Tag: Writing

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Keyhole, by Phillip Hoyle

These days I sometimes have trouble fitting the key into the keyhole. Luckily, since retirement, I carry only one rather ordinary key. The problem is not with our front door lock. No, it’s the specialized keys that cause me the greatest challenge, like those on the free lockers at the Denver Art Museum. The funny key doesn’t want to go in either way I try, upside or down. I’m sure it’s due to my rather clumsy ways and inaccurate perception of angles. But I persist and do eventually get the key in, retrieve my backpack and the refunded quarter as well.

But another meaning of keyhole intrigues me. I recall as a child hoping to peek through a keyhole and see something unusual. Could one solve a mystery with just one peek? I looked but never saw anything interesting. If I knew the room already, the view was too focused. If I didn’t know it, I had no idea what I was looking at. But these were mostly childhood games of imagination.

My fascination with exotic places, one fed by my constant reading, took me around the world in my mind, introduced me to new cultures, customs, and costumes. Of course such views were limited to keyhole glimpses. I wanted more. I kept reading. I had a few other experiences living in an army town, where I appreciated my schoolmates, quite a few who came from or had lived in other countries, ones who sometimes looked and dressed differently. I liked that; I liked them. I scoured National Geographic magazines whenever they were available. I found myself engaged rather than put off by difference.

But was I only deluded? Was I making keyhole peeks to see only what I thought was there? I’m sure in many ways the answer is yes. That seems to be the way things are. But I kept looking, reading, and saying ‘hi’ to the unusual. I liked life in Kansas but still kept looking around through keyholes and kept scanning the horizon.

Here there is a larger story. By here I mean in this very room where LGBTQA folk tell their stories. Telling Your Story gatherings provide keyhole glimpses into other people’s perspectives and lives. Along with the public libraries and local museums, I count our weekly storytelling my greatest Denver life gift. I like providing these glimpses, but mostly I love hearing them, each one an invitation to see a wider world.

Recently I sent one of the stories I had told this group to the writing critique group I am a part of. The varied responses surprised me. Of course, that group’s purpose is to figure out what the piece is about, advise the writer what the reader found effective, and to share questions raised by the story or some detail in it—in that order. I was surprised to find that questions about my actions (as well as my writing) came in the opening statements. Somehow my behaviors in midlife seemed so bad they had to be confronted from the beginning. I’ll not go into the content of that here, but I thought how different that was compared with this SAGE group’s reactions when I first read the story. The discussion in the critique group was lively. In it one participant suggested that perhaps her reaction came from not knowing how to write to an LGBT audience. As the talk continued, another exasperated person said, “I feel like I’ve become the Church Lady.”

I became acutely aware how different were the responses of the two groups. In saying these things I’m not critical of my critique group’s insights or of their rather visceral reactions. Of course, I have done things that have not been good. I just thought moral issues were differentiated from writing issues and separated from them. Maybe what they saw through the keyhole of that story surprised them. Of course I forgive them. They’re nice people and one of them is certainly as queer as I am.

I do believe that assumptions get in the way for some readers and listeners when the experiences described seem too different. Prejudice has a lot to do with that as does the keyhole effect of not seeing the larger picture. Glimpses can give only micro views.

But then I remember I’ve always liked the peculiar, had long hoped someday to say with Dorothy, “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

© 16 July 2018

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Writing, by Ricky

Last year I documented how I write my stories for this group under the title of Writing My Story. So this time, I choose to write about someone else’s writing, Tyler Myers’.

Tyler Myers
STHS Class of 2013

“From the US, Tyler Myers!” The head of the Russian Forest Service intones these words as the stage coordinator escorts me to center stage. The Forest Service director speaks with a language unfamiliar to me; however, I understand one phrase: my name. The crowd cheers, for they understand every remark the host exclaims. The noise makes the situation more difficult because—now—I can’t hear a word he says. A man approaches me, handing me a certificate and a medal. The medal has the Roman numeral “III” engraved on the face of it. Now I get it.

Standing on the stage, I remember the comments: “You really think you’ll go?” “Your project isn’t that amazing,” and “Do you even understand the statistics?” The remarks don’t matter now. As I stand in Moscow, I receive confirmation that the summer I spent working on the study deserved recognition, regardless of what others told me. My reminiscing changes to a rant as the rest of the top projects receive recognition. Why isn’t anything good enough for them? Why must they criticize everything I do? My friends are starting to think I’m insane for taking on so many challenges, so why can’t my family see it? My understanding deepens as the spot light widens to display the top three contestants.

