WLT Manuscript Score Sheet

NONFICTION SCORE SHEET FOR 2013 WLT MANUSCRIPT CONTEST



Category: NONFICTION ______



Title ____Homeless Daughter_____Manuscript # _______NF26____


Judges: For ALL entries, please fill in blanks above and evaluate each item on the scale below, 1 to 10. (Zero or n/a are not acceptable scores.) For all entries EXCEPT those marked “straight entry” please also include 2-3 sentences of constructive comments in each of the 10 categories.

Points: Total minimum points = 10. Total maximum points = 100.
2 = Major problems. 4 = Needs work. 6 = Shows promise. 8 = Very strong potential. 10 = Excellent.


1. ____6____ Synopsis: Does the synopsis give a short summary of the narrative including subject matter, main characters, and conflict? Is the story line clear? Might the writer be able to produce a narrative based on this idea? Is the synopsis concise, compelling and complete?
Comments:
First sentence is hard to follow. Instead of relating the blow-by-blow personally here, I think it would be more powerful to write a synopsis with more control that explains the reasons for writing a memoir such as this. The good information you need is hidden in here, but it written almost as if it is part of the book, until the end where the author explains “I want people to fall in love with my mom.” That is the sort of analysis I think would be more helpful in a synopsis.

2. ____9_____ Hook: Does the story, subject matter, and/or main character grab the reader’s attention? Does the hook entice the reader to read further? Would the opening make the reader want to finish the book?
Comments:
Very clear and compelling. I think this is a worthy notion, to better understand homelessness; and the personal narrative—this is the author’s mother--gives it immediacy.

3. ____8____ Structure: Does the author adequately introduce the reader to the central subject of the book? Does narrative move at an effective pace? Does it flow smoothly?
Comments:
I would prefer less jumping around at the start—because, actually, that makes it seem like the author is unsure where the story begins. The hook is captivating. Then I might prefer we go back to the beginning for a smoother narrative arc. You might be able to work into the hook some of the material you are wanting to share by jumping into the future after the initial scene, if that was your thinking.


4. ____9____ Characters: Does the author clearly and vividly describe the characters or central figures in the book? Does the author provide convincing motives for the characters' actions/beliefs, whether fiction or nonfiction?
Comments:
The author has already begun to carve out realistic, rounded characters, through glimpses from different times and settings.


5. ____10____ Conflict: Does the author provide an original and credible conflict for the story? Is this conflict strong enough to move the story forward without distracting from it? Is it free from predictability?
Comments:
Very clear conflict, and well illustrated in the tension within the scenes.


6. ____10______ Dialogue (if applicaple) or Voice: Does the author present dialogue in a smooth, natural manner? Does it help move the action forward? If dialogue is used, it is credible, accurate, and documented? If the author uses no dialogue, does the voice make the thoughts and actions of the characters or narrator clear?
Comments:
The narrator’s voice is authentic and easy for readers to relate to (pardon the dangling prep). The actual dialogue is also believable and perfectly tempers the narrative—I like just little snippets of conversation that distill the moments recalled.


7. ____10_____ Setting: Does the author clearly and vividly describe where and when the story takes place? Does the setting enhance the story rather than intrude?
Comments:
The scenes in the hospital and in the social worker’s office are well described, helping put the reader in the narrator’s shoes. I also like the backstory scenes of stealing cigs from Granny’s purse, and the confession of the narrator to her mother, which begin to help us understand the backdrop of the narrative, and the tragedy behind her descent into homelessness and (I am assuming, perhaps) mental illness and addiction.


8. _____8_____ Narrative Arc: Does the author present a unique and intriguing narrative arc? Is the story line clear and concise, even in the case of nonfiction?
Comments:
I am hopeful the author will help guide readers a little more firmly with the structure, which bears on the narrative arc. For me, after the initial hook, it would feel more logical to go back in time to the start, rather than jump ahead. I recognize, the author may have her reasons. But from a reader’s perspective, chronology is easier to follow, and there are many unanswered questions until we are moored by the basic facts.


