Today I'm changing my format for a moment to bring you a catalogue of first lines. I think that first lines are important to a story and I'm sure that a lot of people would agree with me. They need to pull the reader in and tell something important. I hope that I acheive that with my first lines. Here are a few of them and a bit about the stories that they come from:
Meredith Sampson always has exact change.
From “Touch.” This is a story about a young woman who suffers from severe burns over half her body. Because of this she has chosen to cut herself off from the world around her. However, life is never that simple and as much as we want to be islands there are very few people who ever are. Meredith craves affection and touch, but she doesn’t believe she is worthy of it. I like this story enough, but I think I read it and reread it too many times. Its shine has worn off, for me at least.
Exhibit A: She is facing the camera, looking annoyed, one hand on her swollen belly.
From “The Proof.” This story is interesting because I tried a different format. The story is told almost completely through a series of photographs that the narrator finds hidden in her boyfriend’s desk. The story came from a very personal and kind of ugly place for me. It’s harsh, and the copy that I sent out to people was toned down a bit from the first draft, which was almost unreadable because of the anger it reflected. I like this story a lot because it defines a feeling for me and it reflects a situation so well. It hasn’t been accepted anywhere yet but one of the editors from Willow Springs Literary Magazine sent me an email to tell me that it made it to the editor’s meeting and that I should email him if I send something else. I thought that was very nice of him and encouraging.
That Guy and What’s-Her-Face met in college.
From “The Tragic Yet True Love Story of That Guy and What’s-Her-Face.” This is another story that hasn’t been accepted by any magazines yet. I’m really not sure if it will be. As a writer, you want to be confident in all the work that you send out and I like this story, I really do, I just think that it might be a little too fable-ish. It came out of a Facebook page I saw of a person that I used to know. (I try to not be that cyber stalking person but, admit it, you do it too). In high school he was boring, but he thought he was the shit, and looking at his profile years later I could tell that he still held that opinion of himself. The thing is, his life wasn’t all that great. It was just really predictable. This story is about predictable lives and the way that it is that some people chose who they are going to love based on the people around them and not on the person that they truly are. It’s tragic and yet so true. These relationships don’t always fail, but what comes out of them doesn’t seem to be authentic.
It makes me sick. Absolutely sick.
From “Jasper.” Okay, so this is two sentences and not one, so shoot me. “Jasper” is about a man who works at a company that does something that is morally questionable to him and the way that he retaliates against it. It is also about the strange role that text messaging plays in our lives. I first went to college right out of high school, which was in 2000. I dropped out, went back, dropped out again, went back for the last time in 2007 and now I’m about to graduate at the end of 2009. It is amazing the technological advances that have been made in that small amount of time. I know that there were cell phones back in 2000, but very few college students had them. I never remember class being interrupted by a phone ringing. When we left class we had time to ruminate over what we had just learned because we weren’t immediately on our phones the second that we walked out of the classroom. Things have changed drastically since those days. This story came out of an introductory level Zoology course that I took in 2008. I was amazed by the amount of people texting during class. Some would even get up during class to take calls outside the door. It was kind of jarring. I didn’t understand who they were texting because I honestly couldn’t think of anyone who would want to receive a text from me that simply said “In science. Did you know that Watson and Crick discovered DNA in 1953.” I didn’t understand who they all had to be in contact with at that exact moment. It just seemed strange to me. Then I thought, what if they aren’t really sending texts to anyone? What if it was just a computer that pretended to be interested in their petty drama? It was an interesting idea and I turned it into this story. The only problem is that I don’t know how it ends. I’m close, I’m just not there yet.
On a Tuesday morning Muriel dreams of a bathroom covered in blood.
From “The Year of Dead Babies.” This is, undoubtedly, the story that I am most proud of (so far). I’m not at all ashamed to say that I love it. It also came from a very personal place, which is where all the best stories come from. It’s about two couple who both experience the loss of a child (one through miscarriage and the other through SIDS). One couple comes together and the other falls apart. I submitted it for workshop in my senior creative writing course and my professor’s response is full of praise, which made me very happy. One of my classmates said that it seemed as though I, more so than any of the other students in the class, had a clear understanding of the human condition and because I actually liked his stories, I took it as a complement. Now that I’m done bragging I’ll tell you what I like about the story. I like that I was able to create a story that was third person omniscient. I think that it is a very difficult thing to do and that there are very few people who do it well. Typically what we see and what I write is third person close. I wanted to break away from something that I was comfortable with and I think I did it well. As with “Proof” I like how much this story reflects a time in my life. When I read it I can see a lot of hopes that I had and a lot of pain that I was feeling. It moves me and it is good of me to be moved by my own story. I like the characters that I created in this story, even Isabel, who many of my readers seemed to be conflicted about. This story has received a lot of positive feedback from the places I have submitted it to. It hasn’t been accepted yet but I’m waiting to hear back from the Black Warrior Review still and my fingers are crossed.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Magical Realism 4/5/01
There was something wrong with the house. The wind was pushing a tree against the outside north wall of the room. Thumping, thumping in an always quiet house. Below Jason and Amma, in the kitchen, there was creaking. It sounded as if every cabinet and drawer was opening and closing on its own. Creaking, clacking in an always quiet house. Something scurried across the attic above them. A mouse, a rat, possibly a chipmunk. Something alive that wasn’t there the night before. Scurrying, scurrying in an always quiet house.
Amma groaned and rolled over. Jason got out of the bed and stomped his foot on the floor. “SHUT UP!” he yelled. The house silenced itself. No more scurrying, no more creaking, and no more thumping. Jason crawled back into the bed. He snuggled up next to Amma. Something isn’t right, Amma thought as Jason’s arms slid around her.
“Something isn’t right,” Amma said. Jason cocked his head.
“What’s not right?” Jason asked.
“Something.”
“The house is quiet now. There’s nothing wrong.”
“But something isn’t right.”
Jason grunts and pushes himself against Amma, begging her for warmth and affection. He closes his eyes and relaxes. Something isn’t right he realizes. His eyes snap open. “Brian.”
“What?” Amma murmurs.
“Brian didn’t wake up when I yelled. Something isn’t right.” Jason sat straight up in bed. Amma rolled over and snapped on the lamp next to her head. They fly out of bed at the same time.
Amma gets to the crib first because the crib is by her side of the bed.
Brian is lying peacefully on his bed. Amma stares at him. Jason stumbles over and stares at him. His fists are clenched. His chest is not moving slowly up and down. Amma and Jason hold their own breath in order to hear the breaths that aren’t coming out of Brian’s small mouth and nose.
“Call 911,” Jason says. But Amma is frozen. She grips the side of the crib so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “CALL 911!” Jason yells, he himself frozen. Tears begin to flow down Amma’s face. Her cheeks become red apples, shiny from the wetness of the tears. Jason hears her whimper and he takes a dive for the phone where he dials the three numbers that mean help.
Oh, this story. Oh, this story. I don’t even know where to begin. It was part of my first novel which was written in parts all over my notebooks. It’s something I always return to because I do love it so much. I’m sure that you noticed that the name of the woman is the same name as the character from my last post. They are not the same person. Sometimes I just get really attached to names.
I must tell you that I was surprised to find this part of the novel in my third notebook. I don’t like the third notebook very much because it reflects a very awkward period in my life. I like this part of the story. I like what I did with it.
This [unfinished] novel is incredible to me because I was so young when I started working on it but it was so well-defined. I knew the characters and I knew what they wanted. The main character in this story is not Amma or Jason. It is the house. I was trying to bring to life something that is normally not a living being. I’m sure that it has been done before, especially with houses. Ander Monson said in one of his beautiful tweets “A family, often itself contained by a home, is a mechanism for containing: secrets, pain, stories, beauty, the seeds of its own undoing.” I think, in the case of this story, I wanted to make a home that, not only contained a family, but reflected it as well.
