Resolve

This isn't just about resolutions, although I have been thinking about those quite a bit these past two weeks.  This is about having the resolve to carry them through.

Follow-through isn't high on my list of abilities.  Intellectually, I realize this is a handicap to success.  I need to finish what I start, make the most of my talents, make plans and schedules and stick to them.  Maybe give in and buy a scheduler, which I would then feel obligated to fill out, at least once.  But my problem is, my head doesn't work this way.

Sounds like a chintzy excuse and it probably is.  But the truth is, if I'm not exploring something for the first time, I have intense trouble maintaining momentum.  It's not the challenge I need, but the novelty.  I think.  I'm just figuring this out about myself, trying to approach the problem -- problem?  working method? -- with some detachment and understanding.  Usually I'm hearing some über-Life Coach in my head, dysfunctionally scolding  me for failing to do something as simple as planning my time.  It certainly sounds simple when I say I it.  The steps are hardly difficult, and any idiot can see that I would benefit from just jotting them down, like a bullet list.  Jot them down, check them off.  Voila!

So what gives?  Why don't I do this?  This is both a lead-in sentence and a genuine question, because on the one hand I instinctively understand that this organized, one-foot-in-front-of-the-other approach is exactly the opposite of creativity, or at least my creativity.  Crafters and chefs, God bless them, seem to thrive on this.  But I don't.  Maybe it's because I deal with human nature, which by definition is messy and disorganized.  Or maybe I'm just messy and disorganized.

Quite genuinely, I don't know.

So what about those resolutions and what's the point of this post anyway?  Glad you asked.  I do get sidetracked easily, you're absolutely right.  The truth is, I had an emotionally difficult year.  Nothing really horrible happened, despite my rampant complaining towards the end here.  In the larger scheme of things, having someone inadvertently rebuild my washing machine and getting a new, better working stove at 50% retail are not true hardships.  Annoying and things I feel better grousing about, but not hardships.  I know this.
But this year saw some crucial emotion things completely blow up, enough so that I've finally had to slow down and take a good look.  You know, midlife.  No convertibles have been bought and no tattoos have even been considered.  It's deeper and more powerful than that.  I am older but not old, and still young but not a young woman anymore.  Halfway.  One foot on either side of my life.  And I have nothing concrete to call my own, except a set of behaviors I'm not too proud of.

Because I've never had any resolve.

So I have only three resolutions this year.  It's too easy to say I will stop eating chocolate and use the treadmill more, because God and I both know I won't do either.  I'll get on the treadmill when I can work up my interest in it, and I refuse to stop eating chocolate -- it makes me too happy to even consider it.  It's also too easy to say I will get published this year; that's a recipe for failure, putting it that way.  I could, I suppose, resolve to finish a manuscript this year.  That makes more sense. I can't control an editor or agent's reaction to the work, but I can control the quality and quantity I put in front of them.  I should probably resolve to do that.

But you know what?  If I meant to do it, I'd have done it by now.  Let's face it, I would have.  So why haven't I?  What's the payoff I'm getting, by holding back my warmth, and holding my stories in my head like a miser?  I act like they -- the warmth and the stories -- will disintegrate or be invisible or shunned when I let them loose.  It really does feel that way, that if I let them loose, they'll melt away like snow and I'll be the only one who even knows they ever existed.  Or worse and more painful, they will be ridiculed and belittled and their validity questioned.  I loathe being questioned, and whether that's a function of my immaturity, my sensitivity or my raging ego, I don't know.  But I need to get a handle on it, because why am I letting this get to me so?  There is a deeper reason than: It irritates me.  I need to know what deep, ugly thing's being triggered in me, that I would let some lettered twat derail me for two years because she has lousy taste while also thinking she's an expert.

So there, I said it finally.  Twat.

And so that's my first resolution: Figure out what I'm really afraid of, so I can face it properly and it's not just some ghost at the edge of my awareness.

Stephen King once said -- I recently re-read his On Writing, so this is in the front of my head right now -- but he once said that amateurs talk about being in the right place to write, and the professionals just show up and work.  He's right.  I know it.

And so this is the basis of my second resolution:  I will shut up and get back to work.

The work I produce will not be perfect.  The way I behave will not be perfect.  Both of them run the risk of being boring or even distasteful.  Unpopular.  Yeesh, I think I'm beginning to get it just writing this.  Funny how the whole world can boil down to a few things that happened in elementary school.  The flip side of this might be I'm obsessive, but we'll leave that verdict to the process.  The bottom line here is, it's always better to edit than write.  I can't work with what I won't produce.  So I will produce work this year, even if it feels funny and stupid and like I'm making an ass of myself.  Which right now, it does.