9. ____9______ Technique/Style: Does the author make skillful use of language and sentence structure? Are the descriptions vivid and believable? Is the author’s vocabulary appropriate for the book? Is the point of view clear? Does the author’s style enhance or interfere with the telling of the story?
Comments:
The writing flows and is engaging. Some of the mechanics work again the flow, though those are fairly easy fixes. The vocabulary and tone are perfect for telling this story—reasoned and poignant. The point of view is crystal clear.


10. ____8______ Mechanics/Grammar: Is manuscript neat? Is it free of grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation errors? (Authors may use such devices as contractions, intentional fragments, and sentences starting with conjunctions, if these devices are not overdone in context with the overall presentation.)
Comments:
All the doublespacing between grafs makes the writing feel more disconnected than it is. Use standard paragraph formatting instead to improve the flow. Extra space indicates to me a shift in time or frame of reference.
Make clear if the different scenes (ie “How could you? Age 42, Mom gone about 9 years”) are new chapters? With same typeface, only bold, and same doublespacing, it is hard for reader to understand the divisions.

Total Score _______

Additional comments on the manuscript as a whole:
This is an important project, and I hope it makes its way out into the world! The author has a unique bead on homelessness and it is a worthwhile project to educate others about the personal stories of those who become homeless, so they are not just a face on the street. I think this writing has lots of potential. The tone is warm and relatable and reasonable. Tighten up structure and mechanics, but this is a great start.

First 2500 words 1_20_2014

Chapter 1 Fallen Woman

If you had not fallen
Then I would not have found you
Angel flying too close to the ground

- Willie Nelson, "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground"

Age 30, Mom age 50

I braced myself before answering. Calls coming from Mom’s section of Texas usually meant heartache. Still I answered because weeks had gone by since I’d heard from her, and because she had no phone to call her back. I was grateful for the merciful new caller ID showing me the unknown Houston number, so I wasn’t completely ambushed. “Hello?’ I flinched in that suspended moment before the speaker’s response sprayed shrapnel through my thoughts.
He was calling collect from a pay phone to say he had found her unconscious at an abandoned gas station. “She was bleeding,” he said, “from her mouth and – and – you know, her bottom.” I squeezed my eyes shut but the truth remained. The pain hit. My temples beat objection, hardly containing reality. I thought I might fall. Yet I stood, held the phone to my ear, immobile, noiseless.
I could picture her there, lying on her side in the gravel. It was summer. She probably wore shorts, wasn’t covered as well as she would want to be, and was in the most vulnerable state. Maybe she wore an old t-shirt, her hair wild, dusty against the slab. Maybe the blood trickled and dried. Was it enough to pool? Had someone kicked her? Had she passed out before falling? Was she there for an hour before he found her? A day?
The Voice broke in again about calling an ambulance that took her to Hermann Hospital, and then remained anonymous despite my asking. I realized he would hang up without revealing himself. “Please!” How did he know who she was? The last time we talked she told me didn’t have any I.D. Having no permanent home, she didn’t have a place to store such things. How did he know my number? How did he know he should call me? Click.
The blessing? At least he called and she was alive. For now. As I prepared to leave Austin to get to her, I was still distraught. Knowing a few facts didn’t help with the kinds of questions I had now. How had my own mother come to this? Should I have done more to help her?


After the phone call that day, I must have packed for the trip and driven from Austin to Houston’s Hermann Hospital. I don’t remember doing that.
I do remember being with my mom. Getting to her was both a relief and a nightmare.