It was my first attempt at magical realism. I think it might have also been my last. Magical realism is a tough thing to create and to put into a story for the same reason that I think stories that are written in genres such as Science Fiction and Fantasy are tough to write well. I don’t write Science Fiction and Fantasy because it too often relies on plot twists instead of character arcs. In magical realism you have to create a story in which the characters are believable. Despite what is going on around them and however crazy it may seem the characters have to behave in a way that any normal person would behave. They have to react correctly. It’s tough.
I remember submitting a draft of the beginning of this story my freshman year of college in my first ever creative writing course and I remember how my professor reacted when we read it in workshop. He opened the workshop by saying that I had created something really wonderful and that we have to take into account when reading magical realism that, so often, it is something that is used by writers who are describing characters who don’t live in the most ideal of situations. He asked us to consider whether or not we thought that magical realism worked within the realm of suburbia. He thought that it did. His comments made me feel both embarrassed and proud.
I am fairly proud of this little bit of writing in a notebook that I find difficult to read.
Amma groaned and rolled over. Jason got out of the bed and stomped his foot on the floor. “SHUT UP!” he yelled. The house silenced itself. No more scurrying, no more creaking, and no more thumping. Jason crawled back into the bed. He snuggled up next to Amma. Something isn’t right, Amma thought as Jason’s arms slid around her.
“Something isn’t right,” Amma said. Jason cocked his head.
“What’s not right?” Jason asked.
“Something.”
“The house is quiet now. There’s nothing wrong.”
“But something isn’t right.”
Jason grunts and pushes himself against Amma, begging her for warmth and affection. He closes his eyes and relaxes. Something isn’t right he realizes. His eyes snap open. “Brian.”
“What?” Amma murmurs.
“Brian didn’t wake up when I yelled. Something isn’t right.” Jason sat straight up in bed. Amma rolled over and snapped on the lamp next to her head. They fly out of bed at the same time.
Amma gets to the crib first because the crib is by her side of the bed.
Brian is lying peacefully on his bed. Amma stares at him. Jason stumbles over and stares at him. His fists are clenched. His chest is not moving slowly up and down. Amma and Jason hold their own breath in order to hear the breaths that aren’t coming out of Brian’s small mouth and nose.
“Call 911,” Jason says. But Amma is frozen. She grips the side of the crib so tightly that her knuckles turn white. “CALL 911!” Jason yells, he himself frozen. Tears begin to flow down Amma’s face. Her cheeks become red apples, shiny from the wetness of the tears. Jason hears her whimper and he takes a dive for the phone where he dials the three numbers that mean help.
Oh, this story. Oh, this story. I don’t even know where to begin. It was part of my first novel which was written in parts all over my notebooks. It’s something I always return to because I do love it so much. I’m sure that you noticed that the name of the woman is the same name as the character from my last post. They are not the same person. Sometimes I just get really attached to names.
I must tell you that I was surprised to find this part of the novel in my third notebook. I don’t like the third notebook very much because it reflects a very awkward period in my life. I like this part of the story. I like what I did with it.
This [unfinished] novel is incredible to me because I was so young when I started working on it but it was so well-defined. I knew the characters and I knew what they wanted. The main character in this story is not Amma or Jason. It is the house. I was trying to bring to life something that is normally not a living being. I’m sure that it has been done before, especially with houses. Ander Monson said in one of his beautiful tweets “A family, often itself contained by a home, is a mechanism for containing: secrets, pain, stories, beauty, the seeds of its own undoing.” I think, in the case of this story, I wanted to make a home that, not only contained a family, but reflected it as well.
It was my first attempt at magical realism. I think it might have also been my last. Magical realism is a tough thing to create and to put into a story for the same reason that I think stories that are written in genres such as Science Fiction and Fantasy are tough to write well. I don’t write Science Fiction and Fantasy because it too often relies on plot twists instead of character arcs. In magical realism you have to create a story in which the characters are believable. Despite what is going on around them and however crazy it may seem the characters have to behave in a way that any normal person would behave. They have to react correctly. It’s tough.
I remember submitting a draft of the beginning of this story my freshman year of college in my first ever creative writing course and I remember how my professor reacted when we read it in workshop. He opened the workshop by saying that I had created something really wonderful and that we have to take into account when reading magical realism that, so often, it is something that is used by writers who are describing characters who don’t live in the most ideal of situations. He asked us to consider whether or not we thought that magical realism worked within the realm of suburbia. He thought that it did. His comments made me feel both embarrassed and proud.
I am fairly proud of this little bit of writing in a notebook that I find difficult to read.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Things I Never Knew I Always Wanted 2/28/01
He sees her at a bookstore outside of Tallahassee flipping through a book of Monet’s greatest works. He watches her from behind a bookshelf because she’s not supposed to be there. She’s supposed to be in Oklahoma City at Oklahoma State University getting an Oklahoma worthy education. Of course she looks up and of course she sees him.
He pretends to be engrossed in a book he picked up from the shelf in front of him. He feels her next to him. She’s breathing on his shoulder. She’s warm. He puts down the book quickly, unable to take the silent presence any longer. “What do you want, Amma?”
“When did you start reading ‘Claudio’s Passion’?” she asks picking up the book he just put down.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Why not?” Amma looks up at him with her big green eyes. She is innocent.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was reading and I saw you so I thought I’d come over.”
“No here. Here in Florida.” He grabs the book out of her hands and sloppily reshelves it.
“You don’t want me here?” She asks. “I can leave if you want. It was just for a vacation but if you can’t stand being in the same state as me I understand.” She’s walking away now. He’s watching her go.
“Amma, wait.” He catches up to her. “I’m sorry.” She smiles and takes his hnd and drags him out of the store.
“What are you sorry for?”
“I was rude.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” But it’s too late because she already said it and she’s pressing her body against his and she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her back.
“Can I stay with you a while?”
“Whatever you want.”
Wow, this is old and because it’s old it tells a lot about the kind of person that I was when I was younger. I think that there’s a difficult period for everyone when they leave high school and have to make new friends. I had an especially difficult time because the roommates that I had weren’t exactly the greatest people. I wrote a lot of what could really be considered fan fiction. It’s just that instead of writing fan fiction about other people’s stories I wrote fan fiction about my own life. I think that I really felt trapped at that point. I was in a place I didn’t like, with people that I didn’t like.
This story comes out of that. The main character, Amma, has the mobility that I lacked. She has someone who loves her. She is able to bring these two things together.
I wrote a lot of stories around this time with similar themes. The biggest one was the ability of my characters to travel. They had no commitment to the things around them and, in a way, I thought that was really nice and really liberating. I did realize at the time that I had the same kind of freedom. I could have gone off and done the things that I really wanted but there was something holding me back. I think that from a very young age I was taught to worry about the world around me. Instead of feeling like I could just go out and fly by the seat of my pants, I felt that I had to create an itinerary that planned out every moment. I didn’t have to do this for my sake, but for the sake of the people around me.
The biggest change between the person that wrote this and the person that I am now is that I don’t do things simply for the sake of people around me. I will help out the best that I can, but when it interferes with my own life I just don’t think that it’s worth it anymore.
I’m about to embark on a really great adventure. It’s the first time in my life when I don’t have even the vaguest idea of what happens next. There are certain things that I want, but time will tell if I get those things or not. I’m okay with that.
He pretends to be engrossed in a book he picked up from the shelf in front of him. He feels her next to him. She’s breathing on his shoulder. She’s warm. He puts down the book quickly, unable to take the silent presence any longer. “What do you want, Amma?”
“When did you start reading ‘Claudio’s Passion’?” she asks picking up the book he just put down.
“Don’t change the subject.”
“Why not?” Amma looks up at him with her big green eyes. She is innocent.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was reading and I saw you so I thought I’d come over.”
“No here. Here in Florida.” He grabs the book out of her hands and sloppily reshelves it.
“You don’t want me here?” She asks. “I can leave if you want. It was just for a vacation but if you can’t stand being in the same state as me I understand.” She’s walking away now. He’s watching her go.