And in order to facilitate this, I will resolve one last thing: I will make things fun.

Remember up top I said things need to feel new and exploratory to me to feel like they're interesting?  See, I didn't forget...much.  But things do.  I hate going to the same old places and doing the same old things.  I take no comfort in that, even while I admire people who do.  I do!  I admire stability in another person, because while I have devotion to spare, I don't have either patience or stability.  I am also insanely intolerant of waffling, both my own and other people's.  And don't fucking lie to me about anything ever, or I will kick your ass to the curb so fast you'll think it's next week already.  You lie to me about one thing, no matter how small, and then I know you'll lie to me about everything, and you probably already have.  Don't go there.

See?  Sidetracked.  What I'm meaning to say is that I need a sense of exploration and new beginnings, an emotional sense that I'm forging new territory, breaking new trail.  I don't need it literally, but I can't write the same characters too much or my brain shrivels.  By the same token I can't write a plot twice, which maybe means I'm a goner when it comes to genre fiction?  I'll figure it out.  But having had this insight about myself -- go insight! -- maybe now I can move forward a bit.  Or not.  I'm being pestered for dinner ideas (yes, at 9:33am) and so my train of thought derailed.

So to sum up, I need to do this:
1. Figure out what I'm really afraid of, because I'm so globally afraid of it I can hardly manage to say hello to people in person, much less finish a manuscript.
2. Shut up and get back to work.
3. Time out for fun.

And now, breakfast. That's enough self-absorbed bleating for now.

Namaste.
xx mm

©27 December 2010 Margit Marselas

A Christmas Carol

I love the classic Dickens story, because it gets not only the lessons of Christmas right, but also the experience of it.



For some of us, it's a joyous season with friends and family. For some of us, it's a season of want and deprivation. And for some of us, it's a stand, a declaration that despite the world's attempts to drag us down, we will not be bullied out of our own cheer and gratitude.



And most importantly, it's a profound statement about it never being too late to suck it up and do right. The right thing to do is always the right thing to do, even when it's hard and uncomfortable.



And off topic for a moment: it's got a killer opening line: "Marley was dead, to begin with."

Two and a Half Weeks Left

And just enough time to:

Buy my girls clothing.
Because they grew and can't go around in stuff that's too small, basically.

Make Christmas candy.
Because the oven died and therefore no Christmas cookies will get made this year. We just can't get a new stove installed in time. It is what it is, and so it's time to switch gears and get creative, and make Christmas candy now and New Year's cookies as soon as possible.

Set goals for 2011.
Because I'm too accomplished at wasting time? These past months I've come to realize that, subtly, my life is running me instead of the other way around. I need to regain some control -- not too much, so I don't tip the balance too far the other way -- and make sure I have the tools and the mindset to do what I really want to do, and not just what I have to. I'm bored running in place.

Would I Live Forever?

You know, I really don't think I would want to live forever.

Lounge 6

It's tempting to have -- literally -- all the time in the world. No deadlines because what the hell? It's not like I'd be getting any older -- because I'd have to make sure 'always looking like a hot 27 year old' was part of the bargain, and then I'd have to extend that bargain to Mr MM. And my kids (once they reached that age, not before! LOL), because no parent should have to bury a child, and otherwise I would be this incredibly creepy mom to an octogenarian, who probably had grankids of her own who would be really scared of me, and--



No. Better not go there.



I have this one life in this one body on this one planet, to do everything I can according to any plan I can muster. That's a lot of room for joy right there. And screw ups. But mostly joy.



A deadline can be a tremendous catalyst for good, I think. I think...

My Favorite Childhood Movie

It's completely true, that ladies love outlaws like babies love puppies. ;)

Robin Hood and Little John

Runnin' through the forest

Jumpin' fences, dodgin' trees

An' tryin' to get away

Contemplatin' nothin'

But escape an' fin'lly makin' it

Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally

Golly, what a day

Me, Renamed

What would I change my name to? Anything else.



I don't mean literally, Ms. Anything Else. No, I mean anything but the first name I was given. It's odd looking, trips people up when they try to pronounce it for the first time, it's constantly misspelled, and because it ends in a consonant, it's often mistake for being a man's name. I spent all my childhood being teased for it, and I've spent all my adulthood having to listen to other people avoid trying to say it, butchering it, or (twice now!) refusing to pronounce it properly, like I have a duty to them to accept some other woman's name because they don't feel like learning mine.



My parents swear up and down that they never once foresaw the difficulties my name would incur. Given that I'm named after my paternal grandmother -- whose real name was changed by the Lynn, Massachusetts school system for not being "American" enough -- I've always found that...odd. And I realize that saying this in public is a little rotten of me, but you know. They have normal names! I have something that rhymes with Target. Literally. But it's not spelled that way.



