Haven Springs

Growing up in Haven Springs had seemed to me, as a boy, to be the cruelest imaginable trick the fates could ever have played on a helpless mortal child. That town was, I believed, the original, the one and only, God-forsaken place. Oh, yes, I was chock-full of that voluble despair so peculiar to the young. Haven Springs, my home town, was an egregiously misnamed patch-town in the played-out minefields of mountainous northeastern Pennsylvania. A black culm bank loomed over the house I grew up in-something like a lunar landscape it seemed to me, or the land of Mordor in my own back yard. The black dust from that embankment tinged our daily sky. The coal of course was all gone before ever I came on the scene, and the town was a shadow of its former self. It was as if the breath of doomed had passed over Towamensing Valley–sometime previous to my arrival, and probably in preparation for my coming–draining all life and hope and color from the place. Even the Christmas ornaments strung across our winding Main Street each December seemed disheveled and colorless. Oh, I was full of romantic despair for my homeplace in those days. All my ambition, all my boyish dreams, had only to do with getting out.

Voice

Long away, but the story has been on my mind. I want to experiment a little, getting away from the careful and methodical plotting, at least for now. I want to get "inside" the story. So far I've been looking at it from the outside. For now at least I want to get into the head of the main character. Like this:

My beginnings, like everyone else's, were somewhat complicated. My mother gave birth to me in the upstairs front bedroom of this very house, nearly 87 years ago. Her husband, who was off in France at the time, fighting the Germans in the war to end all wars, happened not to be my father. Yes, that sort of thing happened even then. Not uncommonly, as a matter of fact. My father, so I've been told, had come to town to help organize the miners into a union. It wasn't long before a company dick knocked him on the head with a club and threw him in the Susquehanna River. This was down in Plymouth Township, by the way. A few moths later my mother died in the ordeal of childbirth, and my Aunt May and Uncle Charles took me in, wondering what they were going to tell my father (I mean my mother's husband). This all happened back in 1918, a year to remember, that's for sure.

Good Line (1)

Boxton was a tired town, a neglected place that looked as if was in danger of collapsing in on itself.

from Ruby Holler, by Sharon Creech

Culm Banks

An excellent culm bank image from this page. We called them "culm banks" where I grew up, but I like boney piles or gob piles. William W. Lewis, in Black Rock, wrote this:

Now at the lower end of town we used to have culm banks anywhere from seventy to a hundred feet high. We, as young boys in this town, used to go to the colliery and get long pieces of sheet iron. We would curl up the end like a toboggan, put a wire on the back end of it, pull the sheet iron up to the top of the culm bank and then ride down on it.

Yup, only we used cardboard, which was more readily available in my day.

[quotation from Black Rock found on p. 139 of Angus K. Gillespie's Folklorist of the Coal Fields]

Progress Report

So in the last few days I've done some good work on the novel, really just working out the details, chapter by chapter. I'm through 4 chapters now, or so it seems to me, and really just kind of discovering the process. Right now I'm quite happy with how things are going. This is an intermediate stage, not actually writing the novel yet, but working out the wrinkles, as I see it. I can't help feeling I'm being tremendously naive, and the whole house of cards will sooner or later come crashing down on my head.

I also realize that if some stray reader were to stumble onto this blog, it would seem rather strange to have all this talk of a novel, but no sense of what that possibly mythical creature looks like. That's how it shall have to be for now. The blog is just a place to collect my thoughts concerning the process, or my notes concerning some of the preliminary research that the novel requires. Thus the coal mining posts, etc.

Writerly Encouragement (1)

Marilyn, the cleaning lady at my library, is very fond of all things Scottish. She's discovered a Scottish author by the name of Lillian Beckwith, whom she just adores. Anyway, we looked up Beckwith in Contemporary Authors, and found this nugget:

When I am asked for advice by aspiring writers I usually reply, "Put a blank sheet of paper in your typewriter and threaten it with words."

An Erudite Rogue

So, here I am, new novel-blog before me. What a concept. I've been blogging for several years now, approximately 900 posts or so, but this novel blog is something new and strange to me. I'm a guy who has this naive notion that he maybe could write a novel, and has a vague idea about how to go about doing that, and figures blogging my help him in the process. Of course, should any reader stumble overb these posts, he will quickly discover that there's no hint of an atual novel here, you know, with characters and plot, etc. Just so stiff about cola mines. Oh, well. Bloggers are strange, after all.