“Amma, wait.” He catches up to her. “I’m sorry.” She smiles and takes his hnd and drags him out of the store.
“What are you sorry for?”
“I was rude.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t say that.” But it’s too late because she already said it and she’s pressing her body against his and she’s kissing him and he’s kissing her back.
“Can I stay with you a while?”
“Whatever you want.”
Wow, this is old and because it’s old it tells a lot about the kind of person that I was when I was younger. I think that there’s a difficult period for everyone when they leave high school and have to make new friends. I had an especially difficult time because the roommates that I had weren’t exactly the greatest people. I wrote a lot of what could really be considered fan fiction. It’s just that instead of writing fan fiction about other people’s stories I wrote fan fiction about my own life. I think that I really felt trapped at that point. I was in a place I didn’t like, with people that I didn’t like.
This story comes out of that. The main character, Amma, has the mobility that I lacked. She has someone who loves her. She is able to bring these two things together.
I wrote a lot of stories around this time with similar themes. The biggest one was the ability of my characters to travel. They had no commitment to the things around them and, in a way, I thought that was really nice and really liberating. I did realize at the time that I had the same kind of freedom. I could have gone off and done the things that I really wanted but there was something holding me back. I think that from a very young age I was taught to worry about the world around me. Instead of feeling like I could just go out and fly by the seat of my pants, I felt that I had to create an itinerary that planned out every moment. I didn’t have to do this for my sake, but for the sake of the people around me.
The biggest change between the person that wrote this and the person that I am now is that I don’t do things simply for the sake of people around me. I will help out the best that I can, but when it interferes with my own life I just don’t think that it’s worth it anymore.
I’m about to embark on a really great adventure. It’s the first time in my life when I don’t have even the vaguest idea of what happens next. There are certain things that I want, but time will tell if I get those things or not. I’m okay with that.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Relationships 5/4/06
I like falling in love with the wrong kind of man. I know I’m doing it, in the way everyone always knows what they are doing, regardless of what they might say to themselves. Thus far, I have put behind me two alcoholics, one pot-head, and five republicans. These are serious men. They are serious about the jobs they lose due to their hangovers. They are serious about the clothing they wear. They are very serious about their political affiliations. They are not, however, serious about me. I am sure that I amuse them at first. They shake their serious heads at my clumsiness, they complement the passion of my kisses, and they openly admire the way my legs pop out of vintage skirts. They like me, I hope, but they are too serious and eventually they remind me that I should be as well.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Where once my laughter made them smile, it begins to annoy. “Do you think this is a joke?” they ask, their faces wrinkling at the brow. We are required to have serious talks regarding the nature of my activities. “Don’t walk outside barefoot,” they chide. “Are you really wearing that?” they ask. Finally, and with the most anger, they merely say “No.” Then it is over and I must say goodbye, an event always harder for me than it seems to be for them.
I spend a lot of time crying. I write desperate poems and letters. Things that never reach their intended audience but instead remain half written on tear stained pages of my notebooks. Eventually, I muster up the courage to be honest with myself. I finally come to terms with what I always knew, that it would never work.
I’ve been doing this for years, and my problems don’t seem to be going away. The only difference is that where before I believed that there were no problems, now I allow myself some concessions. If now I know his drinking is excessive, I imagine we’ll have it under control soon. If his close minded right wing supremacy is driving me crazy, I take it upon myself to open his eyes. Before I just thought that my loving him was enough to keep up together, now I imagine my love is enough to make him change so that we can stay together. It is a minor difference, but even that is progress.
These men are not so kind to me. They do not see my compromises. They never see the things I am giving up, the things I don’t talk about. All they see is that it isn’t going to work. Perhaps they are more sensible than I. Maybe their serious dispositions have served them well in this regard. I think that it is perhaps the reason I so admire them. We both know from the beginning that it won’t work, that I am not the right kind of girl, but they don’t let their emotions get in the way of this. For them, when it is over, it is over. My smile no longer causes theirs. My clumsiness is an annoyance they must live with. They are exhausted by my old tricks, while I retain my fascination with theirs. I lag behind as they move on to some simple blonde who has no expectations beyond a diamond in a year or two.
I am wondering why I subject myself to these most certain heartbreaks. I wonder why I chose these men, when there are so many reasons why I should not. Now I say this. Now, when these men are locked inside some drawer in a faraway corner of my mind. Now, when my memories of them contain more sorrow than they do fondness. I know that sometime, most likely in the not-too-distant future I will meet another one of these men and I will forget the lessons taught to me by those that came before him. I will fall in love with his serious countenance and slowly creep towards heartbreak once again. After all, men don’t fall in love with girls who laugh when everyone else is straight-faced. They cannot actually be with someone who appreciates the fell of grass between their toes. Even the most passionate of kisses is not enough to bind him to me.
I wrote this post after a bad situation with a guy, which I’m sure you could have figured out. I think that writing it was very therapeutic for me. The part about me finding another guy I wasn’t compatible with in again in the “not-too-distant future” didn’t really work out. I actually didn’t meet someone I was even slightly interested in for two years after this. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had just recognized a pattern for myself. I think that I still fall into patterns. We all do.
At the time I wrote this I was going through a period where I was trying to write creative non-fiction. I wrote a few essays and was actually really big into blogging on myspace (I deleted the profile, so don’t bother trying to find me). This was my favorite essay at the time because I meant the things that I said. The other ones seemed really forced. I think that creative non-fiction is a hard thing for me to write because I tend to focus on themes and life just keeps on moving ahead so I don’t have a lot of endings. You need endings with essays. You need them with life too. I’m very bad with endings.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Lists 10/5/08
Things I Like
-Old people that smoke
-Highlighters
-Those little orange monkeys at the zoo
-Giving people presents
-Presents in general
-Notebooks
Things I Don’t Like
-People who are mean for no good reason
-The sound of vacuum cleaners
-The smell of cleaning agents
-When boys I care about do cocaine
-People who treat me like I don’t have feelings
I can’t sleep and therefore am looking up lists in my notebooks. These lists came out of a lot of things that I was going through at the time. I was having trouble trying to find friends in the town that I live in. I always seem to be having trouble finding friends. That is where the stuff about people being mean comes from. I think that my biggest problem is that I really, really want people to like me and so I make an extra effort to be nice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who will take advantage of that sort of thing. There are other problems with it as well. It seems that once you start off being really nice you always have to be nice. You never get to have days where you aren’t feeling so great and you need time to yourself. People will always want a piece of you and they expect certain things out of you. It’s not like they always come knocking when they need something. It’s a strange sort of dependence, as though they know they can come to you because you aren’t very good at saying “no.” I need to learn how to say “no” more often. I need to set more boundaries.
I really don’t like the smell of cleaning agents or the sound of vacuums. It makes cleaning things a really tedious job for me, maybe more than most. I have switched to using Dr. Bronner’s to clean everything. The smell of peppermint isn’t so bad.
I still don’t like it when boys I care about do cocaine. It really is a horrible drug that sucks the life out of people. I don’t care what anyone says about it, it’s something that I will never try. I wouldn’t even want to. I’ve seen it destroy a lot of people. I’ve seen it become something that they need. Interestingly enough, I once found an article in a magazine that talked about it. They were doing studies on rodents. There were some rodents that were given cocaine as part of their diets. The other group was given a choice of whether to drink water that either had cocaine or didn’t. When they took the cocaine away from the rodents that were given a choice those animals went through withdrawal. The other ones didn’t seem to mind the change. What the scientists were figuring out was that it wasn’t actually that addictive of a drug. It is one of those drugs that a person only becomes psychologically dependant on. I thought that was interesting. I don’t have enough people to tell these things to.