My questioning of the past leads me to remember why I try so hard to begin with. Even when I mentioned an opportunity to work with the Forest Service’s Regional Ecologist to develop a project, my mom remained unaffected. She laughed when I told her of the deadline for the project, claiming that I should use my time to work this summer and make some money. Much to her surprise, I landed a job with the Forest Service as a Botanist and Aquatics crew member and, in my free time, completed the project. Ultimately, I wished for any positive reaction from her, any type of motivation or encouragement besides her posting pictures of me on Facebook, boasting to her friends. Regardless of my actions, she remains uninterested. From the AP classes to the varsity letters to the clubs I ran on a weekly basis, she remains distant. As I stand on stage, my disposition changes as I realize I wouldn’t have taken on some of the early challenges and developed my habit to get involved if it wasn’t for my family’s harsh comments. I begin to appreciate the high standard I hold myself to; however, now I can’t resist getting involved. This time—this project—and the accomplishments to come, they start, and end, simply with my impulse to achieve.

Now there’s an idea, my life as an extended metaphor. Ok then, now what should I be? How about a diamond—under pressure, showing perfection—Nah, that’s too cliché. Oh, I got it; a calculator—a useful object with a nerdy connotation—on second thought, I can do more than just math. Well how about something abstract? I am the derivative of x3 and my slope is always positive—except when x=0—only becoming greater as time progresses. Well, lets be honest; if I plan to go that route, I might as well be the calculator. What if I am the Earth and each of my friends and family members feed off of my resources causing me to become drained? Well, I can see that being more creative but I don’t think everyone necessarily feeds on me; they aren’t all parasites.

Ok, so now that I know metaphors aren’t my thing, what else can I do? If I think back to second grade, I do remember stories being quite enjoyable, so maybe an anecdote is my ticket to writing a witty personal statement. I’ll start by introducing my alien nature amongst generally everyone. Now let me introduce my low-income family: with my video gaming brother, assumed to be gangster brother, non-existent father and PTSD mom. Or, I can describe how I struggle to fit in at home, where intelligence is labeled as disrespect, and at school, where people treat me like I’m too far out there; ultimately I’ll describe my situation in which there isn’t a niche for a person with an interest for sports, music, school, and the environment. Ok, so I am alienated. Aren’t I supposed to come out victorious or something?

All right, Tyler—BAM!—Problem solved. I can get over it—all of it. My mom was in abusive relationships and that led to psychotic people sabotaging our house by rerouting the ventilation system.

From that, I don’t trust many people—if any at all. Now I’m independent. My mom drags the past into the future constantly and doesn’t trust my friends or me. She also insists on criticizing anything I do. From her, I can deal with the most paranoid people and rely on myself for motivation. Now I’m compassionate and self-motivated. My father abandoned my mother, brother, and I, forcing us to live without a father figure or another parent for support. His absence led to me working to help my family and working alone to learn due to the lack of education on my mother’s behalf. Now I can shop for a family, budget money, and learn skills like playing the guitar, playing the bass, math, and English independently.

Through the persistence of time, memories such as these, and many others, dissipate leaving only the shape of the character they molded. Their significance doesn’t exist in the fact that the event took place; rather, the importance of my memories—the persistence of my memories—exists in the dents the occurrence left on my character.

Well, I guess I don’t need an extended metaphor after all.

In the inland of South America, a co-worker approaches me to describe the nature of the situation; of course, to my liking, he replies in Spanish. He explains how the deforestation of the local forests has decreased due to our implemented regulations on the removal of trees and we are now in a state of soil and forest restoration. He continues to explain that we can now retreat to my engineering firm’s headquarters to finish our work on the other various environmental issues involving deforestation and energy consumption. As I hear the update, the news causes me to appreciate the reality of the situation…oh wait; I guess I am ten years ahead of myself.

As far as my goals go, I figure I have set myself up for a rigorous path, yet, I know I wouldn’t want my life aspirations to be any different. I see that, when I look as my past, I could have earned higher grades if I cut Cross Country Running, Cross Country Skiing, and Track and Field out of my life, but most of my friends come from my extracurricular activities; I also see how my GPA could have improved if I dropped Orchestra for another AP class. Still, I feel uneasy at the thought of dropping things like Generation Green and Glee Club. It is stressful being the president of both of the clubs, but the involvement with the environment and the students who love to sing is irreplaceable.