Please don’t let her go without me seeing her, I prayed, and please don’t let her be horribly sick and suffering. One of those requests was answered affirmatively.
By the time I got to the door of her hospital room, it was dark inside and out. The yellow, pie-shaped slice of light from the hallway spilled onto the floor. Mom used to make pie, sometimes cream with yellow filling, or banana pudding with vanilla wafers, and she’d ask me if I wanted to lick the mixing bowl. But I would not find her making anything fun tonight. What I found, partially illuminated, was a barely recognizable shadow of Mom.
I walked gingerly across the room and dragged the cumbersome, institutional chair to her side, only the rails of her bed between us. I wanted to crumple when I saw her more closely.
Once, I tanned a monkey hide as part of a science class. During the tanning process, the skin – the leather – sort of turns a yellowish color and wrinkles, but it’s still somewhat supple at that point. That night in her hospital room, this was what my mom’s hands reminded me of, except her yellow skin was also brown from overexposure to the sun and elements.
That night she reached and clawed with those hands. Were those the same hands that had brushed my hair, sewn my Halloween costumes, put cold rags on my forehead, taught me simple piano songs? Once, she used to push my cuticles back neatly and trim them, filing the nails in a pretty half moon shape. Her own nails were now thick, yellow, splitting, dirty.
She struggled, fought against the railing, fought with her sheets, tried to sit, tried to get out of the bed, called out for help, called for drinks. In my own head, a hundred voices also gave me various orders in reaction. Run! Calm her down! Call the nurse! Let her be! She’s not hurting anyone.
But my loudest thought was “tie her down with the straps. Please. She is weak. She shouldn’t move.” She was detoxing so violently that she was out of touch with reality. Hallucinating. Just strong enough to move and fall out of the bed in her flailing attempts to get me to “bring [her] a brewsky!” Eventually the nurse did tie her to the railings.

The worst mixture of love, sympathy, empathy, disgust, sorrow, nausea. That’s what I felt. It actually swallowed me. I was bound by it as sure as the canvas straps of the hospital bed bound my mother.

Nothing soothed her. Not the Ativan, nor the pain killers. She was wild and virtually psychotic. I was completely helpless; I could not help her. To watch her was torture. So, I did the only thing that I could imagine. I began to sing a prayer that she used to sing to me. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. She looked up at me, mouth agape. Her eyes attempted to focus. I kept singing: that saved a wretch like me. She began to sing with me, “I once was lost…” I smiled at her, and she at me, “but now am found, was blind but now I see.”
Finally, she slept.
She was dying, the doctor told me out in the yellow hallway. Her stomach was actually eating itself. She not only was jaundiced and had cirrhosis, she needed a new liver. When I asked if she were a candidate to get one, the doctor looked at me like I was a candidate for the psych ward. You see, he explained, she caused her liver failure. Plus she doesn’t want to stop drinking. So many of her other organs are failing. It would be a lost cause. I don’t know how she’s alive right now. I give her, maximum, a week.
The thud of that truth was authentic, familiar. As we waited for the inevitable, the doctor tried to tell her about her severe condition.
“Ma’am, you have acute cirrhosis of the liver, your stomach is basically eating itself, and you have jaundice.”
“I wonder how I got that.”
The doctor explained that almost always it is caused by alcohol abuse, and that very rarely it can be caused by coming in contact with a chemical like a cleaner to which one may be allergic.
I was thinking, this is it. This is the moment of truth. Someone else besides me, someone with a degree in this is officially putting it out there. She will get it.

She piped up, “Well, I wonder what on earth I was cleaning with.”
Mind you, she had no home to clean. The level of denial that an alcoholic can achieve is sometimes astonishing and tragi-comical. It may give a hint as to how much pain someone must be suffering in order to hang onto the bottle at that point.

And so it was the moment of truth. Not for Mom, but for me. I got it, finally. I got it that she would not. I would have to love her just like that, just as she was, or wish something in vain for the rest of what little time we had left.
I started thinking about what our lives had been like, what happened, and what they were like later on.


Chapter 2
Where there's smoke...
Age 8, Mom 28
So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27 … They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. - Daniel 3:26-27