The list of things I like stays pretty much the same throughout the years. I think that we all find things that we like and stick to them. Old people that smoke became something that I enjoyed after going to Bingo. I used to play a lot of Bingo and, back when they allowed smoking at the Bingo hall, there were always a ton of old people there who knew just how bad it was for them but had been doing it so long that they didn’t care anymore. The little orange monkeys at the zoo have also always been one of those things that make me extremely happy. They are called Golden Lion Tamarins. I like their tails that they use to get from tree to tree. They used to have a whole bunch at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but then they started having fewer and fewer. Last time I went I think that there were only two or three. It was very disappointing to see the little orange monkey population decrease in such large numbers. (I just found out that they are endangered. I shouldn’t do research on these sorts of things so late at night. It just makes me depressed).
The fact that notebooks are on the list is pretty self-explanatory.
-Old people that smoke
-Highlighters
-Those little orange monkeys at the zoo
-Giving people presents
-Presents in general
-Notebooks
Things I Don’t Like
-People who are mean for no good reason
-The sound of vacuum cleaners
-The smell of cleaning agents
-When boys I care about do cocaine
-People who treat me like I don’t have feelings
I can’t sleep and therefore am looking up lists in my notebooks. These lists came out of a lot of things that I was going through at the time. I was having trouble trying to find friends in the town that I live in. I always seem to be having trouble finding friends. That is where the stuff about people being mean comes from. I think that my biggest problem is that I really, really want people to like me and so I make an extra effort to be nice. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who will take advantage of that sort of thing. There are other problems with it as well. It seems that once you start off being really nice you always have to be nice. You never get to have days where you aren’t feeling so great and you need time to yourself. People will always want a piece of you and they expect certain things out of you. It’s not like they always come knocking when they need something. It’s a strange sort of dependence, as though they know they can come to you because you aren’t very good at saying “no.” I need to learn how to say “no” more often. I need to set more boundaries.
I really don’t like the smell of cleaning agents or the sound of vacuums. It makes cleaning things a really tedious job for me, maybe more than most. I have switched to using Dr. Bronner’s to clean everything. The smell of peppermint isn’t so bad.
I still don’t like it when boys I care about do cocaine. It really is a horrible drug that sucks the life out of people. I don’t care what anyone says about it, it’s something that I will never try. I wouldn’t even want to. I’ve seen it destroy a lot of people. I’ve seen it become something that they need. Interestingly enough, I once found an article in a magazine that talked about it. They were doing studies on rodents. There were some rodents that were given cocaine as part of their diets. The other group was given a choice of whether to drink water that either had cocaine or didn’t. When they took the cocaine away from the rodents that were given a choice those animals went through withdrawal. The other ones didn’t seem to mind the change. What the scientists were figuring out was that it wasn’t actually that addictive of a drug. It is one of those drugs that a person only becomes psychologically dependant on. I thought that was interesting. I don’t have enough people to tell these things to.
The list of things I like stays pretty much the same throughout the years. I think that we all find things that we like and stick to them. Old people that smoke became something that I enjoyed after going to Bingo. I used to play a lot of Bingo and, back when they allowed smoking at the Bingo hall, there were always a ton of old people there who knew just how bad it was for them but had been doing it so long that they didn’t care anymore. The little orange monkeys at the zoo have also always been one of those things that make me extremely happy. They are called Golden Lion Tamarins. I like their tails that they use to get from tree to tree. They used to have a whole bunch at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but then they started having fewer and fewer. Last time I went I think that there were only two or three. It was very disappointing to see the little orange monkey population decrease in such large numbers. (I just found out that they are endangered. I shouldn’t do research on these sorts of things so late at night. It just makes me depressed).
The fact that notebooks are on the list is pretty self-explanatory.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Overdoing it With the Plot 12/30/02
Peter Jenkins walks with the kind of confidence one would imagine Frank Sinatra had. His chin was always up and his hazel eyes were usually squinted by the sun. Even on overcast he could be seen squinting up at the sky, as if her were waiting for something to fall or perhaps for the clouds to part so God could tell him all his sins will be forgiven and that he has no reason to worry. Peter smiles when he thinks these thoughts, for as much as he ignores Beth’s incessant chatter, he did worry more and more as his sins piled up like bad checks in the bank of eternity.
It was a beautiful sight, Susan thought when she would catch Peter squinting up at the sky and softly smiling. Little did she know that he was questioning his own morality. To Susan he merely looked happy and free. The freedom was really all Susan was in awe of, happiness would surely follow.
Today the day Susan was awakened with the reminder of her own painful imprisonment, it was difficult to find Peter beautiful as he stared smiling into the overcast sky. Today the sight angered her to the point of repulsion. It was unfair and unkind of him to flaunt his freedom in such an insensitive way. Susan’s thoughts ran to the juvenile idea of depantsing Peter, letting him feel the anguish of being stripped down, bare. Susan shook the idea out of her head, not merely because of the childish implications, but more because she was sure the whole event would leave Peter entirely un-phased. He would shrug his shoulders, pull up his pants, and walk away with a whistle. Susan knew this and so when she did walk by him on the way into the zoo, she simply gave him a hello that was only loud enough to divert his attention from the sky.
He turned to her with a smile that grew bigger with recognition. For all her ill thoughts, Susan could not help but to smile back and an overwhelming urge to hug him so that she could fell all the warmth that shone in his eyes. “How’ve you been?” Peter asked and Susan responded with small talk and gossip which kept Peter amused until they reached the main office of the zoo.
This is part of a story that I worked on for years. I came up with the idea my senior year of high school and I started writing about it my freshman year of college. This story went through a number of reincarnations with parts of the story being told from different perspectives. Finally, it became third person close with the focus switching from character to character. The real problem that I was having with this story is that it started out as something that was going to be short and simple but then more and more characters started coming on board and, next thing you know, I was working on a novel. I was definitely not ready to write a novel and this one was quickly turning into a convoluted mess.
The plot was really simple. An ape got loose at the zoo on Girl Scout day. There were just too many things that I wanted to get in there. The main character, Susan, was a zookeeper who was perpetually distracted by her secret life of writing romance novels (a career she wasn’t really proud of). Under her were Peter, who loved his life regardless of the situation and on this particular day was busy questioning his lifestyle, and Beth, a bible-thumping, born again Christian who spent most of her time attempting to convert the people around her. The visitors at the zoo that this story focused on were Virginia Belvedere, a former pageant winner and her daughters Sarah, who would rather be playing little league football, and Kaitlyn, who is following her mother’s footsteps into the pageant world and who only feels important when she is the center of attention. Other characters include Patrick Belvedere, Virginia’s estranged husband who only wants to be a good parent, and a pregnant hippie, who really didn’t have that much bearing on the rest of the story but who I think I was trying to make symbolic.
Anyway, the story didn’t work out but I’m keeping the plot idea just in case I decide to use it later. It might work, as long as I do a lot of trimming. If you read this blog more often you’ll probably see other parts of the story because I did work on it for so long. I just think that this is a great example of how things I really want to work out sometimes never do and how sometimes I sabotage myself by trying to achieve too much with such a little space.
It was a beautiful sight, Susan thought when she would catch Peter squinting up at the sky and softly smiling. Little did she know that he was questioning his own morality. To Susan he merely looked happy and free. The freedom was really all Susan was in awe of, happiness would surely follow.
Today the day Susan was awakened with the reminder of her own painful imprisonment, it was difficult to find Peter beautiful as he stared smiling into the overcast sky. Today the sight angered her to the point of repulsion. It was unfair and unkind of him to flaunt his freedom in such an insensitive way. Susan’s thoughts ran to the juvenile idea of depantsing Peter, letting him feel the anguish of being stripped down, bare. Susan shook the idea out of her head, not merely because of the childish implications, but more because she was sure the whole event would leave Peter entirely un-phased. He would shrug his shoulders, pull up his pants, and walk away with a whistle. Susan knew this and so when she did walk by him on the way into the zoo, she simply gave him a hello that was only loud enough to divert his attention from the sky.