Recently, I have reached the point in the high school student’s life where the college financial reality hits—and it isn’t gentle. Even with the help of FAFSA, various colleges cost $40,000 to attend and, honestly, that is an expensive price for to pay. Sincerely, I believe any scholarship can help me complete college.

Tyler Myers

Tyler’s photo and writings included with his permission.

My high school class of 1966 established a modest scholarship fund a few years ago. The past two years I have been one of 18 classmates who review the final list of applicants and vote on who should receive the modest funds. In the past, we have awarded one student a $200 scholarship. This year, due to a “last minute” donation of $25,000, we elected to give a $2,000 scholarship to each of three students.

We evaluated seven finalists that one of my best friends in high school culled from all the applicants. A week ago Saturday afternoon, I received an email listing the three selectees along with a table showing how each of the evaluators gave out the points used for voting. Two of my three picks won. All the applicants have excellent grade point averages so I based my selection primarily, but not exclusively, upon the writing samples on the student’s application. One of my choices, Tyler, actually would have won even if we had awarded only one scholarship.

The week before the release of the winner’s names, I had wanted to email Tyler and comment on his writing sample after I submitted my choices; but I never did. After reading his name as a scholarship winner, I could not contain myself and did email him around midnight Saturday night Sunday morning.

My email said in part, “… Upon reading your “Student Summary” section, I concluded that I have no idea what kind of an Environmental Engineer you would become. However, I do believe you could have a career in writing or journalism. I really enjoyed the creativity and the way you expressed your ideas. I hope you continue to develop your skill in this area. Congratulations and best of luck in your future.”

Surprisingly, within a few minutes, Tyler replied to my email. “Thank you so much for the compliment! I am actually pretty excited to hear that my creative writing skills come off as impressive rather than corny 🙂

So does this email mean I am a recipient of the scholarship?

And thank you again for the delightful email. It was a brightening addition to my night.”

I responded to his question with the following. “I am sure I am not supposed to have emailed you at this point (but no one said not to either and I’ve pretty much been a rule breaker most of my life) and I wanted to do it last week
right after I reviewed your application and before results were sent out to all the reviewers, but did not. I just received the results today. Your counselors know of course, and I just could not wait any longer than now to make my comments.

You are shortly to be an STHS grad and I know you already have figured out what “congratulations” implies. Tell your family of course, but keep the secret from others until the results are officially announced. (If you are like I was at your age, you won’t keep the secret. Just be considerate of those who also applied but are still waiting to hear since you probably don’t know exactly who else applied.)

Another thing, this year we are giving out 3 scholarships instead of just one. Contact me again after the official announcement and I’ll tell you one more thing you might want to know.

Now just one last thing…it’s 1:18 AM in Denver so it is 12:18 AM in South Lake Tahoe…go to bed and get some sleep. I lived on 4 hours of sleep all through high school and nothing good came of it.”

You may have noticed that I did not tell Tyler of the amount of the award. It is likely that when he applied, he knew we only give out $200. He probably does not know of the increase, so I left him and the others to be surprised.

I want to believe that my few words of encouragement may lead to Tyler writing the “great American environmental engineer novel” someday and perhaps being recognized as the 21st Century’s equivalent of Mark Twain. Maybe I should write him again and remind him that our farming economy thrives on corn and so he should keep writing what he termed “corny” stories.

© 13 May 2013

About the Author

I was born in June of 1948 in Los Angeles, living first in Lawndale and then in Redondo Beach. Just prior to turning 8 years old in 1956, I began living with my grandparents on their farm in Isanti County, Minnesota for two years during which time my parents divorced.

When united with my mother and stepfather two years later in 1958, I lived first at Emerald Bay and then at South Lake Tahoe, California, graduating from South Tahoe High School in 1966. After three tours of duty with the Air Force, I moved to Denver, Colorado where I lived with my wife and four children until her passing away from complications of breast cancer four days after the 9-11 terrorist attack.

I came out as a gay man in the summer of 2010. I find writing these memories to be therapeutic.

My story blog is TheTahoeBoy.Blogspot.com

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Finding Your Voice, by Phillip Hoyle

I started out a soprano. Then on Sunday nights at church I decided to harmonize as an alto and learned to read the line and sing the part. When my voice cracked too many times in Glee Club, I became a tenor. I stayed with that for many years. Since I was a choir director, I learned to sing all the parts, SAT and B. In the choirs we worked hard to increase everyone’s tone and range using techniques I learned from one of my voice teachers. If a section was weak on a Sunday morning, I could bolster them with my own screaming. It may have horrified some people. Who knows?