*sigh*



You see, I'm a girl and it's just not that feminine a name, in English. And since everyone where I am speaks English, it just isn't that...you know...lush. Pretty. It's just not pretty. The other girls at school and now the women I'm surrounded with, their names are pretty. Their names are like figure skating. Mine's like really butch field hockey. In the rain. In November.



But I've grown into my name and learned to accept it and all the conversation it brings. It does bring lots of conversation. It doesn't lend itself to a nickname that lends itself to me, though, and my middle name is very, very ubiquitous -- and no, that's not lost on me either. The explanation is that if the names are reversed, my whole name doesn't roll off the tongue as well. Which is true, I might add. The syllables flow better the way it is. So did the name calling. But thankfully, most adults don't bother to call each other names to each other's faces, at least not until alcohol is involved. So, I have the name I have, and I live with it and live with gently correcting people who don't always get the hint. Or just can't grasp a name they've never heard before. It is what it is.



But when it came to naming my children, they got nice, common, classic names everyone can both spell and pronounce. And they are very grateful for them, too.

My Earliest Memories

Lady Slippers (closer)

I have to admit, I'm not sure what my very earliest memory is, so I'll just go with what I can just manage to call up.



We lived in Amherst, New Hampshire at the time, on a bend in a road called Cross. My father had the house built when I was born, while my mother stayed in Washington, DC with her parents. And then, when I was 6 weeks old, off we went to the sticks -- my city-dwelling grandparents' opinion, not my own parents'.



Obviously I don't remember that part. What I remember is warmth and sunshine, birch trees we peeled the bark from (we called them the Paper Trees). There were Lady Slippers in the forest, creeping up on the firepit there. I never did learn who made that firepit and I have no memory of anyone in the neighborhood ever using it. I just know it was there and we weren't allowed to play in it.



I remember wild blueberry bushes on the slope in the front yard -- the house was on a hill -- and I remember being out there with my friends, our mothers sending us to the slope with our sandbox buckets to collect the fruit. It wasn't a chore. They were just getting us our of their hair for a while.



I remember our babysitter from across the street, a teenage girl who were so thrilled would even talk to us. I remember one time she was blowing bubbles and one popped right in my eye. And of course at 4, you think everyone does everything on purpose. I can still feel my temper break over that one.



I remember Kevin, the other kid across the street, who I was going to marry. Because, you know, he had really cool toys and we were the same. Didn't exactly work that way, but you know. At the time, it was everything.



Someone in the neighborhood had a Saint Bernard. For some reason I remember riding him. I don't know if that actually happened or I wanted it to, but he was a seriously large animal and I've always been a tiny human. It might have happened.



There was a lot of snow.



I remember the inside of the house, and eating cake donuts at the kitchen table with my father at the crack of dawn. My dad's ubiquitous breakfast of cinnamon donuts and black coffee. I tried the coffee and I remember being intrigued by it. Can't drink it that way now, though. He's since told me he learned to drink it black in the Army, because he had no choice. I keep telling he does now and he just grins at me.



We had a backdoor with the sun shining through and I would sit in that warm sunlight and just bask, like a lizard. Come to think of it, I still do that when I can.



The swing my father hung from the tree in the backyard. It was a rope and board affair, hung over the enormous branch on the enormous tree. Funny that the tree was there at all. By today's building standards the whole site would have been cleared, the lumber sold off, puny saplings anchored too firmly for their own good put down in its place. But we got lucky, and had a 100-year-old tree in the backyard, with a rope swing and a canopy of blessed shade and birds and my friend Wendy's cats lurking at the bottom waiting on them.



We had two cats of our own, Samson and Delilah. And a dog, Pepe, which was apparently short for Potage Poulet. Yes, someone named the dog Chicken Soup. I remember the dog being big and friendly, and Samson too, and Delilah getting up on the roof of the house so that my dad had to go get her. Probably used that tree to do it. She ate a lot of those birds, as it turned out.



And then, one day, we moved. Back to the Washington DC area, back to a better salary for my father, and into years of readjusting for me. I didn't handle it well; I had an accent, I had an attitude, and I hated the heat of the DC area. All this at age 4! It had to happen and I managed. But I still love lady slippers. And I miss that tree.

The Book I Just Couldn't Like

I wanted to like this book. I mean, I really, really wanted to like this book. The lead character, Simon Ziele is an intriguing character, smart, compassionate and driven. He has a great backstory well worth mining for his current experience of the world: a detective who's permanently disabled when he fails to save his own fiancee from a ferry disaster, a man who's somewhat fled from the only world he's ever known to try and find some peace, only to have that world come and get him in the form of a brutal murder he's assigned to solve. So much great emotional stuff to work through as Ziele struggles to solve both the crime and what the crime could possible mean to him personally.