He turned to her with a smile that grew bigger with recognition. For all her ill thoughts, Susan could not help but to smile back and an overwhelming urge to hug him so that she could fell all the warmth that shone in his eyes. “How’ve you been?” Peter asked and Susan responded with small talk and gossip which kept Peter amused until they reached the main office of the zoo.
This is part of a story that I worked on for years. I came up with the idea my senior year of high school and I started writing about it my freshman year of college. This story went through a number of reincarnations with parts of the story being told from different perspectives. Finally, it became third person close with the focus switching from character to character. The real problem that I was having with this story is that it started out as something that was going to be short and simple but then more and more characters started coming on board and, next thing you know, I was working on a novel. I was definitely not ready to write a novel and this one was quickly turning into a convoluted mess.
The plot was really simple. An ape got loose at the zoo on Girl Scout day. There were just too many things that I wanted to get in there. The main character, Susan, was a zookeeper who was perpetually distracted by her secret life of writing romance novels (a career she wasn’t really proud of). Under her were Peter, who loved his life regardless of the situation and on this particular day was busy questioning his lifestyle, and Beth, a bible-thumping, born again Christian who spent most of her time attempting to convert the people around her. The visitors at the zoo that this story focused on were Virginia Belvedere, a former pageant winner and her daughters Sarah, who would rather be playing little league football, and Kaitlyn, who is following her mother’s footsteps into the pageant world and who only feels important when she is the center of attention. Other characters include Patrick Belvedere, Virginia’s estranged husband who only wants to be a good parent, and a pregnant hippie, who really didn’t have that much bearing on the rest of the story but who I think I was trying to make symbolic.
Anyway, the story didn’t work out but I’m keeping the plot idea just in case I decide to use it later. It might work, as long as I do a lot of trimming. If you read this blog more often you’ll probably see other parts of the story because I did work on it for so long. I just think that this is a great example of how things I really want to work out sometimes never do and how sometimes I sabotage myself by trying to achieve too much with such a little space.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
8/17/06 Going to a Workshop
Jesus called Brian liked to disrupt church services. It was part of the reason that I believed in him, whatever he was. “It’s so diluted,” he would say while pulling open the door to the church lobby. A different church every week. This week the unfortunate souls at the First Methodist Baptist Church of Christ were going to be privy to his rage, and mine too, I guess, since I was tagging along. “First Methodist Baptist,” he spat, “These people can’t even make up their minds.” On he marched toward the doors, behind which held the dutiful, if confused, churchgoers.
He thrust the doors open with a bang, and rushed up the aisle. I rushed after him, unaware of what really, I was supposed to be doing.
“Attention, Meth Addicts,” he screamed. I caught the reference too late and after I had whispered loudly, “They’re Christians, not drug addicts.”
Jesus called Brian laughed over his shoulder, he would tell me later that I had added a genius comical touch to the event.
This writing comes from a writing workshop I went to at Barnes and Noble once. They would have this workshop once a week and I thought it seemed like a good opportunity to get some feedback on my work. I soon discovered that you probably shouldn’t just find random strangers to do this sort of thing. It’s not a good idea to find all of your best friends either because they are just going to tell you how much they love everything. The reason that you shouldn’t go to workshops with strangers is that you have no idea what they are writing or what kind of writers they are. It turns out that these people were romance writers.
The way that this workshop worked was that they would give us all little prompts and then we would go around the table and write about these things. Jesus called Brian was a part of a story that I was working on, or that I had been working on in some form or another since my freshman year of college. It never really evolved much and I think that I moved past it, though he does show up from time to time if I need something exciting to happen. I don’t remember what the prompts were exactly, I just know that there were three of them. I don’t think that anything really important came out of this group. There was no criticism what-so-ever. You would just read what you had just wrote out loud and everyone would not and say “That’s interesting” before they would read their romance story. No matter what the prompt was, it could fit into the plot of their current project.
There was also an eleven year old there. I think that was the weirdest thing about this whole group. The eleven year old. She shouldn’t have been there. I understand if she wants to be a writer and this is something that she finds fun, but a person can’t write the kinds of things that they really want to write if there is an eleven year old hanging around. Actually, one of the prompts inspired me to write a story that involved drug use. One of the characters sat on a bed rolling a joint and talking about Amsterdam. I got a lot of terse looks for that one. People were motioning with their eyes towards the little girl.
It was the first time and last time I went to that workshop (or really, I think that we should call it a group because nothing was really work-shopped). I couldn’t stand the idea of having my writing critiqued by someone who hadn’t reached puberty yet. I don’t write for children. I also didn’t want to listen to anymore chit chat about romance novels or the romance novel industry, which might be completely different than the book industry seeing as they will sometimes just hand you the plot and you don’t have to think about it at all. Maybe I was being snobby. I don’t care. I still wouldn’t join a group like that. I have other people read my work but I think that they are people who understand better the things that I am trying to do with my writing. You have to be able to trust the people that you trust with your work. It’s redundant, but true.
He thrust the doors open with a bang, and rushed up the aisle. I rushed after him, unaware of what really, I was supposed to be doing.
“Attention, Meth Addicts,” he screamed. I caught the reference too late and after I had whispered loudly, “They’re Christians, not drug addicts.”
Jesus called Brian laughed over his shoulder, he would tell me later that I had added a genius comical touch to the event.
This writing comes from a writing workshop I went to at Barnes and Noble once. They would have this workshop once a week and I thought it seemed like a good opportunity to get some feedback on my work. I soon discovered that you probably shouldn’t just find random strangers to do this sort of thing. It’s not a good idea to find all of your best friends either because they are just going to tell you how much they love everything. The reason that you shouldn’t go to workshops with strangers is that you have no idea what they are writing or what kind of writers they are. It turns out that these people were romance writers.
The way that this workshop worked was that they would give us all little prompts and then we would go around the table and write about these things. Jesus called Brian was a part of a story that I was working on, or that I had been working on in some form or another since my freshman year of college. It never really evolved much and I think that I moved past it, though he does show up from time to time if I need something exciting to happen. I don’t remember what the prompts were exactly, I just know that there were three of them. I don’t think that anything really important came out of this group. There was no criticism what-so-ever. You would just read what you had just wrote out loud and everyone would not and say “That’s interesting” before they would read their romance story. No matter what the prompt was, it could fit into the plot of their current project.
There was also an eleven year old there. I think that was the weirdest thing about this whole group. The eleven year old. She shouldn’t have been there. I understand if she wants to be a writer and this is something that she finds fun, but a person can’t write the kinds of things that they really want to write if there is an eleven year old hanging around. Actually, one of the prompts inspired me to write a story that involved drug use. One of the characters sat on a bed rolling a joint and talking about Amsterdam. I got a lot of terse looks for that one. People were motioning with their eyes towards the little girl.
It was the first time and last time I went to that workshop (or really, I think that we should call it a group because nothing was really work-shopped). I couldn’t stand the idea of having my writing critiqued by someone who hadn’t reached puberty yet. I don’t write for children. I also didn’t want to listen to anymore chit chat about romance novels or the romance novel industry, which might be completely different than the book industry seeing as they will sometimes just hand you the plot and you don’t have to think about it at all. Maybe I was being snobby. I don’t care. I still wouldn’t join a group like that. I have other people read my work but I think that they are people who understand better the things that I am trying to do with my writing. You have to be able to trust the people that you trust with your work. It’s redundant, but true.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Beautiful Things 9/16/03
I am a model. Someone deemed my skinny arms and bony knees beautiful. Someone desired me. And as a result I stare out at you from glossy pages. I am there at the makeup counter. I am watching as you stand in line at the grocery store. I’m with you as you try on underwear. And as a result you feel inadequate. Or perhaps you think that buying will make you appear more beautiful or appealing. I am a double edged sword. I am the object of lust. Today, sitting in my studio apartment, staring out at the world, I am angry. I am chain smoking Lucky Strike cigarettes. My ex-boyfriend always complained about the smell. I ignored him. My hair is a mess. I’m not wearing makeup. There are bags under my eyes. I don’t know why I’m angry. I just am. And somewhere out there someone is looking at my picture. Someone desires me.