Finding my voice as a writer was another story, one that didn’t depend on timbre or range. In fact the discussion of that concept goes on. I developed a terse style for use in academic writing. I had to warm it up it for the church newsletter and did so with a little bit of success. When I accepted contracts for writing curriculum resources I got more at home with addressing volunteer teachers. The reading level for them was eighth or ninth grade. Writing for students of different ages was more fun and challenging. That work served as my introduction to creative writing. I experimented but still don’t know that I actually developed a voice.

When I started writing for myself, I tried for something consistent and my efforts seemed to help. But I believe I didn’t really find my voice until I had written a couple of years of weekly stories for this Telling Your Story group. Meeting that weekly goal and encouraging others to do the same, telling stories to almost the same people each week, and having an appreciative audience and being a part of this group did something for my sense of voice. I like the entertainment part of that work that reminds me so much of talking with a group of children on Sundays during many years of church work. Sometimes I made up the stories on the spot and encouraged the children to help me tell them. That got me started. Many years later I feel like I have a rather consistent voice and am happy to share my many stories with you. Mostly they are accurate to the extent of my ability to recall, but you know how that goes with the years stacking up, hearing reducing, and eyesight dimming. I appreciate that the story telling group allows me to speak whatever my voice is, found or not.

Thanks for listening, or on the blog, thanks for reading.

© 23 October 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Clearly, by Phillip Hoyle

My writing teachers are still trying to teach me to write clearly. That seems like quite a challenge for a teacher to take on. While most of my instructors really have liked me—I am easy to get along with—they have had little clue of how my mind works, its story-laden way of expressing truth, its constant internal argument about what this writer wants, believes, and cares about, its strange logic, and its confusion over things spatial. Now that’s a special-education brain if there ever was one. I’m neither proud of nor ashamed it, for it’s the only one I have. Many teachers have set out to set me straight. Obviously they failed to do that although they have taught me many helpful and creative processes, ideas, and the like.

When I was first given a contract for a write-for-hire curriculum resources project and sent in my first draft of the first session, it came back to me looking very sorry, dripping in red ink and words of encouragement. I made the required changes—the ones in red ink—and thought through all the suggested comments—written in blue pencil. I didn’t have to make all these blue changes. I quickly typed in the red comments and found out that my editor took my awkward, unclear sentences and with a few red-ink changes made them say exactly what I meant. I was impressed and wondered where I was when they were handing out brains. What did I ask for? Perhaps I just wanted to have a good time which might not necessarily mean to think clearly.

My patient teachers have had to slow me down, to make me read and reread everything about a hundred times, over a time period lasting several months, sometimes several years. Of course that never works in write-for-hire jobs; the editors have deadlines to meet. I gave them things on time and looked forward to their corrections to make clear just what I was trying to say. I guess for them my being on time was a higher value that first-try clarity. They kept using me for ten years. Then I was done with that kind of writing.

Unfortunately, SAGE of the Rockies “Telling Your Story” program doesn’t give me enough time. I mess around in my early morning writing and scratch a few lines or run to the word processor and peck away hoping not to compound my lack of clarity with too many typos. It’s fun to write these stories, and I hope no listeners or readers spend too much time trying to analyze my logic or even common sense. If I have logic I’m sure it’s not common. If you hear or read something funny, just laugh. If I’m around I’ll smile with you. It’s all just another story to me. Did I say that last clearly enough?

And thanks for being as patient as have been my teachers and editors. 

© 20 November 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Reading, by Phillip Hoyle

Mom read to us kids with expression she had developed in high school drama. The five of us liked our introduction to children’s literature and to poetry—especially the poems she had memorized—and others she read out of books. It took a long time for me to start reading much on my own although I did like books, studying the pictures, reading the captions, and sometimes reading paragraphs. Still I didn’t read many books for myself until 8th grade when I discovered historical fiction, chapter books in story form. I soon became addicted to reading stories, a practice that continued uninterrupted until about age 42 when I went on a book fast. For a year I determined not to read any whole books.

My confession: During my fast I did re-read one favorite novel (perhaps Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony) and then allowed myself one new novel (probably on a gay theme).

My success: I turned my free time into piano practice.

My practicality: I still consulted books when I had to teach a class or preach a sermon.

My learning: I already knew enough about the topics I was teaching so began relying more and more on my memory.

