Aside Stories In A Novel

Some people want lots of  interaction and the main focus to be on the primary characters of a novel, but that is not my favorite kind of story.  I like a story where we learn about the minor characters, that often have an impact on the major characters in our tale.  I like to know what people were like fifty years ago, which might influence they way they act later in the story.  I decided I am going to start writing a few blog posts with behind the scenes stories, which will explain many of the later events in my novel.  I realized people might not understand why Lilliana’s grandmother does not really like her, so I wrote a short story explaining how this is not really personal, but this has a lot to do with her not being the daughter of Sandy Jacobsen.

I want to talk about my novel, and this is the best way I can do it.  At this point I am finally editing on my novel, and it will be published one day.  I want to publish my kind of novel, and it is not being constructed to fit in a certain kind of genre.  Yes, some of my personal experiences have influenced the characters I have created, but that is just the kind of writer I am.  I learned once you wrote out all the things people said and did that might have bothered in the past that you are set free, and you no longer have to ruminate why people slighted you in certain situations.

This was an empowering experience I discovered on the eve of my thirtieth birthday, and it has inspired me ever since.  My story is generally a positive and happy one, but of course my main character has experienced things such as teasing, and not being the most popular girl on the block.  In this story I am writing about those things, and it feels good to do it.  The many little human interactions can really only be told through aside stories in a novel, and a few short vignettes I am posting here on my blog.

The Hippie With The Hazel Colored Eyes

Today I have been editing on my novel, and I am writing a few background stories to give readers more information about some of the minor characters in my story.  We found out how Lilliana’s grandmother Constance met her grandfather George at a pub in London, so in this installment we will discover how her father Alexander met her mother Tatiana.  However, we are also introduced to the character Sandy, who is a bit obsessed with Alexander, and a lot of this has to do with things her mom and Constance told her growing up.  Love is not always something parents can arrange, and often children end up marrying people their parents will never approve of.  This short story will give background for those who might wonder later about why Constance never did like Tatiana

By 1968 Alexander was not in love with Sandy, who he considered to be a little too much of a stalker at this point. She was constantly trying to ask him out of dates, and she would even show unannounced when he went to the bowling alley with his friends. Alexander thought it would be better to help Sandy move on, but his mother pressuring him to ask Sandy out to dinner was not helping.  Alexander decided to enlist in the air force for two years to avoid being drafted into the army during the Vietnam War, and he hoped that Sandy would eventually lose interest in him when he was away. When Alexander left for Thailand he did not let Sandy know where he was going, and a few days later she came over to Constance’s house asking if he had been deployed.

Alexander had met Sandy ten years earlier because his parents had decided to move to California. Constance and George had moved to Riverside from Chicago to open a furniture store, and to strike out on their own in the west. Constance had always been mesmerized with Hollywood since the time she watched movies as a young girl living back in England, and she had visions of living in the land of the palm trees. George knew it would be impractical to live in Hollywood, but he wanted to give his wife a sliver of the California dream she had been yearning for, so he decided living in Riverside made more sense. George’s dad helped him open the new furniture store in California, and Constance was so excited about moving out west.

Constance loved everything about California from not having to walk in snow during the winter, and to being able to grow tomatoes in her garden in March. Thirteen years earlier she had engineered to meet an American GI so she could move to the states, which had been an upgrade from the lifestyle of being a poor girl working as a bar maid in London. However, Constance never stopped dreaming of better things for herself and her family, and she wanted her version of the American dream for son Alexander, and her other son Timothy. However, Alexander was her favorite one, and she always spent more time with him than her other son. She envisioned playing in a palm tree lined park with Alexander during the afternoons when her husband was running the furniture store, which is exactly what they did during their first summer in California.

Actually, it was during this first summer in Riverside at a park where Constance spotted Sandy, who she envisioned as the perfect future wife for her son. Yes, Alexander was only ten years old at the time, but she knew just by looking at Sandy that she had everything that would make the perfect wife and mother one day. Sandy was a shy girl with adorable golden ringlets and sparkly blue eyes, and she made the beautiful contrast to Alexander’s swarthy looks. Constance remembered Hollywood movies with the leading lady with blond curls and blue eyes accompanied by a dark handsome man, like Rhett Butler, which is why she was now dying her raven hair blond. Sandy was the real deal because she had natural blond curls, and from that day forward, Constance envisioned her son pushing a stroller with beautiful babies that looked like Sandy.

Constance went up to Sandy’s mom and introduced herself, and they became fast friends. Of course, Michelle Jacobsen was quite a bit wealthier than Constance’s family, but she decided to make the latter her friend and invited to join all the ladies clubs. Michelle and Constance also thought their son and daughter looked amazing together, and openly dreamed about the day the two would marry.