-->Tiny escapes from reality are a comfort to those whose are trapped in an unescapable horror.
--> I’m not a big fan of emaciation.
THINGS TO DO TODAY
1) Wake up (very important to the start of any day. Best to do at one’s own leisure).
2) Drink coffee (slowly. Be sure to enjoy it. If the day is sunny. I suggest looking out at the world. If the day is anything less than sunny it would be best to crawl back under the covers).
3) Brush teeth, Shower (tend to all hygene issues, really).
-->Tiny escapes from reality are a comfort to those whose are trapped in an unescapable horror.
--> I’m not a big fan of emaciation.
THINGS TO DO TODAY
1) Wake up (very important to the start of any day. Best to do at one’s own leisure).
2) Drink coffee (slowly. Be sure to enjoy it. If the day is sunny. I suggest looking out at the world. If the day is anything less than sunny it would be best to crawl back under the covers).
3) Brush teeth, Shower (tend to all hygene issues, really).
I thought that this entry was really interesting for a number of reasons. First, there is the initial writing. I don’t know what I was thinking about models like that for. Normally I am very generous to them. It would seem that there are a number of feminists who would like it if I was angrier at models, or the fashion industry in general, because they are giving me a false idea of beauty. I’ve never really felt that way. They are models. I am not. They have their bad days too. Maybe that’s what this is about, the ugly in the beautiful. Maybe it’s about the way that we can’t all be beautiful all the time. Maybe it’s about allowing people to not be perfect. Give them their days of being angry for no reason. Maybe I needed a day to be angry for no reason. I think I was kind of angry around this time. I was working at a job I was learning a lot at, but I didn’t like it because I wanted to be with people my own age. I might have also been thinking about the way that we idolize people without knowing the real them. The model is beautiful, but she doesn’t live a beautiful life. We don’t see that on magazine covers or in ads.
The rest of the entry kind of surprises me, especially the part about the tiny escapes. I wrote a lot about escape. I think that writing is a kind of escape for me. When I start feeling really hopeless it is reflected in my writing or my lack of writing. When I am hopeful I write more because, for some reason, I need the escape when I am most hopeful.
I also like that I put arrows into this text. I thought the arrows were a newer thing, perhaps something I discovered in the past couple of years, but it turns out I have been doing this for years when I wanted to change the subject.
The list of things to do is clearly not realistic, but wouldn’t it make for a lovely day?
I’m keeping all the typos from my original text in. I think that it makes it more authentic.
The rest of the entry kind of surprises me, especially the part about the tiny escapes. I wrote a lot about escape. I think that writing is a kind of escape for me. When I start feeling really hopeless it is reflected in my writing or my lack of writing. When I am hopeful I write more because, for some reason, I need the escape when I am most hopeful.
I also like that I put arrows into this text. I thought the arrows were a newer thing, perhaps something I discovered in the past couple of years, but it turns out I have been doing this for years when I wanted to change the subject.
The list of things to do is clearly not realistic, but wouldn’t it make for a lovely day?
I’m keeping all the typos from my original text in. I think that it makes it more authentic.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Escape and Return 12/10/08
…finally, Josh speaks. “I went to Peru for a little while,” he says. A little confession.
“Hmmm. And what did you do there?”
“I sold dream catchers on the side of the road.”
I want to stay angry with him, but the smile is already forming. “You did not.”
“Yep. I did. I sold dream catchers by the side of the road. I had a little stand made out of bamboo.”
“Bamboo? Really? Where did you get bamboo in Peru?”
“It grows there.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Sure does. It’s a little known secret, but bamboo grows in the rainforests of Peru.”
I don’t want to believe him but I know that he’ll insist upon it. I remain quiet, but he goes on.
“Then one day, I’m at my stand and this bus pulls up.”
“A bus?”
“Yup. A huge tour bus, carrying one of Peru’s biggest rock bands.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“They bought all my dream catchers. Every last one of them. And they were so taken by me that they invited me to go on tour with them. I didn’t have any dream catchers left so I figured, why not? I left my bamboo stand on the side of the road and went. We travelled all over Latin America. We went everywhere. I mean everywhere. This band didn’t care what size the venue was, they just liked getting gigs and there were plenty of shady bars to go to, especially in Ecuador.”
“Oh, stop.”
“What.”
“None of that is true. Not a single word.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
“Well with maybes anything is possible. You’re right though, it could be true. How would I know?”
He sits for a while, messing with the cuff of his shirt, drinking. “I did go to Peru,” he says. “I stayed in a little house on the beach. It was pleasant. Very calm.”
“People were looking for you.”
“I know.” He seems to consider this for a while.
“I have clippings.”
“What?”
“From when you disappeared. I have newspaper clippings. I saved them.”
I wrote this almost a year ago. It’s a lot of dialogue, which I wasn’t thinking about when I picked it. I chose it because I liked the story about selling dream catchers in Peru. It was a mini story inside the real story. The real story was about a woman whose ex-husband shows up years after he disappeared. It came from a prompt about a woman hearing a key in the door while her husband is away on a business trip. I made up all the stuff about it being her ex-husband. I think I chose the topic because it was about escape and it was still hopeful. At the time, I was going through a lot of stuff in my life. I felt alone, slightly abandoned. I wanted to be rescued. Earlier in the year I had been left by someone that I really cared about. I don’t know if ‘left’ is the right word, but ‘deserted’ would really be the wrong word. Either way, I lost someone that I cared about (temporarily, I would find out later) and at the same time I was struggling to find friends in a city I had lived in for almost a year. I was having problems with people I worked with and I just felt really alone. I needed someone, but I didn’t know how to tell anyone.
This story came out of the hopelessness I was feeling at the time and the hopefulness that I wanted to feel. The narrator of the story was left years ago and spent time alone, then gave up on the idea of ever feeling love for someone the way that she felt it for her first husband. She finds someone new, but the idea is that she never loves the new man enough. Her life is a waiting game, forever hoping that the other man will come back. He does.
I never got past this. He comes back and they spend time talking about the old times and the changes that they have been through, but I never finished the story. I don’t know if they end up together or not. I think maybe I was scared to find out. I wanted so much for people to come back in to my life that I didn’t want to think about the awkwardness of having to actually say goodbye to those people, or what it would be like to discover that you had grown away from someone. I’m not ready to return to it yet, though I think that there’s a lot of good stuff in this story. I still don’t know how this story ends, but it did offer me an option if my writing doesn’t work out:
I’ll go sell dream catchers on the side of the road in Peru.
“Hmmm. And what did you do there?”
“I sold dream catchers on the side of the road.”
I want to stay angry with him, but the smile is already forming. “You did not.”
“Yep. I did. I sold dream catchers by the side of the road. I had a little stand made out of bamboo.”
“Bamboo? Really? Where did you get bamboo in Peru?”
“It grows there.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Sure does. It’s a little known secret, but bamboo grows in the rainforests of Peru.”
I don’t want to believe him but I know that he’ll insist upon it. I remain quiet, but he goes on.
“Then one day, I’m at my stand and this bus pulls up.”
“A bus?”
“Yup. A huge tour bus, carrying one of Peru’s biggest rock bands.”
“You’re so full of shit.”
“They bought all my dream catchers. Every last one of them. And they were so taken by me that they invited me to go on tour with them. I didn’t have any dream catchers left so I figured, why not? I left my bamboo stand on the side of the road and went. We travelled all over Latin America. We went everywhere. I mean everywhere. This band didn’t care what size the venue was, they just liked getting gigs and there were plenty of shady bars to go to, especially in Ecuador.”
“Oh, stop.”
“What.”
“None of that is true. Not a single word.”
He shrugged. “Maybe it is.”
“Well with maybes anything is possible. You’re right though, it could be true. How would I know?”
