just under the wire

Honestly, this is more of a housekeeping article; I have no deep thoughts or organized five paragraph essay to spew onto the page this late in the evening, however, I did want to post something within ONE YEAR of my last post. So really, these words could all be gibberish and I wouldn’t much mind (let’s face it, they are probably close) because I once again have to start from scratch with The Writing Process and begin again.

Was it Heinlein, Clarke or another SF great who first gave us those five valuable rules about writing–the first being You Must Write and the last being You Must Send to a Publisher? Well, as I have yet to get to that latter rule, I decided the best place to start, is to go back and start from the beginning once again. So, I shall write.

Oh, and it was Heinlein. I know, because the rules are on my bio page. Thank you, internet for keeping my blog fed, watered and warm in my absence. I owe you one.

The editing brain

It never ceases to astound me when people are able to write and edit with music or the tv on. I learned long ago that writing with music on is like learning to take dictation while sleeping. Whether I like it or not, my fingers start to record whatever I hear (which, when listening to classical music becomes very amusing–”Swan Lake” produces sentences like, “In order to successfully watch bears singing with loving graceful lungfuls…” I don’t know where it comes from, and I’m not making this up.), my brain becomes utterly distracted, and there is no hope for staying on the topic at hand.

Still, it make me wonder about ‘the editing brain’ and how it differs from perhaps the ‘creative brain,’ and the ‘autopilot brain.’ I’ve done an informal poll, and there are just as many writers out there who are like me as who are the opposite. I live with an opposite in fact; in college he would blare progessive rock music while writing and swears to this day it helps with word count and thesis. I, on the other hand always sequestered myself in the quietest, dingiest corner of the library and looked up snarfily if anyone so much has squeaked their chair against the linoleum floor.

What causes (about half of ) writers to need this absolute silence and concentration to do something they love so well? What is this need to “get in the zone” and remain in this trancelike state until they are satisfied with the words on the page?

I have yet to understand it, but all I know is that it works for me.

so what do you do with that degree in english?

An English major is required by definition to have a number of snappy comebacks when someone inevitably asks, “so you’re a lit major, what are you going to do with that?”

To the engineers and scientists, we are told to say, “We are the translators of the technical age. What good will all of your advances do us if no one can, with elegance and insight, explore and explain how they relate to our reality?”

To business people, we must remind them that, “We record and translate life. It is we who struggle to make life understandable, memorable, meaningful, and lasting.”

On a bad day, we just say, “Sod off! I love books. Why can’t everyone else?”

conquering mount nanowrimo

NaNoWriMo is no small feat. I’m not whining, but aside from sucking up every extra word in my creative piggy bank, it has jostled a few old but distinctly unsettling feelings from the “so you want to be a writer” shelf on the left side of my brain.

As one of my good friends is always quick to remind me, writing is largely a labor of love. And just like love, it is sometimes quite easy to want to kick it in the groin, throw it against the wall and be done with it for all eternity. However, also like love, there is, concurrently, the constant feeling that with a little more work, it will be better than ever. With a little more work, this little story will find its own voice and speak out on its own. So I have found myself in a perpetual cycle of throwing my measly ten thousand and counting words of novel-in-training against the proverbial wall and shortly thereafter, picking it back up, turning it over in my hands and trying, with the same old twenty six letters, trying again.

Another feeling which I had not, until recently, really been able to put my finger on was this ‘life of the story’ as I have started to call it in rants to poor and unsuspecting friends. When one reads Shakespeare, Austen, Rowling, Lewis, Card, Tolkein–all of them, the story immediately comes to life from the first few words. The reader consents to the fiction (if this were one of my fantasy term papers, I’d be quoting McDowell) and it is a story. I have struggled, from the age of six, with somehow imbuing my written words with this same feeling that the story is alive. And it’s not just the greats. No, it’s the lemons too; somehow they get away with sounding like a story, at least at the outset. Does all a story need is for it to have a real dust jacket and cover art, a nice place to live? Is that all it takes to convince those hundreds of words that if they all work together they will indeed be a story?

While on particularly dark and grimy days I sometimes wish this was true, I am most often very glad it is not. I am still trying to find this spark, this voice, this life that I hear in the words someone else has written and published in my own. If I hear that spark, they stop being just my words, and become a real, live story.

I’m still working on that.

Every once in awhile there are traces when I come back and read something I have put aside for weeks or even months. If I don’t recognize myself too easily in the words, I see a glimmer of a story standing on its own legs. Once I find one that stands from opening word to ‘the end’ I’ll send it in post haste.