Most years after school let out, I spent several weeks with family in East Texas. The summer I was eight at Granny and Papa’s house, my cousins, a friend, and I devised a plan. We lay in wait for Granny to neglect her square, vanilla, leather box of a purse then lifted three Marlboro Red cigarettes from her matching cigarette case – one for each of us.
In the heat of the summer, we crouched like barn cats in the scorched grass behind the old, wooden shed. We had stolen some matches, too. My friend had stringy, blonde hair, a tiny, sturdy body and a hard, worn face even though she was only seven. Her lime green shorts were dirty, too short and too worn in the seat, her faded yellow and white striped cotton top fit just barely, but it wasn’t cute. It wasn’t fresh or something a mom who wanted her daughter to have darling clothes would let her daughter wear. She showed us how the tar from the cigarette stained a white Kleenex when she blew a smoky breath into it. It made a nasty orangey brownish spot right in the center as the three of us choked and laughed.
We smoked the cigarettes, and that was exciting. But, as B.B. King said, soon enough “the thrill [was] gone.” Bigger and better became the goal but stealing more cigarettes was out of the question since surely too great a number would be missed.
Now Granny and Papa smoked so much that the whole “living room” was hazy. Papa had a silver Zippo lighter that always smelled like the kerosene he poured into it, and he showed us how he could blow smoke rings. I had such good memories of those times that for many years whenever I smelled smoke I felt sentimental about it. But that wasn’t the end of the tobacco love. Granny also chewed it. Beechnut, to be exact.
We got a good idea. We would steal some of Granny’s chewing tobacco, dry it out for about 24 hours, and then smoke it. We snaked some of the tobacco and some paper towels, found a proper spot in the back bedroom, and spread it out the way some little girls dry out flowers to save. We checked on it every few hours to see that it was drying well and whether we were close to being able to smoke it.
About four the next afternoon it was ready. But wait. What would we roll it in to smoke? We needed some kind of paper. Granny wasn’t too concerned about having a lot of art supplies on hand for us kids, but we had a lot of chicken liver dressing and shelled a bunch of purple hulled peas on the back porch. In any case, there was no paper in the entire house except for Granny’s Redbook magazine. It would have to do.
I was a long way from being the coolest one in the bunch so they had to show me how to roll. And by God, we smoked that dried chewing tobacco in chemical- and ink-treated magazine paper. My friend could really blow some dark tar stains without a filter. Something in me shifted. This time, it felt dirtier. Planned out. More dangerous.
After I had stayed with Granny for about a week, I returned home to Houston and to Mom. I was sure she would figure me out. I was wracked with guilt and could not believe we had gotten away with it for that long, but I tried to tell myself to keep it together because I was sure my cousins wouldn’t tell and didn’t want me to rat them out.

One day passed. It was Sunday, so we went to the Baptist church we had attended for years. I held my secret in, but I was sure that my guilt could actually be seen among the truly holy. It was somehow seeping out like black sludge from under my feet. That night I managed to fall asleep.
In the morning, miraculously, another day began. My smiling mom glided into my room, beautiful brown hair, cute shorts outfit, and asked me with her sweet face if I had fun at Granny’s, and I could not keep holding the guilt in. It was too much against her glory. I let the words sink into my mire. I hoped she wouldn’t hate me or punish me forever but I was ready regardless.
What she did was sit with me, listen to me, take me seriously, look at me full in the face and say, “You did the right thing by telling the truth. And since you did, I will not punish you for this. Last, you must not do this again.”
I didn’t.
I found myself thereafter telling my story, telling the truth – regardless of the consequences – and hoping for the best because sometimes, if you tell the right person, the best happens. They hear you, see what you’re doing right, forgive you for what you did wrong, and hold you accountable for future actions which especially include telling the truth even if you're the only one who can or will.

Chapter 3 Lullaby and Goodnight
Age 9, Mom age 29
From the time I was six until I was eighteen, we lived in Southwest Houston close to the Astrodome. The neighborhood was humble and filled with good folks, nice families. Our home was tiny and had few frills. In that house, my prized possession was my bedroom set. I later learned that my folks had purchased it second hand from the family down the street, arranged for me to spend the night with a friend on Christmas Eve, then moved it, painted it, and set it up for me to have on Christmas morning.
One night when Mom said it was time to go to sleep, I was lying in bed with my spring green and white checked bedspread and matching canopy swathing me. Even with this sweet present from my parents surrounding me, that night I felt scared for some reason. Then Mom came in. She walked into my room gracefully, sat down beside me, and reached her slender hand out to place on mine. She effortlessly sang to me, her voice sweet and rich like brown sugar – once again – “Lullaby, and good night…” I wasn’t scared anymore.
After the song she stood, smiled, told me she loved me, walked to the door to turn the light out and said, “Good night, Irene!” Other nights she sang Amazing Grace. Sometimes she said, “Don’t let the bed bugs bite!” But every night she was there.

