Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us? Weeding for Eisenhower: Stories (I considered no other titles, and this story was very popular in the magazine which originally published it. It’s an eclectic collection, not linked or a “cycle”, so I went with a title that arouses curiosity and is the title of one of the stories in the contents)
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? I began writing these eighteen stories after the publication of my first collection, Friday Afternoon and Other Stories, which won the 2017 International Book Award for Best Short Fiction.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. And can you please include a photo? I write exclusively in my office/library.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I tend to unwittingly consume at least three cups of blueberry coffee during each writing session. I write exclusively at the desktop in my office. As we have three children, I write from ten in the morning until about 1:30 in the afternoon, and lunch at the computer. I listen to music when I write, with Airpods in. All the music is instrumental and chosen for the mood I anticipate for the situation in the story. My favorite for writing is to shuffle the versatile Ennio Morricone, but I move around a good bit due to the eclectic nature of my short stories.
http://www.enniomorricone.org/
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer.
From “Ode to Cubby” in the collection Weeding for Eisenhower:
She placed the bear on the tenth step from the bottom. He was an old bear, well-used or well-loved, or maybe both. He had a sky-blue ribbon attached to his head, but not by the manufacturer. Oh no, Stephen thought, certainly not by the manufacturer. That ribbon was put on that bear by a child. Now, as the bear posed for a photograph less than a hundred feet from Abraham Lincoln, perhaps thirty fewer from the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream, the woman was ready.
She was black, older than thirty but less than forty, and the sort of next-door pretty that had always made Stephen want to become a dad. Her complexion was like a tan cream, smooth and supple like Alicia Keyes or Marilyn McCoo of the Fifth Dimension. Curved lines bordered the outsides of her eyes, lines that suggested lots of laughter or lots of worry, or maybe both. From her neck hung a camera, the bigger kind that made Stephen think of old Nikon commercials he’d seen on YouTube.
The woman employed her empty left hand to brush wavy dark-brown hair from her eyes, then smiled and said something to the bear. Stephen couldn’t hear her words from his seat at the top of the steps, but he could tell they were reassuring, calming. She was telling the bear that this would be a special photograph. Then she was listening, nodding her head in agreement.
Suddenly the bear said something important, something that mattered a great deal to the woman. Her eyes changed. Surprised, she brought the palm of her left hand to her open mouth, covering it, saddened or even appalled by the bear’s words. With her right hand she raised the camera, but lacked the strength to hold it steady without the reinforcement that could be offered by the hand that stifled her emotion. Stephen almost jumped to his feet to offer assistance, but held back as the woman wiped a tear from her left eye with her empty hand, then lent the hand to the camera, steadying it in partnership with the right. She examined the viewfinder, then took the picture. Then another. Then she repositioned the bear, turning him to face Lincoln. She moved to her right so that she could capture the bear in profile, gazing at Lincoln, Lincoln gazing at him, an unspoken mutual love that seemed to say they got each other.
Stephen wanted to be in this photograph. He wanted the picture to live in this woman’s house, and he wanted to be in it, to live in her house by being in the picture. But he couldn’t ask a stranger to include him in a family photo. Part of him, however, suggested that maybe this wasn’t a family photo. Maybe the woman was getting to be an old maid of sorts, and brought her childhood bear to Washington, DC for cute pictures she could share on Facebook with her other single friends as they navigated their lonely lives in the false company of social media. Or maybe…
Stephen stopped. Not this woman. She wasn’t pathetic. She wasn’t deluded. This wasn’t her bear. This was her child’s bear. So where was her child? The bear wanted to know.
So did Stephen. Why would a woman take pictures of her child’s bear in front of the Lincoln Memorial? Why would she reassure the bear, an inanimate object that couldn’t say anything back? At that moment Stephen decided he needed to know the answer.
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? A few years ago my family and I visited Washington, DC. At the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, there was a woman with a stroller. She positioned a teddy bear on about the third step and took the bear’s picture, and then returned the bear to the stroller. There was no child in the stroller. My heart broke as I realized that this woman was taking a picture of her lost child’s bear, perhaps at a place she’d wanted to bring her child to some day. My wife was struck by it as well, and at lunch we spoke of how likely it would be that we would do the same thing if one of our children were to die many decades before we would. My wife said, “You have to write a story about this woman and her bear.” She didn’t have to twist my arm. The result is “Ode to Cubby.”
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. I revise story manuscripts electronically, so there is no marked-up draft. Plenty of revision, of course, but it’s always an evolving story document, all the way through final polishing.Anything you would like to add? The softcover version is the book that will be available in stores and via Amazon starting September 15th (official pub date). The hardcover first edition (on sale now) is only available signed, and will continue to be available signed. All the pre-ordered copies have been signed and shipped, and now your readers can order the signed hardcover by visiting my author website https://tdjohnston.com/ (where they can also get signed hardcovers of my first collection, Friday Afternoon and Other Stories, which won the 2017 International Book Award for Best Short Fiction)
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