But...something's just missing here. It's a murder mystery, 32 chapters worth, and I had it figured out by chapter 9. I think that's probably a bad sign, even with the slight "twist" at the end, the involvement of a character I did not suspect -- but only because that character isn't mentioned for most of the book. That left me feeling cheated after I'd spent so much time frustrated that I could see what the author refused to allow Ziele to recognize.



Compounding this is the brittle, nervous fourth wall in this book, that allowed me to see the characters moving about and thinking, but prevented me from knowing how they feel -- even when the emotions are described, precisely because they are described instead of shown and shared. I wanted to be in Ziele's head and to walk alongside his heart as he began to come to terms with his loss and how that loss affected his view of himself.



But the author only allowed me to get so close before she pulled back, especially in those scenes involving male-female interactions. Almost as though she feared the outright expression of emotion might taint her story. Again and again, we're swallowed up by the motions of the mystery, even when it's not even an issue any longer.



Put it to you this way, and this is spoilery so fair warning now: Ziele gets the perp and saves the girl. Remember that he lost the first girl. This moment should be massive for him, a dreadful replay he's forced to face for the good of everyone, including himself. He failed his lover and saved a woman he barely knows. That's affecting.



And during the scene, the author glides right over this like it doesn't even matter.



This book ended up disappointing me because it didn't fulfill it's promise to itself and therefore me. I'm struggling to learn to write too, and God knows I've made some of these same mistakes. All of them, actually. I'm not posting this as a know-it-all. I'm saying, rather, that it probably takes one to know one. It's true: when you spot it, you got it. I'm just disappointed that I spotted so much so soon, when this character and this book could have been so very much more.



And because of that, I really will read Pintoff's follow-up, A Curtain Falls. Like I said, I really like the character, and characters are always what keep me reading long after the narrative doesn't give me what I think I came for. He has so much potential. And I hope Pintoff cuts loose and lets Ziele's heart run as fast as his feet.

"Brainstorm the plot for a novel," Plinky says

What? Just one?

Mmmk. Irish immigrant travels as hired hand in wagon train west to Oregon. During the journey he loses his employer to cholera, but gains a ward — wife, maybe? — when one young woman’s father or husband dies of it too. Out of this wagon train there’s only a handful of survivors. Maybe this includes a young woman and her newborn who need a lot of help getting across with all that stuff. Maybe this is the ward/woman he meets — by the way, I’m saying ward only because initially he’s not looking to get married or have a family or any of that crap. He’s only interested in getting somewhere close to California — he wants gold and opportunity, and clearing massive forests to grow vegetables in the rain isn’t his idea of a good time.

But he’s a man of honor and decency, even if he hates that about himself, and so he sticks it out all the way to Oregon City. Maybe he does this because he’s one of only two or three men left; maybe everyone else is women and children. Maybe some of the other men died from mishaps, which were frequent (and often operator error LOL). On the way it dawns on him that if he can pass himself off as the husband of one of these women, he can actually own land for the first time in his life, and make something of his life that way. He’s the son of tenant farmers and laborers, who’ve been lucky just to own a suit of clothes. And then to own his own land?! Might be tempting.

Or maybe not. I don’t know him well enough yet. Maybe he leaps in thinking this is the sensible thing to do, and then when it comes time to make it happen he realizes he’s betrayed not only himself, but the woman he conned into lying for him. So what does he do? Does he bloom where he’s planted or does he take off and look for something more to his temperament? Maybe he’s never farmed because at heart, he’s no farmer.

So let’s say he gives in to his wanderlust and takes off. Does he abandon the woman or does he drag her and any children along with him, because while he can’t sit still he can’t quite be an abandoning ass either? I don’t know. If he goes by himself, then he’s got to think about what he’s done at least a little. Maybe he lies to himself that he’s earning money to bring back to the people he’s abandoned, just to keep the guilt at bay.

Maybe he earns a truckload of money and gets completely mugged, seriously brutalized. Maybe this makes him realize that he’s been using other people. Maybe he doesn’t care. But if he does, then he goes back to her to apologize and we find out whether she can forgive him, or if she’s moved on. What if she has, and he has to leave again? Maybe this is the point, that this journey has taught him to bloom where he’s planted, or at least care enough to include those who care about him in his plans. Maybe the point here is to learn that no man is an island, or that his actions have consequences, or even more basically, it’s not all about him.

