 

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

P.S. The opening line to wildly popular Fifty Shadesโ€ฆ

I scowl at frustration at myself in the mirror. (Fifty Shades of Grey, E. L. James)

hmmmm. Not much of a promise.

I married Cookie Monster

April 2, 2012 By Talya Tate Boerner 4 Comments

I married Cookie Monster. John bought 18 boxes of girl scout cookies. There are only 2 humans living within the walls of this house, and one of us gave up sweets for forty days and forty nights.

Don’t misunderstand, I am totally supportive of the girl and boy scouts. Never can I turn down a cute little tiger cub standing on the doorstep stumbling through his caramel popcorn sales pitch. Through the years, we’ve purchased enough boy scout popcorn to string it from here to Waco and back. Even when our own son was peddling $50 tubs, we still ordered from the adorable little neighborhood Webelo. I’m a sucker for a man in uniform. 
Tate

But 18 boxes? They line the pantry shelf like best-selling hardback novels. And much like a new Stephen King novel,  you can’t lay it down, obsessively think about it until you get to the very end – of the fat book or the fattening box. Even when you know there can never be a happy ending. You lie awake at night. You may as well get a glass of warm milk.

The boxes stare at me each time I open the cabinet to reach for brown rice or coffee. The spine of the boxes summarize the girl scout story promoting “Courage Confidence Character”. What about Calories? Like the beating tell-tale heart, the boxes whisper in the wee hours as I sleep-walk by to let the schnauzers out. The moment John heads off to work with boxes and boxes of cookies for all, another shipment turns up at the door. How many more has he ordered? There are lots of girl scouts in our neighborhood.

When this last order arrived, I reminded John that our very own Eagle Scout is away at college and unavailable to eat Samoas. And, I clarified there is no minimum order per girl scout. He could order 1 or 2 boxes per child…
Thursday morning for breakfast, John had a handful of Famous Amos cookies. If he’s going to eat cookies for breakfast, shouldn’t he at least eat yummy Thin Mints? Is he saving them for a special occasion? Or maybe stockpiling for doomsday?

This situation is reminiscent of the Frog and Toad cookie dilemma which I memorized at a child. If you were deprived and somehow missed the joy of these books, you really missed out on an important lesson in willpower. Toad baked delicious cookies and Frog couldn’t stop gorging on them, even when they were hidden away and difficult to reach. We adored that tale, even turning the short story into a play in our bedroom, acting out each line of the book over and over again. Cousin Lesa made a delightful Frog. We were easily entertained.

I am planning to whip up a fluffy creamy strawberry Trifle-y dessert thingy for Easter brunch with crumbled girl scout Trefoil cookies layered inside. And chocolatey thin minty brownies for the Cookie Monster tonight. It could be worse – I could be married to Oscar the Grouch.

This blogpost is brought to you by the letter “C”. And the number 18.

talya

Musical Pairings:

Cookie Monster, “C is for Cookie”
Archies, “Sugar, Sugar”

“But we can climb the ladder and take the box down from the shelf and cut the string and open the box.” Toad, Frog and Toad Together


Hi! I'm Talya Tate Boerner. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (Now Available!)

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