Perhaps I had read just too many novels beginning in junior and senior high school, during five years of undergraduate school, during three years of graduate school, and during two and a half years of graduate seminary. None of these books were required reading but they probably did help me keep balance in my life. I read many international books in translation thus broadening my view of the world. I read novels between semesters and years of schooling. I read on family vacations. Plus I read every assigned book and textbook and many more related to my studies.

I’m still at my reading although my practice has changed. I’ve added memoir to my list, also books about writing. I read quite a few books about visual arts as well, but now I spend more time writing and doing visual art projects. (Well I AM retired.) I’m reading books I borrow from several libraries, buy at bookstores, receive from family members, or find at ARC; and I keep reading and revising stories I have written. In my retirement I don’t read five books a week anymore but I often am reading five books at a time. In short, I continue my almost life-long practice of reading, and I love it.

Over the past several weeks I have been reading and re-reading Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell, a fine book on essay writing. Lopate teaches non-fiction writing in the graduate program at Columbia University, NYC. On Tuesday I read through his very long suggested reading list and noted Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography. On Wednesday I stopped by a used books store and was surprised to find the book on their shelves. Now I’m reading it, tickled by its style, intrigued by its information, analyzing its writing given what I’ve been learning from Lopate and other teachers, and taking note of how one of the founders of our country understood what he was doing. I never expected to read such a book but am so pleased I knew about it, stopped to look through it, and paid the five dollar price. I’m still reading. This book may take awhile.

© 6 November 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Finding Your Voice, by Phillip Hoyle

I started out a soprano. Then on Sunday nights at church I decided to harmonize as an alto and learned to read the line and sing the part. When my voice cracked too many times in Glee Club, I became a tenor. I stayed with that for many years. Since I was a choir director, I learned to sing all the parts, SAT and B. In the choirs we worked hard to increase everyone’s tone and range using techniques I learned from one of my voice teachers. If a section was weak on a Sunday morning, I could bolster them with my own screaming. It may have horrified some people. Who knows? 

Finding my voice as a writer was another story, one that didn’t depend on timbre or range. In fact the discussion of that concept goes on. I developed a terse style for use in academic writing. I had to warm it up it for the church newsletter and did so with a little bit of success. When I accepted contracts for writing curriculum resources I got more at home with addressing volunteer teachers. The reading level for them was eighth or ninth grade. Writing for students of different ages was more fun and challenging. That work served as my introduction to creative writing. I experimented but still don’t know that I actually developed a voice. 
When I started writing for myself, I tried for something consistent and my efforts seemed to help. But I believe I didn’t really find my voice until I had written a couple of years of weekly stories for this Telling Your Story group. Meeting that weekly goal and encouraging others to do the same, telling stories to almost the same people each week, and having an appreciative audience and being a part of this group did something for my sense of voice. I like the entertainment part of that work that reminds me so much of talking with a group of children on Sundays during many years of church work. Sometimes I made up the stories on the spot and encouraged the children to help me tell them. That got me started. Many years later I feel like I have a rather consistent voice and am happy to share my many stories with you. Mostly they are accurate to the extent of my ability to recall, but you know how that goes with the years stacking up, hearing reducing, and eyesight dimming. I appreciate that the story telling group allows me to speak whatever my voice is, found or not.
Thanks for listening, or on the blog, thanks for reading. 
© 23 October 2017

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Favorite Literary Character, by Phillip Hoyle

For me to choose my favorite literary character seems as impossible as to choose my favorite activity from a three-week road trip. I’ve never been able to select just one because I usually prize too many memories. So when I consider that in first grade I began reading about Dick and Jane, in the fifth grade was introduced to the novel when Mrs. Schaffer read to us of Jim Hawkins, Billy Bones, and Long John Silver in Treasure Island, in eighth grade read my first novel which I checked out from the school library, James Fennimore Cooper’s The Spy with its Betty Flanagan and Harvey Birch, and after that never quit reading book after book to the point that in my mid-thirties I was reading five books a week—most of them novels—I’m hard pressed to choose any single character as my favorite. There have been so many!