Or maybe this is just a pile of hooey. I’d have work on it more. :)

Text ©22 August 2010 Margit Marselas.

My Super-Pet! Huzzah!

Wonder...um...triplet powers activate!



Form of...a Badger...and a Tiger...and an Elephant!



No, really. It'll work. Trust me!



Excelsior!

What I know about not being authentic...so far.

Well, I must say, I’ve had the 8 months from Hell.  And this may get a little confessional, so hang on tight.

I started the year with a friendship going down the toilet. The details aren’t important, except for this one: this far down the road, I can see that my contribution to its failure was my unconscious unwillingness to be fully honest or true. I played it safe and did what I thought I “should,” some of me showing…but most of me not. None of it done with malice, but a lie of omission is still a lie, and therefore does the same level of damage. Maybe even more, at the end of the day.

I cannot and should not portray myself as anything other than who I am, either to myself or anyone else. And yet in order to please another person I did exactly that, without even thinking. Without thinking or even being aware of it, I morphed into what I assumed I should be, instead of just relaxing and letting things happen. Please note the word assumed. It’s there for a reason.

Now it would be easy to blame someone else for teaching me that, but this part is my responsibility. I’m not a victim here nor did I victimize anyone else, and I can say that with a straight face because I never meant to harm anyone. Quite the opposite, sadly. But I screwed up anyway because I failed to be honest with anyone, including me.

I will say one thing for it, though: it forced me to completely re-examine how I treat everyone, including myself. And that has lead me to completely re-examine how I go about structuring my life.

Ok, that and the horrible financial aftershocks of several job-related mishaps.

The details here aren’t necessary. What’s necessary is the realization that the common denominator in all this unhappiness is a rather unhappy and unfulfilled me. It’s nothing so external and banal as an unhappy marriage or any other obvious signs of midlife. Sadly, it’s nothing so easy.

It’s the understanding that I have been lying to me about me.

For about ten years now I have been denying me to myself, out of the fear that my essential self couldn’t possibly be up to snuff. Mostly this is about being a Good Mother, but there is more. I’d like to emphasize that this is not me taking the opportunity to cry about how much time I’ve lost and if only I understood I was ok just as I am! Yes, but also: waaa-waa-waa. I’m just saying that at some point after the birth of my first child I seem to have made an unconscious assumption that I need to “grow up” and “act like a Mom.” You see why I started with the tale of my lost friend? Because I did the same thing to the whole world, and now everything’s a fucking maelstrom.

For ten years I’ve indulged in all kinds of self-denial and worse yet, self-indulgence — the kind that doesn’t actually get me anywhere. In fact, it’s dragged us all down the rabbit hole. Or is it rat hole? Doesn’t matter. What matters is I now have ten years’ worth of hole to dig us up out of. And I’m useless, really. I have the job skills of a plastic spoon and far less scheduling flexibility. I have no idea how this is going to work. It’s just that failure isn’t an option.

Because this isn’t about personal bravery and drama and knuckle-chewing, Heaven-gazing heroism.

Ugh.

No.

This is me realizing quietly and calmly that I’ve been walking an inadequate path, a route inside a blank hallway instead of out in the wide, untamed open. I’ve drowned myself in petty things at the cost of, well, nearly everything now. I’ve limited myself unnecessarily and denied myself possibilities because I thought I had to fit in — because I assumed I wasn’t acceptable as I was. No matter my long-standing history with this idea; it makes no difference how I became saddled with it. The point is, it’s here and I struggle with it, and then at times like this I realize it’s come to rule my entire life yet again. I stick myself in a too-small box and lash out with stupid ideas and even stupider decisions.

And then it finally dawns on me to stop pushing into the box in the first place.

Honestly, I have no idea if I even have a light to shine. It’s too easy to get mushy and say, “But we all do!” Well, yeah. And no. I hardly think I will ever be some twinkling fairy in the Forest of Amazing. I’m not even sure I would want to be. Right now I’d settle for a good night’s sleep. And I think in order to do that I need to stop once and for all, and make some real plans based on some real goals — some of them pragmatic and immediate, and some of them will be very long term. All of them coherent steps, finally. I’ve got to get a handle on these fears. Being afraid is how this whole mess started 10 years ago. This is just bullshit.

I have two weeks to go before my kids start school again and I will have some actual working hours to devote to this. Right now things are too crazy with them and their friends using my house like a way station. But once they do get going in school again, I will sit and I will plan.

Watch this space, because I may finally be ready.

Namaste.
xx mm

eeep.

(This is where the post would be, if I wasn't panicking about birthday parties and food.  xx mm)

Research

I'm all deep into 1920's Texas Panhandle right now -- interesting...scary a little, but interesting... -- and thus I am thinking and yammering about research.  I have a little town there, or I will once I wrestle this novel into place again.  So, let's talk about the research: how much to do, when you need to do it -- that sort of thing.