So even as I sit here stewing over how difficult it will be to turn what I have written into a passable tale, there is the other part of me that gets excited every time I open the file and start to reread, knowing that with a little more work, it might one day be something good.

how to blog when brain dead

I have been rather naughty; I haven’t blogged all month. While I could use NaNoWriMo as an excuse, I feel it would be a cheap victory. So, I’ve decided to explore the obvious question that has been repeatedly tapping me on the shoulder every evening as I sit reading a book, watching a movie, or scraping a few thousand words out of my mind and into my first novel instead of blogging which is…why aren’t you blogging AS WELL?

All I can say in the way of ‘how to blog when brain dead’ is to simply soldier on after you think absolutely all of your creative impulses have been used up one way or another that day– be it at work, evaporating with cleaning solvents, or lost to a poor night’s sleep. It isn’t only about writing when you’re tired or blocked, it’s writing when you think you have nothing left to say. It is the final squeeze of one’s mental creative word bank like an old, empty tube of toothpaste. Then, try and blog. I guess the real question is why blog when brain dead?

One of my professors, who I remember not only for his sheer brawn as a grammarian, but also because he wore a Christopher Robin slicker and hat, used to have us all type for one full page without correcting punctuation, without pause, without construction, only thought. We got credit if we wrote, “i’mbloodytiredandfeelingratherburnt out I simply cannot discuss the relationship between Olivia and ViolafromShakespeare’sTwelfth Night if you threatened my bunny slipperswithaten ton weight.” I’m not saying I ever did, but it was possible.

There is nothing so alluring nor intimidating as the sight of a fresh piece of paper, a new word document, an as yet unblemished post page. I know I’m poorly and anachronistically paraphrasing someone but I can’t think of who at the moment.

Blogging when brain dead goes against the writer’s natural impulse to delay, procrastinate, fiddle. But, like running an extra lap after you’ve finished a grueling set of sprints, it is conditioning. It will only make you a better, stronger writer. What could be more interesting than the next sentence after you feel like you can’t possibly say anything more? While it might not be earth shattering, it will be sure to be surprising, which is all it needs to be.

The alternative, as I discovered, is twenty days without blogging, which is hardly acceptable. It’s awful, really. Lesson learned.

sex, gymnastics and rock & roll

No, I’m not being sarcastic.

I watched, with jaw open and right eye squinting, the 2008 Tour of Gymnastics Superstars on television last night and couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.

Let’s start with the pros:

1. Blaine Wilson. What can I say? He was cool when I was a kid. And watching him pull high bar stunts in nothing but a pair of black jeans was…nice. Also, he has a tattoo of The Tick on his ankle. How can you not love him?

2. Exemplary elite gymnasts performing difficult elements on almost all events. (Maybe this should have been number one.)

3. Promoting the sport of gymnastics and breaking the mold of its usually strict and clean cut persona, making it appealing and accessible to a younger audience. Additionally, allowing younger audience members (undoubtedly for a pretty penny) to be on the floor and mere feet away from the performances.

4. Watching Olympians and national competitors having fun. It’s not often, unless they’ve won a medal, that you see so many smiles and silliness from gymnasts (unless you know one personally, in which case, good for you). Plus, everyone knows (girls, are you with me?) no matter what sport, performing with your hair down is just extra fun and exciting.

5. Shannon Miller’s cameo. Rock it 1/7th of the Magnificent Seven.

6. Rings to music: not a bad idea. Also, aerial rings, or whatever you call it–soaring through the air while performing on rings– very snazzy.

The cons:

1. Disney rock music during all events save one of Nastia Liukin’s floor routines which was jarringly and somewhat unsettlingly to “Ave Maria.” If it was a tribute, forgive me, but otherwise–that was so out there it was pythonesque.

2. The most ridiculous tween-targeting punk rock outfits and weird two-piece ensembles on the performers. Case in point: some girl on the uneven parallel bars in jeans and a t-shirt, and Nastia Liukin in a Jasmin from Aladdin type two piece on beam…to music.

3. Choreographing the gymnasts to encourage crowd participation with forced-looking hip hop dancing, random clapping and walking to the apparatus by way of the stadium stairs through the crowd.