Chapter 1 revision 1-2-14

Chapter 1 Fallen Woman

If you had not fallen
Then I would not have found you
Angel flying too close to the ground

- Willie Nelson, "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground"

Age 30, Mom age 50

I braced myself before answering. Since I had learned that calls coming from Mom’s section of Texas usually meant heartache, I was grateful that the merciful new caller ID had shown me the unknown Houston number so I wasn’t completely ambushed. “Hello?’ I flinched in that suspended moment before the speaker’s response sprayed shrapnel through my thoughts.

He was calling collect from a pay phone to say he had found her unconscious at an abandoned gas station. “She was bleeding,” he said, “from her mouth and – and – you know, her bottom.” I squeezed my eyes shut but the truth remained. The pain hit. My temples beat objection, hardly containing reality. I thought I might fall. Yet I stood, held the phone to my ear, immobile, noiseless.

I could picture her there, lying on her side in the gravel. It was summer. She probably wore shorts, wasn’t covered as well as she would want to be, and was in the most vulnerable state. Maybe she wore an old t-shirt, her hair wild, dusty against the slab. Maybe the blood trickled and dried. Was it enough to pool? Had someone kicked her? Had she passed out before falling? Was she there for an hour before he found her? A day?

The Voice broke in again about calling an ambulance that took her to Hermann Hospital, and then remained anonymous despite my asking. I realized he would hang up without revealing himself. “Please!” How did he know who she was? The last time we talked, she told me didn’t have any I.D. Having no permanent home, she didn’t have a place to store such things. How did he know my number? How did he know he should call me? Click.

The blessing? At least he called and she was alive. For now. As I prepared to leave Austin and get to her, I was still distraught and full of questions. Knowing the facts didn’t help. How had my own mother come to this? Should I have done more to help her?

Ch. 1 Fallen Woman revised 12-30-13

Chapter 1 Fallen Woman

If you had not fallen
Then I would not have found you
Angel flying too close to the ground

- Willie Nelson, "Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground"

Age 30, Mom age 50

I braced myself before I answered. Since the merciful new technology of the caller ID had shown me the unknown Houston number, I wasn’t completely ambushed. “Hello?’ I flinched in that suspended second before the speaker’s response sprayed shrapnel through the silence.

He had found her unconscious at an abandoned gas station. “She was bleeding,” he said, “from her mouth and – and – you know, her bottom.” I squeezed my eyes shut but the truth remained. The pain hit. My temples beat objection, hardly containing reality. I thought I might fall. Yet I stood, held the phone to my ear, frozen, noiseless. I could picture her there, lying on her side in the gravel.

It was summer. She probably wore shorts, and wasn’t covered as well as she would want to be, in the most vulnerable state. Maybe she wore an old t-shirt, her hair wild, dusty against the slab. Maybe the blood trickled, and dried. Was it enough to pool? Had someone kicked her? Had she passed out before falling? Hit her head? Was she there for an hour? A day?
The Voice broke in again about calling an ambulance, calling me, and then remained anonymous despite my asking. I realized he would hang up without revealing himself. “Please!” How did he know who she was? She didn’t have any I.D. How did he know my number? How did he know he should call me? Click.

The blessing? At least he called and she was alive. For now. Of course I was still distraught, and even though I had lived it, been with her, been her daughter, one question in particular consumed me. How had my own mother come to this?

No Woman is an Island: the effects of alcoholism on mom and daughter: Two Days After Amazing Grace part 1

No Woman is an Island: the effects of alcoholism on mom and daughter: Two Days After Amazing Grace part 1: Chapter 1 Two Days After Amazing Grace Age 30, Mom age 50 In that suspended second before the response, I flinched, attempting not to fe...