1. I really have no idea -- I just wing it.
2. See #1.

I can't say I have spoken with too many other budding writers about this, and absolutely zero published writers, so my thoughts here are just me rambling in the middle of an empty room, like always.  Don't mistake me for someone who knows what she's doing. LOL  But if you're like me and you prefer to set your stories prior to yesterday, then chances are you and I are going to need to look some stuff up soon.

The question is, when does the balance tip from "verisimilitude" to "non-fiction treatise?"

I've been doing fairly well researching just enough to set the mood, and to make sure I have a handle on the world my characters live in.  Sometimes, that's easy: I had a late antiquity/early Dark Ages focus at University, and so I have enough of a background in that time that I only had to do some supplemental research for Robin's recent adventures.  The 12th century isn't all that far removed from the 9th, but it is enough to warrant my confirming several things, and thank goodness I did: nearly wrote in the wrong kind of motte and bailey for the city of York.  I think details like that matter, because they can change the nature of the action.  It can make a huge difference if Robin is running through a stone structure or a wooden one.  But, I didn't research the entire history of York's fortification nor did I research the construction of motte and bailey structures.  None of my characters were ever going to need this information, so I figured I didn't either. 

Conversely, I have a character whose family founded a town.  So I will need to know the history of this entire area, because he will also know it and draw his worldview from it.  He's proud of his heritage, even if he hates what the town has become.  This means the history of the area will be more important to him than it would be to the guy next to him at the diner, who only cares about getting paid so he can go drinking Saturday night.  That guy couldn't care less who originally owned the land underneath his feet, but my characters does, so both of us need to know that kind of thing. 

So I'm thinking research is one of those things that the characters dictate for me -- or the mystery I'm setting up should I get brave enough to tackle on -- and as long as I follow their lead I'll manage.  Now, having said that, I'm sure further experience will prove me wrong or at least modify what I think.  I'm by no means clued in on what I'm doing.  See #1.  But, you know, thoughts for the day and all.  :)

Anyone else have any thoughts?

xx mm

Blizzard!

No, really. Technically, it's only a major storm here in Montgomery County, but it's an official blizzard in DC and points east -- I don't think they'll mind if this is one wealth they share with the rest of us. I'll post pictures later on, when it's light enough to take them. But think buried cars and fences and no visibility.

Brrrrrrr.

UPDATE! Looking out the front door at dawn, after 15 hours of snow.  And its supposed to snow until midnight tonight!



More pictures later, if they turn out worth using! LOL

xx mm

Ok, a couple more for you, and then I have to deal with the chores (blah!).  And yes, that's Mr MM out there in the snow in the front of the house. 



He's 6' tall, so this ought to give you some idea of how much snow we're talking about here!  Not too shabby for Maryland...

xx mm

Worldviews and such, but no insight yet.

So, I really am trying to do this daily, so that I get a daily exercise is writing my thoughts as tightly as possible. Only today I don't have too many thoughts.

Today I am trying to get my head back into my story, full-on into the story, and for me at least that means a certain level of immersion. I am gathering a assault of music and images, smells, ideas, personalities -- anything that can fully transport me into the era I need to be writing in. I find that imagination is not enough -- never mind Mr. Olivier's remark that it's called Acting. I'm glad he could just transport himself to create characters, but I find I need to be a bit more Method about it before I can think like my characters. In some ways -- though not all -- writing is acting on paper. I find research not only feeds the stories, sometimes its the only place I can find them.

So, that's today's goal at least, to get my head wrapped around my characters' basic worldview. I'm off to moon over dresses and check out architecture...and take some ibuprofen. Headache. *sigh*

So yeah. Today.

Today, in which I will try not to tie my posts up into tidy little packages and therefore make them sound like less than they really are.

Today, during which I will try to be more honest about myself, even if that means I get a little mess on your plate too (not literally, but you get it, I hope).

Mostly I am thinking about my tendency to attract people who threaten the be-geebus out of me. I don't mean physical threats. I mean I gravitate towards people who force me to confront things I don't want to know about. 'Member yesterday when I rambled about comparing my insides to other people's outsides? Yeah. I want to feel inside the way other people look outside, like everything's Okily-dokily, Neighbor! I don't feel like that.

I still have to work out what's going on with Mr Pierson's condition -- he's my compromised character I'm so darned in love with -- and I have no brain it seems. Or rather, it's caught up in juvenile hoohah, things that I should have been able to leave behind in the girls' locker room at my old high school. And this means I am nursing garbage -- I SAID GARBAGE! -- that is just not worth my time. It's certainly not worth Mr Pierson's time. Poor guy's hanging out for a diagnosis, and all I can think about is whether my toes got ignored.