Alexander would have preferred to have boys to play with at the park, but only had his brother Timothy, and he indulged his mom and played with Sandy because it made her happy. Alexander was, and would always be, the consummate mamma’s boy, so he did whatever Constance wanted. Timothy, on the other hand, was not so much the mamma’s boy, and became the class clown and prankster to get attention of girls when he was growing up. Both boys would grow up to be very different as a result.

At first, Sandy was a shy and reserved young girl in Alexander’s presence, but as time went on, she became a bit more outgoing in her interactions with him. By the time they were thirteen Sandy started wearing makeup and dressing like a young lady, and Alexander even asked her on a few dates in high school to make his mother happy.

However, Alexander had been more interested in his comic book collection and reading stories about famous US legal cases. He one day dreamed of going to law school, and really did not think much about women. George would never tell his wife that he thought his son did not like women, but after awhile he began to wonder. In 1968, Alexander was going to Riverside Community College and working full time to save up so he could eventually transfer to UCLA. He wanted to get a degree in political science and eventually go to UCLA law school, but he did not want his dad to foot the bill. Alexander was a very industrious young man, and even at this time, he still was not thinking much about women. His dad openly wondered about whom Alexander really did like at this point, but his mother pretended not to hear that. Alexander’s younger brother Timothy had impregnated and married a girl soon after high school, so perhaps his parents just overreacted because his younger brother was so different. Alexander had simply not met the woman he wanted to be with yet, which is why he did not show interest in anyone.

In the summer of 1968, Sandy was acting like her and Alexander were an item, but that was only because her mother and Constance were always putting that idea in her head. Seriously, Sandy could have truly benefited from a book such as He’s Just Not That Into You. Part of the reason Alexander enlisted in the air force was to avoid the draft, and so his mother would get off his back when it came to Sandy.

Alexander completed his stint in Thailand, and by 1970, he had found out he was accepted into UCLA and could enroll come September. His enlistment in the air force was coming to an end, and now he could use the GI bill to pay for his tuition for a BA In political science degree at UCLA. Alexander was still not girl crazy like many men his age, and he had only done it a couple of times with a woman he had met once at the bowling alley. Desperate Sandy had alluded to the fact a couple of times that she would go all the way with Alexander because she knew “boys wanted that kind of thing now,” but Alexander did not see her that way, and he knew his mother would be mortified if he treated a lady like Sandy this way. Therefore, he did his explorations elsewhere, but he was still not fixated with any one woman in particular.

When Alexander enrolled in UCLA in the fall of 1970 he encountered a completely new culture as opposed to what he was used to . He was living on campus and grew his raven hair long for the first time. His mom was still interested in the clean-cut looks of the early 60’s, and his dad still got a buzz cut. When he went home one weekend, his mom nearly fainted to see how he looked with his shaggy hair and bell-bottoms. Sandy came over for dinner that night wearing a full skirt and her hair in a fashionable early 70’s bouffant style. There were women who still dressed like that in the early 70’s, but Alexander found that he was drawn to the more bohemian and hippie look that was becoming more prevalent in those years.

One day he would go to a party and spot a woman in a long floral skirt with cascading raven colored hair and hazel eyes, who was strumming a guitar for a group of students sitting around her in a semi-circle. Her name was Tatiana, and she was very bohemian in her lifestyle and philosophy. She had hitchhiked to come out to California from Kansas, and she was studying English at UCLA. Tatiana did want to start a family and dreamed of being a mom, despite her bohemian looks and worldviews, so of course she accepted Alexander’s proposal a year after they met. Constance was not happy about this development, and Sandy cried for a month after finding out her soul mate had married another woman.

Introducing Some of The Characters In My Novel

This is a short story about some of the characters in my novel. The main character in my novel is named Lilliana, who has a very tumultuous relationship with her paternal grandma Constance, who does not like her very much. Years earlier Constance had chosen a particular woman for her son Alexander to marry, and she had done everything she could to try and get them together during high school. After high school her son Alexander lost contact with this woman, who he did not like very much to begin with. At nineteen he would fall in love and marry Tatiana, who was Lilliana’s mother. However, Constance never approved of this marriage, and never really liked her grand-daughter that much because of it. She would drop many a subtle hints in conversations with Lilliana, and she would never give up in her son marrying the woman she had picked. Actually, eventually Constance would get her way, as she was a very calculating woman. Constance is not the main character of the story, but she does make Lilliana feel bad in various situations when she is growing up. Her grandmother constantly remarks on how her looks or something she did is not up to her standards, and there is a reason for this. Constance is a very calculating woman, and she will not mask her displeasure with people not following through on what she wants. Those who adore Constance will eventually do whatever she desires, and her most ardent supporters and family members will love her no matter what. So who is Constance, and what motivations her? This is a story behind how the paternal parents of one of my main character met, and a way for me to talk a bit more about my book without publishing chapters of it online. I am not going to do that because I will eventually submit my book for publication, and self-publish it if I have to. I have finished writing my novel, and I am now trying harder to be focused in my editing. So without further ado, here is the story of Constance and how she met her husband George.

