In September of 2007, I started this blog
with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014,
I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things
I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories.
I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off
of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write.
Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing
output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to
carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your
comments are welcome!
ANALOG Tag Line:
What if black-footed ferrets and prairie dogs mirrored the WWII horror
of the Nazis and the Jews…and a ferret discovered that a prairie dog village
was about to get gassed?
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
FERRETS UNDERGROUND
is to the Holocaust as CATWINGS is to the flight from poverty to prosperity and
WATERSHIP DOWN is to the ideals of Home, power, and the nature of leadership.
Opening Line:
In the hour before
mothers wake up and the prairie dog guardians have just gone to bed,
Prairieheart the black-footed ferret and her brother, Rockfoot escaped their
nest.
Onward:
“Come on, we have to
make it to the Haunted Warrens before the sun comes up!” Prairieheart squeaked,
as they ran from the home burrow. Tiny black feet gripping short prairie grass,
she cried, “We’re free!”
“I’m right behind
you and if you don’t watch out, I’ll pass you up!” Rockfoot barked, racing his
sister.
Overhead was the
starry North Dakota sky. Far away to the east, sunrise stained the edge of the
Great Plains sky red.
“There!”
Prairieheart said, running toward the pile of dirt a prairie dog had made
around its burrow hole.
“What if there’s a
coyote…” Rockfoot said. But his sister was down the burrow before he finished.
He was right behind her.
He held on to the
curving walls with his sharp claws as the burrow dropped straight down. He
landed in a heap on top of Prairieheart.
She hissed, “Stop
playing! It’s time to get serious!”
Rockfoot scrambled
off her. “I’m not playing!” His eyes got used to the dark fast. The prairie dog
tunnel led deep underground. “Are there any badgers down there?”
What Was I Trying
To Say?
I was trying to
create a tool for elementary school teachers to introduce the issues of the
Holocaust to their classrooms.
I’d found that
Ursula K. LeGuin did the same with her children’s books in the CATWINGS series.
The message there had to do with children born into poverty escaping – not
through someone else’s benevolent action or by the action of a benevolent
government acting on the behalf of its incompetent citizens and for “their own
good”. They escaped because not only were they special, their mother released
them to use their gifts – wings; the chose to move, however reluctantly. I know
a student and his mother and sister who left Ferguson, MO after being IN the
riots of August 2014 sparked by the murder of Michael Brown by a white police
officer. They chose to leave.
I wanted to say with
FERRETS UNDERGROUND that even when our appetites drive us, we can make
cognizant, clear choices to not act the way we want to. Most of us have it
within ourselves to make positive choices; to act on our consciences. It
doesn’t matter how old we are – Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize
when she was seventeen – you can act on your conscience to create change.
The Rest of the
Story:
The ferret Prairieheart
takes a message from the King of the Prairie Dogs that they must all leave
because the Humans are about to destroy the entire village – prairie dogs,
ferrets, badgers, Red-tailed Hawks and all.
When she does, the
Humans step up their attack on the prairie dog village, bent on total
annihilation. The plan is for the ferrets of the Fesnyng (a group of ferrets, https://www.herbweb.org/animals-collective-nouns.html)
to drive the prairie dogs out and to a safer village farther north, a place called
Long Snow Lands.
But the Humans
accidentally set off the dynamite early and the leaders of the ferrets –
including Prairieheart’s mother, die. It’s up to her and the Kind of the
Prairie Dogs to chase and lead the rest to safety. Along the way, a badger tries
to eat them, and a young Human tries to shoot them. But they survive and a free
once they go over the river.
End Analysis:
I was ambitious, but
I don’t think I overstepped myself. I still think FERRETS UNDERGROUND is good, but
it needs a hard revision…I might add that it's also biologically and environmentally accurate and while Black-footed Ferrets are still considered "globally endangered", they have in fact, been reintroduced into the wild, where were considered extinct twenty-some years ago.
Can This Story Be
Saved?
To that end, I think
that “yes, this story can be saved”. But I have lots of other projects to do
and while I’d LIKE to do this one, I can’t see it happening soon. Another
aspect of this is that I kept getting slapped down by disinterested agents, I
never really had a chance to send it to an EDITOR, so I’m not sure if it was
really “road-tested”.
If anyone out there
is interested, I’d be happy to send the draft to you and would value your comments!
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