He sits for a while, messing with the cuff of his shirt, drinking. “I did go to Peru,” he says. “I stayed in a little house on the beach. It was pleasant. Very calm.”
“People were looking for you.”
“I know.” He seems to consider this for a while.
“I have clippings.”
“What?”
“From when you disappeared. I have newspaper clippings. I saved them.”
I wrote this almost a year ago. It’s a lot of dialogue, which I wasn’t thinking about when I picked it. I chose it because I liked the story about selling dream catchers in Peru. It was a mini story inside the real story. The real story was about a woman whose ex-husband shows up years after he disappeared. It came from a prompt about a woman hearing a key in the door while her husband is away on a business trip. I made up all the stuff about it being her ex-husband. I think I chose the topic because it was about escape and it was still hopeful. At the time, I was going through a lot of stuff in my life. I felt alone, slightly abandoned. I wanted to be rescued. Earlier in the year I had been left by someone that I really cared about. I don’t know if ‘left’ is the right word, but ‘deserted’ would really be the wrong word. Either way, I lost someone that I cared about (temporarily, I would find out later) and at the same time I was struggling to find friends in a city I had lived in for almost a year. I was having problems with people I worked with and I just felt really alone. I needed someone, but I didn’t know how to tell anyone.
This story came out of the hopelessness I was feeling at the time and the hopefulness that I wanted to feel. The narrator of the story was left years ago and spent time alone, then gave up on the idea of ever feeling love for someone the way that she felt it for her first husband. She finds someone new, but the idea is that she never loves the new man enough. Her life is a waiting game, forever hoping that the other man will come back. He does.
I never got past this. He comes back and they spend time talking about the old times and the changes that they have been through, but I never finished the story. I don’t know if they end up together or not. I think maybe I was scared to find out. I wanted so much for people to come back in to my life that I didn’t want to think about the awkwardness of having to actually say goodbye to those people, or what it would be like to discover that you had grown away from someone. I’m not ready to return to it yet, though I think that there’s a lot of good stuff in this story. I still don’t know how this story ends, but it did offer me an option if my writing doesn’t work out:
I’ll go sell dream catchers on the side of the road in Peru.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Writing Things Down 9/22/08
Written 9/22/08:
X things it’s funny that I want to be a writer simply because I like writing things down. I think X is funny.
This is from my eleventh notebook, a moleskine that I filled up from 7/26/08 to 11/12/08. I was doing a lot of writing at that time. Most of it was work on a story I wrote titled “Touch” which has been rejected by eleven different literary magazines so far. I remember what prompted this little note. Being an English major with an emphasis in creative writing I have met a lot of people who want to be writers. One day I was at the apartment of one of these people and he asked me why I want to be a writer.
I shrugged and answered “I don’t know, I guess I just like writing things down.” The ‘I don’t know’ stemmed from the fact that no one had really bothered to ask me that before and because it was something that I didn’t really think about. I love writing. I like writing things down. I thought that was why everyone who wants to be a writer picks it. I guess not.
The guy I was talking to kind of tilted his head at me. “That’s funny,” he said in a way that made me think that it wasn’t funny ha-ha, but he thought that maybe it was funny weird.
“Why is that funny?”
“Everyone else I’ve ever asked wants to be a writer so that they can write a novel that everyone loves and become rich and famous.”
Now it was my turn to laugh and I did. “That’s just ridiculous,” I told him.
He shrugged at me and then said, “That’s why I want to be a writer.”
When I realized that he was serious I tried to talk him out of it. I wanted him to want to be a writer for some other, better reason. I explained to him that there are plenty of people who will write and write and write their whole lives and never get publish. I told him that the ones who are lucky enough to get published hardly ever make enough money to really live on it. I asked him if he could name ten really wealthy writers who were immediately recognizable. He couldn’t but that didn’t deter him. By the end of the conversation I was frustrated and angry. Then, I just gave up.
I know that there are a ton of people out there just like this guy. They seem to think that writing is somehow a ticket to fame and fortune. I find it extremely insulting. At the same time I began to understand why I was struggling so much in my creative writing course. Why there were times when I wanted to yell at my classmates to take it more seriously. I started to understand why I read so many stories that were almost exactly the same. They were all following the formula. The goal for them wasn’t to become a better writer, which was what I looked forward to from workshops. The goal for them was to become rich and famous. It’s something I will never understand.
I’m not saying that I haven’t thought about it. I have and I think that everyone thinks about the day that they will become rich and famous. It’s just that I thought that when people thought about it they thought they would get rich and famous by doing something they love. I didn’t think someone would actually go into writing thinking that they will become rich and famous. That’s just silliness. You don’t hear about people taking a ton of zoology courses so that they can go live with the apes and become rich and famous like Jane Goodall. No one seems to want to spend years and years in the military so that they can become rich and famous like Colin Powell. Where are all the little kids thinking that they would love to spend years in college so that they can be rich and famous like Johnny Cochran?
Why is it that writing is something that everyone thinks they can do and be good at without trying? Where did this strange misconception come from that writing is somehow the ticket to the easy life? Most importantly, where are all the writers who are living the sweet life out there? Someone must have inspired these people and I want to know who it is! (I’m talking to you Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling).
Writing is something I work on every day. It’s something that constantly evolves. I keep all my notebooks because I want to know what I wrote before and how I can improve upon it. I really am trying hard and working hard.
If I were to somehow become rich and famous, that would be kind of cool but I imagine that it’s very time consuming. I’d much rather spend my time writing.
X things it’s funny that I want to be a writer simply because I like writing things down. I think X is funny.
This is from my eleventh notebook, a moleskine that I filled up from 7/26/08 to 11/12/08. I was doing a lot of writing at that time. Most of it was work on a story I wrote titled “Touch” which has been rejected by eleven different literary magazines so far. I remember what prompted this little note. Being an English major with an emphasis in creative writing I have met a lot of people who want to be writers. One day I was at the apartment of one of these people and he asked me why I want to be a writer.
I shrugged and answered “I don’t know, I guess I just like writing things down.” The ‘I don’t know’ stemmed from the fact that no one had really bothered to ask me that before and because it was something that I didn’t really think about. I love writing. I like writing things down. I thought that was why everyone who wants to be a writer picks it. I guess not.
The guy I was talking to kind of tilted his head at me. “That’s funny,” he said in a way that made me think that it wasn’t funny ha-ha, but he thought that maybe it was funny weird.
“Why is that funny?”
“Everyone else I’ve ever asked wants to be a writer so that they can write a novel that everyone loves and become rich and famous.”
Now it was my turn to laugh and I did. “That’s just ridiculous,” I told him.
He shrugged at me and then said, “That’s why I want to be a writer.”
When I realized that he was serious I tried to talk him out of it. I wanted him to want to be a writer for some other, better reason. I explained to him that there are plenty of people who will write and write and write their whole lives and never get publish. I told him that the ones who are lucky enough to get published hardly ever make enough money to really live on it. I asked him if he could name ten really wealthy writers who were immediately recognizable. He couldn’t but that didn’t deter him. By the end of the conversation I was frustrated and angry. Then, I just gave up.
I know that there are a ton of people out there just like this guy. They seem to think that writing is somehow a ticket to fame and fortune. I find it extremely insulting. At the same time I began to understand why I was struggling so much in my creative writing course. Why there were times when I wanted to yell at my classmates to take it more seriously. I started to understand why I read so many stories that were almost exactly the same. They were all following the formula. The goal for them wasn’t to become a better writer, which was what I looked forward to from workshops. The goal for them was to become rich and famous. It’s something I will never understand.
I’m not saying that I haven’t thought about it. I have and I think that everyone thinks about the day that they will become rich and famous. It’s just that I thought that when people thought about it they thought they would get rich and famous by doing something they love. I didn’t think someone would actually go into writing thinking that they will become rich and famous. That’s just silliness. You don’t hear about people taking a ton of zoology courses so that they can go live with the apes and become rich and famous like Jane Goodall. No one seems to want to spend years and years in the military so that they can become rich and famous like Colin Powell. Where are all the little kids thinking that they would love to spend years in college so that they can be rich and famous like Johnny Cochran?