But it's all I can think about!

The bottom line is that I am a needy writer. That's not bad or good, it just is. It's what I have to work with and I owe it to myself and everyone else involved to be aware of it and structure my reactions to it accordingly. I am learning powerful, useful, necessary lessons I don't want any fucking part of, about how to handle myself when reactions to my writing don't go the way I expected. A long time ago I learned the difference between my expectations and reality. They are two different things. I hate that, but they are. And so, I have to own it when things don't go the way I expected. It hurts, but that's life. It's not for me to visit my hurt on others.

Only I just did that, and I'm ashamed of myself.

I owe someone an apology, and I strongly suspect I owe someone else the benefit of my slinking away and never bothering them again. I've made a mess I need to clean up, and so I feel ugly and stupid and I don't know about you, but I don't do well in this state of mind. I think I've gone through too many hankies as it is.

And I sure as hell can't concentrate on teasing out poor Mr Pierson's issues. The novel, the poor novel I've been struggling with since 2006, is struggling yet again. I'm struggling not to run and hide in other stories, or in the laundry -- you know it's a sad day when you feel the need to drown your sorrows in laundry. That's beyond pathetic. Better I should twiddle around with Robin Hood stories again; they're such a security blanket anyway. I'm not really clear on why Robin Hood, of all people, is one of my favorite characters and so easy for me to write, but he is. He's an old friend, who manages to take me as I am when even I won't do that. I suppose I could tease that out too, but I don't want to. Sherwood shelters me, and that's good enough.

And that's today's honest snapshot of me.

xx mm

Random Thought Time #2

I'm having one of those days when I wish I was anyone but me. It's not depression or anger. It's that the emotional grass looks so much greener over there. In the jargon, it's called comparing my insides to other people's outsides. I do that.

See, the last time I had random thoughts they were about competence. Today, they're about standing for what I think is right now matter what. No, don't get excited, it's nothing legal or gigantic or anything. What I mean is, being myself in the face of other people's disapproval. Or dislike. Or maybe when they are annoyed by me, or offended by me, or threatened.

I'm unwell enough to take that last one as a compliment. I'm assuming there's hope for me, though.

But really, sometimes all of us have to stand up and be who we are even when those around us don't like it. I hate that. It's uncomfortable, it's awkward, it makes me feel like I'm the crazy one. I think I'm like the 8 million of my closest pals who would rather been seen as a 'good' person than as my own person.

Except, written out like that, it takes on it's own meaning.

My. Own. Person.

Not owned by anyone else's opinion, not held hostage by anyone else's good graces. Me, answerable only to me -- unless its legal, and then the courts too.

And that changes things. Who am I to assign someone else the responsibility of my actions? Who are they to demand it? Why do I care how I'm 'seen' at all? That last one is the crux of the issue. If my feelings are internal things -- and especially if my self-esteem is an internal thing -- why am I always checking its progress outside myself?

My. Own. Person.

It sounds so obvious, I should work up some embarrassment about this. I really should. Someday.


You know, this entry originally started out as a little drabble on how words are often more than the sum of their parts -- mostly because I didn't know where to take it from there. I can give you directions to the store but I can't really explain what I mean by that. I think, though, I may have just experienced it.

Did I mention that today is Japan's Bean Throwing Festival? Go on. Enjoy yourselves.

xx mm

Happy Groundhog Day! And a bit of grousing...

And of course, Blessed Imbolc and Candlemas, and Happy Sled Dog Day and African American Coaches Day!

And a belated Happy Working Naked Day -- that was yesterday. Hope at least some of you celebrated that one.

Ok, now that's out of the way, I'll grouse: let's talk about how pesky reality can be. You see, I have this character who I know has a specific condition. This isn't negotiable about this man. That's what the situation is. But...how? How did it happen? What does it mean now? Is it treatable? Reversible? I know it's not contagious -- at least I have that much nailed down! But, what I thought the situation was has changed. I did a little research.

And now all story-hell has broken loose.

I know what he suffers from and I know how he suffers and I know what it means for him both internally and externally. This thing defines him. It's not negotiable. But from all the reading I did yesterday -- my heart sinking every word of the way -- what I originally thought caused his issue just can't be the cause. It's not medically possible. So now I am left with having to dig very deep into his business right away to figure out what happened to him, to leave him in this position.

Ugh.