Constance Winters was growing up to be a calculating woman who honed in on what she wanted, and one night at the age of sixteen she made up her mind she wanted to be a war bride and move to the states. She was a bright young woman who had graduated from school a year earlier, and she had been without a mother since 1940 because she had died in an air raid. Her father adored her, and went along with whatever she wanted, and thus relented when Constance said she would start working in a pub at the age of fourteen. Constance even lied about her age to work there, and the owner was duped because her ivory skin and crystal blue eyes, which were a hypnotic combination, mesmerized him.

Constance applied her favorite cherry colored lipstick a GI named Harry had given her a few months before, and was off to her shift at the pub. It was a rowdy place frequented by American GI’s looking for a good time, and English girls who were looking for a bit of fun. A few had serious plans as using this hangout as a place to met a guy they might marry, and Constance decided this would be a great way to find a man she could marry, too.

However, she did not have a lot of money because her father was poor, and the war years had not helped their situation much. At first, she used the gifts that GI’s gave in turn for her company and favors as a way to build up her wardrobe, and acquire makeup most girls in London would not have access to at the time. The American GI’s were primarily just there looking for a good time, and Constance was one of the few girls who would go all the way with a cute guy because she knew it would be worth her while. Harry was very lavish in his gifts, but not one to settle down. That was perfect for Constance because she was not yet ready to get married, but tonight while walking to her shift as a bar maid at the pub, there were machinations going on in her mind. Tonight she decided it was time to find an American beau as the war was drawing to an end during that late April in 1945, and Constance realized her chances of becoming a war bride were diminishing.

So what prompted Constance idea to become a war bride? Her friend Genève was four years older, and had met an American GI back in July of 1944. He proposed the next day after meeting her at the very same pub where Constance now worked, and her friend Genève moved to America. Life in the states was easier because even during the war years Americans did not have to subside on the austere rations that the English had to live with on a daily basis. Genève even wrote home to Constance about how she bought fresh milk from the supermarket where she was living in Chicago, and how the aisles were lined with tin cans of food from top to bottom. Constance was tired of the war, tired of making do on rations, and just wanted an easier life where she could be taken care of.

Even though her father did what he could to provide for her, it was not much, and she had not even had a new dress in over four years.  Part of the reason she started working at the pub is because she knew girls had beaus who bought them new dresses, and she thought that might be a fun way to get some clothes. Constance also altered her mom’s old dresses, and she finally wanted to experience a bit more luxury in her life than what she had been dealing with during her teens. She wanted to be young and treated as a queen, just like the leading men did with the leading ladies in those Hollywood movies. Tonight was her night to find a leading man, and as long as he was handsome looking, she would do all she could to get him to notice her!

So as Constance delivered drinks to one table, she spotted a man with a swarthy complexion and raven colored eyes that matched his hair. He almost looked like Rhett Butler, albeit a bit darker. George’s orbs were followed Constance back and forth between the bar, and she very well knew it. Finally, she mustered the courage to go over and say hello, and he introduced himself. “Hi my name is George, nice to meet you,” said the shy young GI who held out a long and lean hand to clasp that of Constance.

“Hi, my name is Constance, it is nice to meet you as well,” she replied

George looked a Constance that night, and he adored his hypnotic snow princess with the ivory complexion and crystal blue eyes. Her raven hair made her look quite exotic, and he was sure she had Roman ancestry going back somewhere in her veins. George and Constance were quite the pair, and from that night on, they were an item right up until he proposed two weeks later upon his departure home. The war was over and Constance would be traveling to America as a war bride. She would even be living in Chicago near her friend Genève because as luck would have it, it turned out George lived there, and was to have a job in his dad’s furniture business now that the war was over.

It panned out that Constance had good inclinations, and the machinations in her mind resulted in what she wanted. Not only did she look like a snow princess to George, but also in many ways, she could be just as icy in her dealings with people. Of course George would never protest because he was smitten from the get go, but years later while living in Southern California, Constance would have a grand-daughter she did not like very much, and she would let it be known in subtle ways. Of course Constance had to put up with having her son Alexander be married to Tatiana for a bit longer, but eventually she would find a way to get him back with the woman she had chosen for him years earlier. Nothing was beyond the scope of Constance, and she was a snow princess in many more ways.