Why is it that writing is something that everyone thinks they can do and be good at without trying? Where did this strange misconception come from that writing is somehow the ticket to the easy life? Most importantly, where are all the writers who are living the sweet life out there? Someone must have inspired these people and I want to know who it is! (I’m talking to you Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling).
Writing is something I work on every day. It’s something that constantly evolves. I keep all my notebooks because I want to know what I wrote before and how I can improve upon it. I really am trying hard and working hard.
If I were to somehow become rich and famous, that would be kind of cool but I imagine that it’s very time consuming. I’d much rather spend my time writing.
Monday, November 2, 2009
The First Notebook
The first notebook is one of those Mead composition books that continue to get made even though they aren’t really used all that much anymore. It is covered in little stickers that I got from a restaurant which depict Franklin the Green Knight and his friends. Franklin is a little turtle who dresses as a knight and who might even be a knight. I know nothing about him, really. I just had a bunch of stickers and no place to put them. Back when I started with these notebooks I would decorate them so the first four definitely have stickers. I’ve kind of outgrown drawing all over my notebooks. There is also some scotch tape in the upper right hand corner, a remnant from a time when I had written my name and class period down on there. I had to turn this notebook in. They were required for my first creative writing course, even though I started mine before the semester began and before I even knew that I was going to get an assignment like that. The dates are 12/16/00 to 2/1/01. The second notebook ended up getting turned in as well. I don’t think that my professor was expecting me to write so much.
The first notebook is interesting because I wanted to be very serious about writing but, at the same time, I seriously couldn’t finish a story. It was all just a bunch of starts. Usually, I used a prompt. I remember that I got this notebook because I had recently bought a book called The Writer’s Book of Days. It was full of weird advice and prompts and little things about writers and the writing life. They recommended getting a notebook to write in every day, so that’s what I did. I wrote in it every day. We even went on a family vacation to Las Vegas within ten days of me getting this notebook and I remember waiting until my sister had gone to sleep to sneak into the bathroom of the hotel room and write on the floor.
For all my dedication, the truth is that the writing in here isn’t that good. I was still trying to figure out what I was doing. I had just decided that I was actually going to pursue writing and I wanted to make sure that I was good at it. I needed a place to try things out.
I also don’t like that the pages are wide ruled. I would try to write to fill up the lines. It’s sloppy, childish really. I think that one of the biggest reasons that I eventually moved away from these composition books is that it is hard to find ones that aren’t wide ruled. I stopped liking them.
On 1/21/01 I made a little note in the margins of the page. It reads “Kid drowning in Baptismal pool?” I think that this was a story idea. I actually know that it must have been though there is no follow up. I didn’t write the story. I think the fact that I was thinking about something like this is indicative of the way that my mind was working at the time. I was in a really weird place. You’ll probably figure it out the further that we get into these notebooks.
The first notebook is interesting because I wanted to be very serious about writing but, at the same time, I seriously couldn’t finish a story. It was all just a bunch of starts. Usually, I used a prompt. I remember that I got this notebook because I had recently bought a book called The Writer’s Book of Days. It was full of weird advice and prompts and little things about writers and the writing life. They recommended getting a notebook to write in every day, so that’s what I did. I wrote in it every day. We even went on a family vacation to Las Vegas within ten days of me getting this notebook and I remember waiting until my sister had gone to sleep to sneak into the bathroom of the hotel room and write on the floor.
For all my dedication, the truth is that the writing in here isn’t that good. I was still trying to figure out what I was doing. I had just decided that I was actually going to pursue writing and I wanted to make sure that I was good at it. I needed a place to try things out.
I also don’t like that the pages are wide ruled. I would try to write to fill up the lines. It’s sloppy, childish really. I think that one of the biggest reasons that I eventually moved away from these composition books is that it is hard to find ones that aren’t wide ruled. I stopped liking them.
On 1/21/01 I made a little note in the margins of the page. It reads “Kid drowning in Baptismal pool?” I think that this was a story idea. I actually know that it must have been though there is no follow up. I didn’t write the story. I think the fact that I was thinking about something like this is indicative of the way that my mind was working at the time. I was in a really weird place. You’ll probably figure it out the further that we get into these notebooks.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
A Short Introduction
My name is Becca and I have a ton of notebooks. I’ve been keeping them fairly regularly for about nine years now. Sometimes I write a lot, but there have been times where I haven’t written very much at all. For the most part, these notebooks of mine work as a space where I can write down first drafts of fiction. I was pretty true to that for the first few years and then pieces of my life started slipping into them. I still use them mostly for fiction, but even in that I think I see a lot of my life in my stories. Whatever I’m struggling with or dealing with in my life is reflected back to me in the fiction that I was writing at the time. There are, of course, fragments of my actual life slipping through. Sometimes I will write down notes to myself so I don’t forget appointments or meetings or important class assignments. Sometimes I write down things that I need to get for other people. Sometimes I write down things I need to get for myself.
The first few notebooks mostly consist of me trying to figure out who I am going to be as a writer. I took a lot of things very, very seriously when I was eighteen years old. What eighteen year old doesn’t do that?
Later I struggle through stories I am working on, sometimes writing and rewriting the beginnings of stories over and over again until I finally give up on them. After that I learned that first drafts are called first drafts for a reason and I started just plowing through the stories. If the beginning isn’t exactly what I imagined it to be I have learned to think that I can fix it later in editing. Usually, my stories turn out the way that they were supposed to be anyway and the beginnings that I thought were so horrible only need a little bit of tweaking in the end.
I have been looking through these notebooks a lot lately. This is mostly because they are currently sitting in a box on my bedroom floor and I can’t avoid them. I want to figure out a way to reflect on them without taking up new notebook space rehashing moments that I already lived through or wrote. That is what this blog is for.
I have no intention of using this blog to write down every single thing that is in my notebooks. I want to use this space to reflect back on the things that I have written and what they mean to me now, or what they meant to me then. None of it will probably mean a thing to you, but that’s okay. If you read it and you like it, then good. If you don’t, then it doesn’t really matter because the things that I wrote down were for me at the time and they will continue to be for me regardless of the opinions of others.
I might not post on here every single day because if I did that I don’t think that I would have time to write anything new, but I’ll try to post with some kind of regularity. Overall, my hope for this blog is that other people can enjoy and appreciate what I am trying to do with the things that I create.
The first few notebooks mostly consist of me trying to figure out who I am going to be as a writer. I took a lot of things very, very seriously when I was eighteen years old. What eighteen year old doesn’t do that?
Later I struggle through stories I am working on, sometimes writing and rewriting the beginnings of stories over and over again until I finally give up on them. After that I learned that first drafts are called first drafts for a reason and I started just plowing through the stories. If the beginning isn’t exactly what I imagined it to be I have learned to think that I can fix it later in editing. Usually, my stories turn out the way that they were supposed to be anyway and the beginnings that I thought were so horrible only need a little bit of tweaking in the end.
I have been looking through these notebooks a lot lately. This is mostly because they are currently sitting in a box on my bedroom floor and I can’t avoid them. I want to figure out a way to reflect on them without taking up new notebook space rehashing moments that I already lived through or wrote. That is what this blog is for.
I have no intention of using this blog to write down every single thing that is in my notebooks. I want to use this space to reflect back on the things that I have written and what they mean to me now, or what they meant to me then. None of it will probably mean a thing to you, but that’s okay. If you read it and you like it, then good. If you don’t, then it doesn’t really matter because the things that I wrote down were for me at the time and they will continue to be for me regardless of the opinions of others.
I might not post on here every single day because if I did that I don’t think that I would have time to write anything new, but I’ll try to post with some kind of regularity. Overall, my hope for this blog is that other people can enjoy and appreciate what I am trying to do with the things that I create.
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