4. Clips of the gymnasts lip syncing to Britney Spears backstage.

I have to say, watching Paul and Morgan Hamm flash gansta peace signs after pommel horse was one of those moments I’ll remember forever–whether I want to or not. While this tour is an outstanding way to promote the most challenging sport in the world (they did a study–back off football players), and also make it more appealing to the younger generation, it still scared the bajeebies out of me to see just how commercialized and affected the show had to be in order to be successful.

Yes, gymnastics is a performance sport and yes these are young, vibrant athletes who want to relate to people their own age, but in doing this, I feel like some dignity was traded in for success. My inner gymnastics granny is coming out here, but there is already drama in the sport: I mean this in the positive sense of drama. There is suspense, expectation, exultation and defeat. Does a pink sparkly, fringy, two piece really add anything?

Despite all this, if Shannon Miller and Blaine Wilson can embrace it, why can’t I? So, for pure love of the sport and in the spirit that any publicity is good publicity, I will.

In many ways, it reminded me of a tricked-out high school pep assembly. If money, location, time and talent were no object, this is exactly the type of pep assembly I would have died for back in the day. You could shake your tail feather on beam, throw a few of your best tricks, have amazing lighting, live music, an enthusiastic crowd and multiple costume changes (side note: did I mention none of the male gymnasts were allowed shirts?) without argument or explanation.

The old, overused and obvious adage here is, “sex sells.” Even to tweens. It was still great gymnastics, good entertainment, and…memorable to say the least.

felt up for education

One of my dear friends is currently attending the police academy, and had to, as part of his homework, quote, “frisk/ search three females with stuff hidden all over…and I really don’t feel like frisking my mom.”

Mark Twain said something to the effect of “the difference between truth and fiction, is that fiction must be credible.” Actually, I think I just quoted a bad made-for-tv-movie, but will give Mark T. the credit; I like him better anyway. Regardless, sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up. So, to save said friend from having to frisk his mother, I and two of my friends volunteered to be stand-ins for the transients and ladies of the night that are sure to one day follow in our footsteps.

Now, while the word, “frisk” conjures all sorts of bodice-ripping, police-melodrama, double entendre type jokes, in actuality, those are the furthest from the truth. Frisking involves, without the displacement of any clothing, being jabbed with the blade of someone’s hand (think karate chop pinkie first) while trying to casually conceal a six inch multi-tool in your sock.

Besides being a spectacular invasion of personal bubble space, it was just plain funny to try and conceal nine inch blade knives and large bullets on my five foot frame and avoid looking like Rambo-ina Queen of Destruction.

Still, all in the name of education. And, as with all homework assignments, we three girls came away with some valuable lessons:

1. It is not possible to move handcuffed hands from behind you to in front of you unless you are able to dislocate your shoulders. However, it is possible to do the conga behind your back.

2. Even policemen-in-training have senses of humor, so really, in some cases, I bet it’s worse for them than it is for you. Then again, if you find yourself on the side of the highway being frisked, and not in your friend’s living room playing, “guess what potential weapon is hidden in my ponytail bun” it’s probably not a laughing matter to begin with.

3. Under wire will be the secret weapon of choice when women resort to guerrilla warfare to take over the world.

pardon me, is this seat taken?

Do you ever have one of those days where your mouth acts like a shotgun and sprays an innocent person with verbal shot from the tips of their toes up to the crown of their head with more information than was really necessary?

What is it that sometimes makes it easier to confide in a relative stranger than one of your closest pals?

I suppose there’s the feeling of anonymity, the unknown of what wisdom they might impart, and the relief that they don’t know you well enough to point out just how skewed is your perspective. Then again, perhaps some people just have that odd expression on their face that’s mistaken for sympathy when in fact the seam of their tights is bugging them in their shoe.

i won’t grow up

…I don’t wanna wear a tie…in the middle of july!

For those of you who grew up on the Peter Pan movie musical starring Mary Martin as the little boy (stay with me) from Neverland, this song is the epitome of childhood rebellion and the need to stay young for as long as possible.

We are always told to, “not grow up too fast” when we’re children and to “cherish” our care free days as much as we can. Well, whether we did or not, they’re gone now, so what can be done to recapture them? Watching an entertaining, if somewhat politically incorrect and gender confused Peter Pan is one way. Another, is through books.

My name is Julia and I read young adult fiction. (hiiiii julia!).