A few years ago when in my writing I realized I was working on a novel and not simply the collection of short stories I had imagined, I came to the awful realization that although I had read hundreds of novels and recalled from them plenty of characters, scenes, and situations, I had never seriously studied the novel as literature, had never read one under the tutelage of a professor, and had never analyzed the plot, character, or even writing style that makes some stories work so well. So with M.H. Abrams Glossary of Literary Terms in hand, I set out to learn about these things. I began analyzing short stories; then turned my attentions to the novel. I would read a novel and if I liked it enough select one

aspect of it to further study. For example, in one novel I compared and contrasted the opening sentences of each chapter. In another book I found and compared the contents of each place the author changed from present tense to past. In yet another novel I searched to find the dramatic turning points in the main character’s transformation. I went on to analyze how secondary or even one-dimensional characters entered and left novels. I was serious in my pursuit of this knowledge.


Then I turned to books I’d read in the past. I analyzed The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin, Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko, House Made of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday. Somewhere along the way realized I had mostly read novels to enjoy exotic and unusual experiences and to find out what happened. This proclivity was bolstered by my habit of reading murder mysteries in which the big tasks is to figure out ‘who dun it’ as if that were the whole point of reading stories. That seemed my dominant approach. Finally I turned to Ethan Mordden and reread and analyzed several of his Buddies cycle that opened with what seemed to me appropriately titled I’ve a Feeling We’re Not in Kansas Anymore. I liked novels that told the stories of many different people. My novel search for understanding was moving me far away from how I had read them before and, like Mordden’s title far away from all my home state represented. And then there was the really big question: why was I trying to write a novel and how could I do it without making a big fool of myself?

I recall a voice teacher who seemed friends with a woman character Natasha Rostova in Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace while I couldn’t even recall or pronounce the name of any character from my reading of that monstrously long novel. I recall in December my daughter-in-law reading Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre for the umpteenth time. She said “It’s like a new story,” and she just loves Jane Eyre, probably her favorite literary character. Now I read Bronte and enjoyed the characters but never developed such a relationship with any of them. I just don’t get into character friendships, at least not easily.

Still I really have like some characters. First, Natty Bumpo in James Fennimore Cooper’s “Leatherstocking Tales” although I don’t recall if I respected him; second, Johnny in The Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter although I may really have been more interested in his Shawnee Indian cousin; third, the first-person narrator in Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children by Felice Picano although I didn’t really like him so much as I recognized in him a character who as a child was bisexual like I was; fourth, Bud in Ethan Mordden’s stories, again another first person narrator who as a writer seemed as much the author of the story as its protagonist; and finally, Will in City of Shy Hunters by Tom Spanbauer although very much like in the cases of Picano and Mordden I may have liked the author as much as the character. Still Will became my literary friend because he came from an uncertain past, made creative adaptations to his surroundings, felt enamored of Native Americans, accepted into his life persons whose values widely differed from his own, worked hard, and introduced me to more exotic worlds of gay America, meaning in many important ways, more realistic descriptions of gay life.

But since I ended my list with Will from the Spanbauer book, I’ll say a few things about him who certainly has become an important character in my life if not a favorite (and be warned I’m speaking as much or more about Spanbuaer as I am about his great character Will). Will trusts people. Will does not try to fool himself. Will reveals his faults as well as his ideals and dreams. Will eats with sinners. He survives in the city, thrives there, values important aspects of his life, idealizes some individuals and loves them when they are too real to be idealized. He ekes out a living, is taken advantage of, finds friendship, and in general, builds a meaningful life in a hard and rough city.

And I thrill when Will says:

“Only your body can know another body.

“Because you see it, you think you know it. Your eyes think they know. Seeing Fiona’s body for so long, I thought I knew her body.

“I’ll tell you something, so you’ll know: It’s not the truth. Only your body can know another body.

“My hand on her back, my hand in her hand, her toes up against my toes, Fiona’s body wasn’t sections of a body my eyes had pieced together. In my arms was one long uninterrupted muscle, a body breathing life, strong and real.” (In City of Shy Hunters, p. 184) Will is really real; his friends are real. I am his friend.