This means, in larger terms, that the weirdo first draft of this story I wrote way back in 2006 has to be almost completely thrown out. Now, I wrote that initially to follow the ideas I had about this man and the town he lives in. Initially, I did not intend or expect a viable story to come out it. But I grew deeply attached to him and I can't just abandon him now. I have to figure his stuff out, and I feel a duty to tell his story. He's a decent guy. He needs this.

But it leaves me in a difficult spot as the author: how he presents himself isn't medically possible. Not to mention the colossal re-write I'm looking at! I suppose this can mean there's a psychological component I need to investigate. But he's both really solid internally and really compromised physically. So, what gives? I need to figure out what gives.

Normally, I love this part of writing, even when it makes me feel like I'm not doing anything. It's true that I'm not putting too many words on the page when I have to think things through. But I still consider it writing, because this very process is what eventually produces the words on the page. So it's fun, to me, and I love the investigation and the discovering the angle I need to use, to see the story right.

But this time I did it backwards and it's really coming back to haunt me. What I thought was, isn't at all. It can't be. So now I'm frustrated, at both physical science and my own impatience.

I guess the moral of the story is, as usual, measure twice and cut once. LOL I've had other stories where I did most of the thinking ahead of time and it worked out a bit better. So, thinking cap on I suppose.

Tomorrow is Create a Vacuum Day. You take that anyway you need to, 'k?

xx mm

Plans versus Ideas

So I know I was supposed to show up with plans and schedules and all sorts of other left-brain goodness when I started blogging again. I don't have that. Typical, I know. But I do have ideas! I have ideas in abundance. And so I guess I better start with those and we'll move forward from there. I guess! LOL

1. Write more: Kind of a no-brainer, but it bears repeating. Arranging the time to do this, with two kids and a husband with health issues and all that goes with the three of them, plus my own issues, is hard. It's not difficult, but it's time consuming and it's work. A lot of work. And so is writing. I haven't yet figured out the balance yet, but I am determined to. Somehow. Yeesh! Because until now, I have let myself far too easily fall into a hole where I think I can't manage anything. And so, unsurprisingly, I don't manage anything! I need to figure this out. And this brings me to my next one:

2. Become more aware of my own thinking: I tend to live up in my head. Since I'm reading food blogs a lot right now, I'm reading a lot of people's thoughts in general, and the impression I keep coming away with is that my head works funny! I am very internally focused, although that doesn't quite touch it. I'm not convinced it's self-absorbed to gauge my world against what I think and feel all the time, but that's what I do. I don't experience a thing and then think about it. I think about a thing and then seek out the experience. This is why I've had this blog for so long and have yet to really use it. And this is why I spend years thinking about joining writing workshops without actually looking for a single one, or why it never occurs to me that my conviction that I can't write might not actually be true or at least it might be reversible. Either way, it boils down to this: I'm so busy thinking, I don't stop to think. Time to stop and think. And that leads to:

3. Connect with other aspiring writers: Ok, I admit it. I'm intimidated. I'm so intimidated my heart rate is soaring just writing this out. I haven't even done anything! But I am spinning my wheels here, alone in the basement. I know of a few professional development associations that can help and so I have to bite the bullet and look into to -- and do it. This year, I will spring for the fees and do it. And probably wail a lot about my anxieties here until I get my feet under me. I'll try to bring cheese for the whine.

4. Cook more and cook better: Cheese for the whine, as promised! In all seriousness, how many of us could disagree that life is too short to eat crap? Exactly. I find myself increasingly addicted to food blogs now, reading recipe after recipe after recipe. I have never been so hungry in my life, but I think this is good, because in the past ten years I have been rarely hungry. I've needed nutrition of course, but there's a difference, I think, between 'hungry' and 'refueling'. I've been refueling for a decade. Now, finally, I am hungry, and I want to cook. I want to eat things that make me feel alive, like I had a meal, like food matters and is more than a waystation on my walk through the house. I'm not sure why I suddenly feel this way, but I do. And I'm thinking of documenting what I do here, because I find the more I experiment in the kitchen, the better my writing is (tied that up nifty-like, huh? *snort*).

5. Tidy up: My house is a perpetual wreck, and it's like a monkey on all our backs. I'm tired of it. Organization will have to occur, whether I feel like making it happen or not. I'm hoping that an organized space will help with the writing.

So, um, that's the thinking for today. For now, I'm off to work on #s 4 and 5 a little, and think about the stories lurking in my head. And I have some ideas about #3 too, so I'll report back when I fork over my $120 $155 in fees (damned inflation). Am I the only person who uses money as an excuse to stay stuck and unsuccessful?

Happy New Year...

I was supposed to wish you a Happy New Year.

But I forgot, because Flomax and the stones it's treating hate me.

So I'm late.

Happy Belated New Year!!