World Series--Second Base
Let me bask in this day. For a moment. GREAT game last night, and for once, Burnett didn't choke.
On to the next World Series post.
I have a very strange confession to make.
I like baseball. I really do. I like going to the stadium. I like rooting for my team. I really (!!) like farm teams maybe even more than the major leagues. I like the atmosphere. I like being close to the field and cheering. And occasionally heckling. But there's an entirely unexpected, unusual reason why I love baseball. It's so evocative as to be . . . well, weird and eccentric, but it's totally true.
I like the sound.
Growing up, my most favorite place in the entire universe was not home. It was my grandmother's house. I could bore you all with the thousands of little reasons why, but it was basically heaven to me. I could, ALL (ahem) these years later, "walk" you through the apartment and every detail in it from memory. And the "soundtrack" of my time there was . . . baseball. I forgive my grandparents in that they rooted for the Mets, but no matter, that strange sub-roar of the crowd . . . perculiar only to baseball . . . that is the soundtrack of childhood for me, or at least the happiest part of it. For some reason, when I hear baseball on TV, it is as calming to me as a lullaby.
Football--those announcers work in quiet, generally--and even if they are talking over the crowd, it's a totally different roar. But baseball announcers, that unusual commentary they give, it's always over the chattering roar of the crowd, and it's a true play-by-play as it's happening. That's why I love it. As I snuggled down into bed last night to watch my beloved Yankees, it was the sounds as much as their game, that made me feel like all was right with the world. It's not something I've ever told anyone. But that strange sound only in the world of baseball is what makes me feel happy inside.
So second base today . . .
What is something "unexpected" about your character?
23 comments:
Trinidad likes kids. A lot. He has a deeply buried desire to be a father. Of course he'd never consider himself worthy since he's a killer and so wrapped in sin.
This is a fun exercise. I linked you on my blog post today. :)
Sorry, I missed yesterday, and though I did read through the lesson it zipped right over my head.
I can do this one, I think, except I'm not doing it a pitch. Something unexpected . . .
About 2/3 of the way through the story, eleven-year-old Rhee Webber discovers she's adopted. . . and half-elven.
Is this what you are talking about?
Starbucks:
Thanks for the linky-love.
And . . . VERY unexpected. I like that a lot!
E
magolla:
That's unexpected . . . LOL! I was thinking quirks or hidden personality secrets versus a plot point--but I really think that sounds like a great spin on the hidden birth secret story.
E
You'll get no spoilers from me, young lady.
I hope the series goes seven games. I don't really care who wins, I just like to see a good match-up.
I thought about you last night as I heard scores over the evening. I hope you were enjoying yourself.
Evie is very maternal - not only to her kids but to her friends - always trying to create space where they feel safe and welcomed, always feeding them, yet she tries to push this part of her aside when it comes to Nicole, because of the circumstances. In the end though, Evie is who she is - and her nurturing nature takes over.
A quirk? She always has to make her bed perfectly - she likes to look at it all neatly smoothed, pillows in place. That's because everything else in her life is so out of whack. (something I do not relate to - but it works for the character!)
I like that Amy. I can totally see a scene where she's fussing over her bed when everything is falling apart around her. Nice showing.
I loved baseball as a kid, but grew out of it. I still love watching softball. It's like you say - a group of people getting together at the edge of the field and rooting on relatives and friends. The sounds are wonderful. The smells even more so.
(Go Mets) :-)
Jack loves the smell of cigar smoke. His father only smoked them when he hit a windfall - got lucky at cards or some other bit of good luck. And every time he smoked them it meant a great meal and laughing and just general well-being... but more than that, it meant that oppressive feeling you can't really name but you feel it taking up all the air in the room... that was gone, for a day or two or a week. It always came back, but cigar smoke meant a reprieve. To Jack, that smell brought the same feeling of comfort that most people get from the smell of cookies baking or their mother's perfume.
It likely won't even make it into the novel, that little bit - just another bit of backstory that makes him more real to me.
I really just stopped in to say Happy Halloween!
Baseball...many scenes from childhood flash through my head. Walking and walking the full circle around Vet Stadium with my brothers. My older brother hanging over the railing to yell to Steve Carlton, after he lost a game, "It's okay...It's okay..." And then that same brother clutching the newspaper announcing Carlton's retirement. Nothing in baseball was the same again.
And summer vacations in NE. Always wishing to go to a Red Sox game. But I was a girl, and my grandfather was 'old school', and would only take my brothers. So, baseball is a mixed bag for me.
Funny enough, as an adult, I love the Red Sox, but the Phillies--I root for them but miss that old 1980's team.
Oh, my Character. I didn't come by yesterday, but one of my two main characters is a star. Pretty much everything is unexpected about her, since she's a star, and I made her up. However, stars by nature crave space. ;-) This is an essential survival trait, but one that is lacking in my particular star. She wants to connect.
Amy:
Definitely I good showing moment.
E
Joe:
I have SO much fun when they make playoffs. When I was preggers with one of my kids, I remember that my team made playoffs. I remember jumping up and down on my bed, screaming . . . then thinking, "I'm going to go into premature labor!"
E
Sarah:
I used to play softball for a publishing house team. LOTS of after-work fun--just very good-natured.
E
Merry:
SUPERB!!!!!!!!! TRULY Superb.
And happy halloween, too!
E
Heather:
Gosh . . . some bitterwseet stuff there! Neat.
AND ............. wow on your star. That is really, really, REALLY original. Good worldbuilding!
E
Pearl is the daughter of the town's most loved dress maker. Though Pearl won't be gifted until she turns sixteen, she's already shown major talent in the fashion department. She makes super colorful garb, yet only wears the most and may I say, ugly, garmets she can find. She thinks that pretty dresses should only belong to pretty girls, and to wear something like that would be like lying to herself.
Dunno. With Derek Stillwater I could say his panic attacks, his lucky charms--four-leaf clover, ju-ju beads, St. Sebastian medal--that he wears around his neck, his tendency to listen to classical religious music when he's trying to think (like Bach's B Minor Mass).
With Parker, I'm not sure. He's a true-crime writer. A guitarist who likes to sit in with bands of all sorts of genres (country, punk, rock...). Drinks too much. Womanizer. Obsessive. The first scene he appears in he's playing with a punk band, so maybe that's a little unusual. I'll have to think of it.
JT,
Pearl intrigues me. Truly!
JT:
I honestly think that sounds phenomenal. I am awed (often) at how young you are and all the writing yet ahead of you.
E
Mark:
I think, just my opinion, but when we (and I include myself in there) write genre fiction, we have to work even harder for unexpected . . . the marketplace is so crowded. I think that's why I like John Burdett.
E
Confession, Erica: this threw me. I could see the "unexpected" in Derek Stillwater, and in the other character I've mentioned, Austin Davis, in the character in Dancing In The Dark (Joanna Dancing) and even somewhat in my SF novel's main character, Con Torres, but although I find Parker interesting, I'm not sure I'd say "unexpected," so I'm thinking a lot about that at the moment. Think I need to get to know Parker a little better.
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