© Denver, 22 June 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

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Writing, by Lewis

There are probably more
classifications of writing than there are fingers on the hands and toes on the
feet.  I have never been a fan of
fiction, which is a very broad classification, instead preferring non-fiction.  Call it snobbery, but I find that I generally
have little to learn or gain from reading fiction.  Fiction, even fantasy, is fine in the
movies.  Movies take a couple hours of
our time.  A novel takes much longer,
perhaps measured in terms of days. 
That’s a huge investment of time on something which may add nothing to
my range of knowledge or, even better, my understanding of the human
condition.  Of course, fiction works can
pass the time, engage the emotions, perhaps even edify and enlighten.  But not knowing whether the characters and
events were based upon actual people or happenings means that, while I may
learn something about their world, I have no idea how to relate that to the
world I experience.
Therefore, I prefer to
roam the domain of non-fiction.  In
particular, I find myself engrossed in the world recorded by my late husband in
his journals.  For a decade, his world
was my world, for we were, to borrow an expression, joined at the hip.  To read his journals is like watching a
faded, scratchy, black-and-white home movie of our adventures together.  He and I are the actors in scenes which I may
have long forgotten and the memories now come flooding back in waves of tears
and reverie.  I can fill in gaps in my
knowledge of his early life—names, dates, addresses, impressions.  I can sense what motivated him to do, to be,
and to desire to be the person he was. 
It affords me a level of connection with Laurin that is far more than a
longing or lustful glance can convey. 
His written word gives me a window into his heart that was never so
clear in life and that is an immeasurable gift.
I am thus inspired to
begin to journal myself.  Not exactly as
he had done.  I will leave some things
out and, perhaps, add something in.  But
I will attempt to make my journal be something like a mind-dump, so that
someday, hopefully, my own children, lovers, friends will have the chance to
know me in a way that I am far too shy to share openly face-to-face.  The best writing, fiction or non, should give
the reader the thrill of knowing the author up close and personal.  It should seek not to teach but to enlighten,
not to wow but to soften, not to impress but to shine a light on the path to
self-discovery.
© 12
May 2013  
About the Author 
I came to the beautiful state
of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I
married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas
by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working
as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman
for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured
that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I
wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just
happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both
fortuitous and smooth.
Soon after, I retired and we
moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years
together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One
possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group
was there to light the way.
Posted on

Naturally by Gillian

I can think of only one activity in which I would possibly describe myself as artistic, and that is writing; at least if I’m going with the definition, “having or revealing natural creative skill.”

The key here is the word “natural.”

I can paint. I can draw. I could create pottery vases or even carve wooden figurines. I could play the harp in readiness for my audition for angelhood. But these are, or would be, learned skills. If you try hard enough, you can learn to do just about anything. What you cannot do is make it come naturally.

Betsy and I spent some time in Taos with her daughter, Lynne. We all painted and sketched. Mine were mechanical reproductions of the scenes before my eyes; Lynne’s, very evidently, came naturally. They had a feel, a soul, to them, that mine lacked. Even had mine more adequately reproduced the subject, though I’m most certainly not making that claim, hers would still have been more artistic.

When I write, I am, to adopt a modern expression, “in the zone.”

No, not always. Of course not. But when the result is good; good to me, which is all that matters,

I don’t even feel that it is me writing. Or, if it is, it is some other me. Some subliminal me.

When that happens it is indescribable. Perhaps it’s like some drug-induced high from the ’60’s, though I cannot say from personal experience.

Maybe all of us, when we are truly creative, feel that high.

There’s another definition of the word which I also like, “aesthetically pleasing.”

I love to take photographs. This is not an artistic endeavor! Especially today, with digital cameras which do all the work. But it has it’s own creativity.

It’s kind of on a lower scale.

I see, naturally, what creates a good image.

The camera does the rest, but I point it!

I hope my photographs are aesthetically pleasing, because that’s my goal. But I hope, sometimes, for more than that. Some of them I am simply looking for the beauty that is abundant in this world. Sometimes that is enough. But real artistry should surely engender emotion, not simply beauty. Seeing it, and then capturing it, that’s the trick.

Just last week I was driving down Colfax to Story Time at The Center, when two figures rushed into the street in front of my car. A young Hispanic woman dragged a little boy of perhaps five by the hand. Under her other arm she clutched a huge plastic basket piled high with laundry.

In the boy’s other hand he hauled an immense plastic bottle of laundry soap. In a second they were gone, safely across the street and out of sight as I moved the car forward. Of course I didn’t even have a camera with me, and if I had, everything moved too fast and too unexpectedly for me to have had any chance of capturing that wonderful image; one of those pictures worth a thousand words in the stories it tells. But, “thinking like a camera,” if you like, I did capture the shot. It is burned in my brain. I can look at it whenever I want, and seeing it I can describe it to others.

One of the greatest gifts of one’s own artistry is, at least for me, that it changes for ever how I see what I see. When I’m driving, or standing in line, or doing the dishes, I feel the words of some imaginary writing come into my head, or I’m framing the perfect photo.