But the truth is I'm easing into this process quite the way most people ease into the surf at the beaches of Maine, an inch at a time, never quite sure they want to go on. Some foolish "encourager" at their back is saying go on, you can do it, but you're keenly aware that they don't know what they're talking about.

Yup, that's me. I actually have some pretty clear notions about the plot and the characters, but this sort of thing will come with thime to Towamensing. Right now it's about the research. And in the research I have come across some "characters" that intrigue me.

A guy named George Hauto. Miller and Sharp call him an "erudite rogue." He attached himself to rich Philadephians, saying he was a German prince or something. He is more or less a footnote to a footnote in the history books, but his type show up again and again through the centuries. A rogue, perhaps, but a quick Google search turns up a town and a lake and a tunnel that bear his name, all in Carbon County, Pennsyvania.

For me, all this has the makings of "back-story" for my novel, which happens to be what I'm focusing on just now. Every "origin myth" needs an "erudite rogue," don't you think? George Hauto is going to be mine. More on all this later.

Novel

Ah, I have my first "known" visitor at Towamensing. Welcome, Milton. Most blogs, most by far, begin as very private matters, and then over time, perhaps, a small coterie of readers gather. Or perhaps not. This particular blog, for instance, is not likely to gather a crowd. I mean, what's all this stuff about coal mines and all?

Well, to explain, I'm thinking about writing a novel, and the novel is to take place in the mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania--affectionately known as the coal region to some. So just now I'm doing a little research on the region, which happens to be where I grew up. Other topics, many other topics, will pop up as time (and blogging) goes on, but for now my fascination is with all things anthracite.

See, this tinkering with a novel is something anyone can do. It doesn't mean they have to get it published or even finish writing it, because the process is kind of fun in itself. Kind of like doing one of those tricky little number puzzles on the comics page of your newspaper, only far more complicated. As this blog goes one elements of the story I have in mind will gradually become clear, and I'll probably do some "creative writing" (as we were taught to call it back in high school) after a while, but for now I'm just kind of exploring the place of the novel--what I'm calling Towamensing.

And btw, Milton, thanks for stopping by.

Josiah White

Everyone knew that hard coal burned, but it was difficult to ignite (and keep ignited) in a furnace, making its value to industry negligible. Well, that is until Josiah White of Philadelphia discovered how to light it and keep it lit--by allowing a draft of air to rise through the coals, rather than to blow across it (as with a traditional bellows). That was in 1815 or so. White was a visionary industrialist, and quickly saw the potential of his discovery. Oh, the story goes that he was experimenting with anthracite one day, trying to burn it in the furnace at his iron mill. Giving up in disgust, he went home. Later, though, one of his workmen went back to the mill to retrieve his coat, only to find the coal burning away. This accidental discovery was the great breakthrough that helped to fire the industrial revolution and turned northeastern Pennsylvania into "the kingdom of coal."

White's coal fields were in the Lehigh Valley. The whole story is in Kingdom of Coal, in much greater detail. I found out here that White, a Quaker, was a dedicated antislavery man as well. The town of White Haven is named after him. See also this article from American Heritage.

A Place I Remember

From Kingdom of Coal (p XIX):

In winter, the coal breakers, vast factories for processing coal, seem even more imposing against the barren landscape. Most stand silent now, more than 100 feet tall, rotting remnants of a once dominant industry. Not far from every breaker and pit head are the simple homes of the people who remain in the region. The buildings are strung together in long rows, and some of them are sinking into the earth.

The Point.

First post in a blog that will serve mostly as a place to diddle around with my idea for a novel. Early stages will be mostly historical investigation. I'm going to have to learn a little bit about coal mining, it seems. And I'm going to work out my sense of the place, the place called Towamensing, the wild place.

In addition, I'll do the usual self-indulgent blogging about anything else I happen to like, or those things that stir my soul. Such as: God, baseball, books, etc. The blogroll, I hope, will reflect some of these interests.

Novel-related posts will be labeled setting, characters, plot, etc. It should be, well, interesting. For me at least. Which is the whole point.