Two Days After Amazing Grace part 1

Chapter 1 Two Days After Amazing Grace
Age 30, Mom age 50

In that suspended second before the response, I flinched. The merciful new technology of the caller ID showed me the unknown number from the Houston area, so I braced myself. “Hello?” His voice sent shrapnel into the silence.

He found her unconscious at an abandoned gas station. “She was bleeding,” he said, “from her mouth and – and – you know, her bottom.” I squeezed my eyes shut but the truth didn’t go away. The pain hit. My temples beat objection, hardly containing reality. I wanted to fall. Yet I stood, held the phone to my ear, frozen, noiseless. I could see her there, lying on her side in the gravel. It was summer. She probably wore shorts, probably she wasn’t covered as well as she would want to be, in the most vulnerable state. Maybe she wore an old t-shirt, her hair wild, dusty against the slab. Maybe the blood trickled, and dried. Was it enough to pool? Was she there for an hour? A day? Had someone kicked her? Had she passed out before falling? Hit her head?
How is this what had come to my own mother?

The Voice broke in again about calling an ambulance, calling me, then remained anonymous despite my asking. I realized he would hang up without revealing himself. “Please!” How did he know who she was? She didn’t have any I.D. How did he know my number? How did he know he should call me? Click.

The blessing? At least he called and she was alive. For now.

Gospel Music, Mom, and Me

Gospel Music

Mom had a beautiful soprano voice. She sang “I’ll Fly Away” and other gospel hymns often.

When Whitney Houston got popular as a pop icon in the eighties, Mom identified and referred to her as “Cissy Houston’s girl” because Cissy Houston had been a gospel singer whose music my mom knew well.
We watched Dionne Warwick on her show every Sunday evening as long as she had it. One of her regular guests was Gladys Knight, sometimes with the Pips, and Mom taught me the song “Midnight Train to Georgia,” which she sang with true passion.
We watched Barbara Mandrell and her sisters, who also had roots in gospel music.
Mom got to see Elvis when she was ten, I remember her telling me. She only understood later in her life what a momentous occasion that was. At the time, she had fun but did not fall in love or think Elvis was anything to lose sleep or scream over.
Crystal Gayle was another favorite Mom would easily belt out, especially her version of Blue Bayou and Don’t it Make My Brown Eyes Blue, as her eyes were brown.

I’ve spent a lot of years trying to get away from my gospel and country roots. I thought it was the part of our family that was backward, unhealthy. Now as I sit on my Texas porch this evening, listening to the crickets and cicadas, feeling the warm summer breeze, I feel it is the part of us that was sweet, and simple in a good, easy and humble way. I thought in order to be worldly and sophisticated – which I also thought was where it was at – I needed to denounce this past, to literally move away from it, and to show much disdain for it. Certainly that would mean I had arrived and understood the ways of the real world.
I still love and appreciate – and remain indebted to - the creative, employment, spiritual, and educational, as well as medical and technological opportunities a city brings. I also love the great number of people one can meet from all walks of life.
But I no longer believe it is better, and I miss and even love my country roots.
I had attached too much of the hurt, given the country in us too much responsibility for what had gone wrong. I had felt so isolated there, so like no one would hear me, and there was much truth to that. Getting to places that were more populated was a relief beyond measure at that time because I found so many resources for help and healing. I found people who would listen. I also found plenty of people in the country who would not listen and who wanted to perpetuate the family problems.
To be fair, I have also found those who would help in the country, and those who would harm in the city. I guess it was pretty simplistic of me to think I wouldn’t, to think it was that pat.

For a bunch of years, I had it good and really the best of both worlds living in Austin. But now the city is booming and seems to be set on proving itself as world class. Since living in a “world class” city about a year ago, I have lost all taste for that.
I have been two stepping a bunch lately, and eating farm fresh watermelon and peaches, drinking iced tea, going fishing, and wearing my cowgirl boots. I am moving to a smaller town just outside Austin.
I have also been reading intellectually challenging books, participating in political protests, going to the symphony, and meeting folks from all walks of life.

I feel magnificently about the whole kit and caboodle that makes up Texas and me, y’all.