There were countless stories that shaped my life and personality when I was growing up. Agatha Christie novels, in particular, are responsible for the flatness of my nose. How, you ask? It’s quite simple. When I was four and five and six, and still skimming slim paperback readers, I used to lie on my back and hold the books between my toes over my head. I even practiced enough to be able to turn pages without using my hands. Then, around age seven, I started reading hardback mystery novels like And Then There Were None and The Mirror Crack’d, and my toes experienced some serious hubris when I tried to balance the books on the bottom of my feet and ended up dropping them on my face and smishing my nose on more occasions than I really should have needed to learn.

But seriously– Little Women, Pride and Prejudice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Secret Staircase, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest– all of these I remember closing and feeling different. As Cornelia Funke puts it, I feel as if I have left a part of myself between the pages. While perhaps not all of these come to mind as young adult fiction, they still resonate at 15 very differently than at 25.

What better way to escape the day than to retreat to stories where kissing on the mouth is a scandal, one’s parents are one’s teammates, and summer vacation is longer than ten paid days off? Lately, I have been indulging in books meant for a very young audience–rereading The Chronicles of Narnia, and discovering new worlds in Inkheart, The City of Ember, The Grey King and beyond.

There is something terribly reassuring about stories for young readers. It has to do with the different priorities and lack of major social responsibility, yes, but it also conjures images of my own childhood, (which I firmly believe in many ways is still going on). I remember swearing never to wear makeup when I grew up as a dancer at age five, high school soccer games under the lights of the stadium, lying under the dining room table on the phone with a boy at one in the morning.  Dances, gymnastics meets, rotating class schedules, box socials–okay, okay, I put the last one in to see if you were paying attention. I think I went to an ice cream social once. In short, the memories that you really only get to dust off and air out when you meet up with pals from those years past, or when a passage in a book reminds you of them. I personally find it difficult to sit and daydream randomly about when I was spotty, romantically awkward and overly confident. With stories, memories come edited– sans the mediocre stuff, and points you straight towards the delightful or the horrific (which one hopes you can laugh at, now). It’s important to exercise these memories, otherwise they may escape and be lost. Then the only stories left to tell our children would be about studying until 3am in the university library while streakers ran past, or reading more pages than calories eaten that day…not really scintillating stuff when chitchatting with babes of four and five years old.

Sometimes I think I’m a totally different person from who I was ten years ago. But then I open A Wrinkle in Time, and realize there isn’t much difference between Julia at 15 and Julia at 25. And that makes me very happy.

grin and bear it

I’ve met someone. And I knew, within mere seconds, that all I really want to do is staple things to his head. He’s surly, he’s silent, and an ungracious winner.

Yes, I’ve tried being nice. I’ve smiled and said ‘hello!’ enough times only to get a sniff of disapproval, to know it doesn’t matter if I acknowledge him at all.

Yes, I’ve tried ignoring him and hoping he’ll drop out of my class ( or off the planet), but that doesn’t work either.

Yes, I’ve tried rising above it and knowing I’m being the bigger person.

Yes, I’ve tried picturing him being smished by a ten ton weight and simultaneously attacked by a band of rabid hedgehogs. Nothing helps.

So I’ve sunk back down to the grumpy little imp I am, and am stewing again about whether or not it would really kill him to smile and say, “nice job” when I say “well done,” after a bout. I no longer have an ingrained need to be liked by everyone I meet (that need died tragically in a golfing accident when working in the commercial real estate industry), but perhaps it’s the feeling that I’m not being given a chance at all.

And what’s worse, is that he still beats me four times out of five when we fence. If I could give him a solid what for on the strip, it really wouldn’t matter as much to me, now would it?

So what is to be done when faced with someone who will only allow you into their existence on their terms? Perhaps I’ve got it the wrong way ’round. Perhaps I shouldn’t try to get along with every new person I meet; indeed, it might be that the time has come for me to be diabolically rude to everyone and leave it to them to convince themselves there’s a nice person deep down inside me that they just have to draw out of its cold, frustrating exterior. *Note: for those of you who feel like you have to do that to engage me in conversation now, we must have some major disconnect issues.

Maybe it’s just my pride that’s hurt. Categorically speaking, I’ve had excellent luck with poking quiet people into being bright shining beacons of conversation in the past (you know who you are), and perhaps it’s just my refusal of failure that’s spurning on my exasperation. It is situations like this that really makes me think if everyone stopped and thought about being a little bit nicer everyday, the world really, really, really would be a better place.

I say again, what is to be done when faced with someone who will only allow you into their existence on their terms?

Grin and bear it is about all I’ve come up with.

Nope, I don’t find it particularly satisfying either.