If I reach the stage of life where I no longer raise a camera or a pen, I hope that gift remains with me, and continues, forever, to lighten and enlighten my life.© September 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Posted on

The Memory of Words Past: Parts of Speech by Phillip Hoyle

This little
story could be of interest only to writers or to students of aging. Here’s how
it goes.
So at age
sixty-four I have just finished writing a novel, a book of over 50,000 words. I
have been pondering the future of the manuscript and in so doing decided to ask
several people to read it to see if it makes sense, holds together, bores, or entertains.
While waiting for their responses, I’m trying to plan creative ways to reread
it in an attempt to make sure I will not send a possible agent or publisher a
work that seems unpromising. A tactic I learned from my daughter-in-law Heather
is to mark all “to be” words, changing them into something active unless they
present no alternative. My own idea is to check the use of all, uh, what’s the
word? Uh, that kind of word I have sometimes had trouble with. This is awful.
Not only do I have trouble selecting the right one of these words; I cannot
even think of the name for the type of word. Am I losing my mind? That’s not
beyond possibility given my age.
I recall
after doing so well in freshman written composition 101 and sophomore and
junior ancient Greek, I went for years without naming parts of speech or grammatical
stuff even though I was writing on a regular basis. When I entered graduate
school I was surprised that I didn’t have facility with that vocabulary
anymore. When I heard my professors talking about word use, metaphor,
participles, and the like, I realized I’d have to review things I learned in
junior high. And now again, after years of writing daily, I cannot think of
some simple grammatical concept I studied in Latin, Spanish, Greek, French, and
English!
Perhaps I
can discover my lost word if I begin writing about words. So I have noun and
verb, subject and predicate. I know objects, direct and indirect. There are past
and present participles which are verbal adjectives and gerunds which are
verbal nouns. Of course I know conjunctions: how could I ever forget PBS’s
“Conjunction junction, what’s your function?” But I have forgotten the elusive
word that started all this. What is the term for words such as over, under,
above, through, and behind? What is the word sometimes connected with places,
actions, characters, things, and so forth. I want it to begin with the letter c
or p but don’t remember. I do recall how the selection of the correct word has sometimes
seemed a challenge. I can misuse them, thus my impulse to have Heather check them
in my manuscript, but I can’t ask her to since I don’t recall the word. It
would be embarrassing since she teaches writing. I have to get it. Through,
beyond, beside and so forth are examples, but I cannot recall the grammatical
name.
I had a
problem with them in Greek; back then I believe it was because I couldn’t
recall the right Greek word that in English often serves as a prefix, for
example “meta.” Did it mean through or after? See, it still confuses me. I‘ll
work at this and will probably go upstairs to read Strunk and White’s Elements
of Style. Surely that old standby will instruct me. Pronouns, personal pronouns,
articles, modifier, adjective, adverb…. Still the word I’m searching for
doesn’t arise from the grammatical murk of my befuddled brain, but I’ll keep at
my memory quest.
The words
describe the relative position of things. There it is, finally: position; preposition.
I never thought of this, but the word describes its function. It’s the word at
the beginning of a phrase (of course, a prepositional phrase) that tells the
relative position of the expression it modifies. I was pretty sure I could
recall this word, my attempt stimulating the bank of grammatical words and giving
synapses time to connect. I like that. Somehow the recollection of this word
seems hopeful, as in: I still know what I know; I still have a functioning
brain.
A question
of an old person: Could loops in the aging sensory and memory system be analogous
with (is it ‘to’ or ‘with’?) the proliferation of capillaries in the aging
circulatory system? It’s a thought, but I recall I was only twenty-seven years
old when I first realized I couldn’t recall such grammatical terms. That really
surprised me for I had been out of undergraduate school only four years and
worked among college educated middle and upper-middle class folk. In four
years, I neither heard nor made in conversation even one reference to grammar!
This phenomenon of forgetting terms reminds me of my current need to say the
name of a muscle at least once a week or I’ll be unable to find the word when I
am trying to explain something to a client. Now that list of terms I
memorized in my fifties. Should I find that consoling? But lists of words I memorized
in junior high or even earlier and have used for decades? Why should they
disappear? Oh well, I’m just happy they are still available, even if my search
for them takes me into memories and the like. Someday (soon?) I’ll start
forgetting what I’m searching my mind for but hopefully will enjoy tours of my
past as I follow loop after loop through my tiring brain. I hope I find my past
as entertaining to me as I hope my novel will be to others.
© 23 November 2012
About the Author

Phillip Hoyle
lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In
general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two
years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now
focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE
program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs
at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com