Thinking & Re-Thinking

Once I make up my mind and pursue a certain path, I don't generally like to change. Oh sure, I think of myself as someone who recognizes a good idea or a better idea than what has already been offered. I am willing to pursue the new or better, but when it comes to altering in the middle or past the middle of a pursued project, then I have conflict.

At my college alma mater, Wittenberg University in Ohio, one of the graduation requirements was for seniors to complete separate written and oral components of material in their majors. For my English major, I presented a paper on Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan as my oral component. The presentation was before a panel of three professors: the senior seminar instructor, a professor with some specialty in the subject matter selected by the department and a professor of my own choosing. For the written component, the department gave us a comprehensive exam (with some leeway since not everyone took exactly the same classes). To assist us, the department gave us a list of at least one hundred significant terms and individuals. The test would have a certain number of these. The object was to refresh oneself on what one already knew (and learn a little bit of new information). My friend Jennifer Baer and I prepared for the written test together. I have photographs of us sitting on my dorm room floor with cups of tea, homemade banana bread and stacks of books around us. We also supported each other through the oral presentations. Jennifer selected several of Shakespeare’s sonnets. After she completed her presentation, I checked in with her. She was relieved to be finished and a little anxious. The reason for the anxiety was that she changed her presentation right before she made it. A new idea popped into her knowledgeable head, and she had the wherewithal and confidence in her understanding to follow that.

I was flabbergasted. I remembered immediately being in acting class a couple of years prior. For a scene, my pal Leslie Overturf and I were assigned Ketti Frings’ Pulitzer Prize-winning stage adaptation of Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel. Our scene was the first meeting between the awkward hero Eugene and Miss Brown. When it was our turn to perform the scene, I made a quick decision to change my characterization. I had decided that I was putting too much of myself into the portrayal and subsequently played him a little more aloof. This was an unsuccessful decision. Leslie was confused, and the entire scene went poorly.

Now, here I am, in the midst of writing the chapter of my great-grandmother’s marriage to Leech Hoose and considering a timeline change. While I do have some information about this marriage (beginning and end dates, as well as the divorce filing), there are no details of the relationship. The marriage seemed hasty (only eight days after her divorce from the previous husband, Ora Freeman). However, the divorce occurred several months after the initial filing. And there is a strong indication that she had financial challenges.

There is also in my great-grandmother’s history a moment when she turned custody of her children to their father, her first husband Ralph Chetister. Due to the data that there was a considerable length of time between the divorce from Leech Hoose and the next marriage, and the ages of my grandmother and great-uncle, I have determined that the dissolution of the marriage to Leech Hoose is connected to the abandonment of the children. In fact, I have built the marriage to Leech Hoose around this, making it a very tense and unhappy marriage.

The marriage may well have been tense and unhappy. After all, it did not last very long, and following it, my great-grandmother lived a rather wild life, according to family reports, before settling down with Robert Fields more than seven years later. However, the children may or may not have been a part of the marriage to Leech Hoose. I have already placed the children in the home of Leech and Leta Hoose and built the story around this, but lately I’ve been feeling inclined to think that she may have left her children with Ralph between the marriages to Ora Freeman and Leech Hoose.

The trouble is I am entrenched in the original version.

One of the writing skills that I’ve learned over time is the importance of re-writing. Yes, the initial writing is energetic and inspired and passionate, but it is in re-writing that the crafting occurs. I actually like the revising and strengthening of a piece of writing. And I rarely have difficulty in altering a paragraph or making some small changes in the initial writing But this one, this redoing an entire chapter, altering a life segment, before I’ve finished with the initial idea, is a challenge. Accepting the timeline alteration would require rewriting two chapters: the one focusing on her marriage to Ora Freeman and the one covering her period of her relationship with Leech Hoose. Ugh!

For now, I am continuing on the same path, but stay tuned. There are changes in the air.