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Tayari's Blog: Love Is A Tiger

Posted by TayariJones on June 26, 2008 08:37 AM
Filed under Writing

As I am plugging away at this book, I have been thinking a lot about love. Not the romance novel kind, but the solid kind. I wanted to write about love between a father and daughter. So I was writing corny scene after scene when the father makes all these loving gestures toward his daughter. I was writing stupid daddy’s girl crap. I am ashamed to admit it, but I even wrote a made-for-Hallmark scene when she learns to dance standing on his feet. Please forgive me.

So, I then decided to mine my autobiography. I’ve always felt close to my daddy, but when did I know that he loved me? I thought and thought and thought and I came up with this while taking a hike.

I know that what makes a scene work, what makes an emotional real is to tie it to hard experience. So here's mine:

When I was about four years old, I wanted a Tony The Tiger ink pen. (See, a writer even as a tot.) The deal was that I had to send in about four box tops and fill out a little cupon. Let me tell you, that was a lot of cereal. Finally, my packet was ready to go and we mailed it to the cereal people.

For weeks I stalked the mailman and my daddy was getting into the act, too. It was all Tony all the time. One day, daddy came into my room looking so sad. The mail had come and there was a postcard from the cereal people. There were no more Tony The Tiger ink pens. He explained to me what “while supplies last” meant. I can remember how distressed he was and to this day I can call up my distress and his distress. Then I thought, “this is what it means when he says he loves me.”

This story has a happy ending, one too convenient to go in my book, but the next day, there was an envelope in the mail. There must have been one ink pen left! I kept that pen with me for a long time.