Monday, January 4, 2010

RAKER, Middle Grade Novel

As I continue to work on revising KNOCKOUT, I've recently been "inspired" to begin a new project. Over our winter break I was doing a little research on the Internet, and before I knew it, I was knee deep in everything from honeybees to blueberries. If you have had the opportunity to read the first chapter of KNOCKOUT, you know that it is told in the first person narrative. Originally this was not the case, having written it first in third person narrative. It is hard to imagine (once you read on...) that the character Alexandra "Knockout" Walkowitz was, at one time, only mentioned briefly in the first draft. I really fell in love with Alex's "voice," and soon enjoyed creating a story that would show how life can change, when you put your mind to something. Crawford Jackson Potts is no "Knockout," but they have much in common. Here's a taste of what I've been working on over the vacation.

RAKER, Middle Grade Novel

Crawford Jackson Potts lost everything he ever owned. Beginning at age two, Crawford flushed his great-grandmothers sterling silver rattle down the toilet in a single flush; then for dinner, he fed his oversize rubber binkie to his dog Rutter. The dog sputtered and spate like an overstuffed garbage disposal, before swallowing it in one final, hair-raising gulp—gone. Twelve months later, Crawford managed to unlocked the screen door and stroll unattended onto the front porch. While Crawford peeled paint on the steps, Rutter wandered off and was thumbed by a school bus—dead. On his fourth birthday, Crawford gotta taste of how much he was loved, losing his very own bedroom. Starring hollow jawed, the boy watched as his momma rolled petunia pink paint over midnight blue. Two weeks later—to Crawford's dismay—his momma brought home a little baby sister.
“Thank God it's a girl,” she said.
At five, C.J. Potts not only surrendered his very first library card, but the privilege of going to the library. “Banned,” his momma was told. Crawford had removed books from the shelves and stacked them in piles like a ladder to the sky. A heap of five grew, like a pyramid, all the way to the top of the grandfather clock.
Sitting bow legged, Crawford cooed, “Ya-hoooooooooo,” as he swung his leather belt, like roping a steer.
“First time in all my years,” moaned the librarian.
However the worst loss, by far, came at age 10, when Crawford climbed into the family's broken down 1949 Woody, disengaged the clutch, sending it hoping off the jacks and onto his poppa. The car rolled down the driveway and across the dirt road, before coming to rest 25 five rows deep in a corn field. Crawford not only followed the run-away-wagon, but miraculously got it to start.
Crawford Jackson Potts never looked back and never saw his momma, little baby sister, or poppa again.