Super Powers Aren’t Us.

If I could have a super power, I’d want the power to see through mounds of text to find the fatal plot holes and creeping story killers.

What super power would you wish for?

You Are Not Like Other People

The garbage disposal was broken. The maintenance guy and I were sharing stories of growing up without garbage disposals. As a kid I carried my plate outside, walked to the side of the house, and scraped whatever was on my plate into the cow pasture. Mr. Maintenance asked me where I grew up. Florida. And he asked what my parents did.

“My parents divorced when I was little,” I said. “I was raised by my dad–a single dad in the 70s.”

Mr. Maintenance looks thoughtful. “I can see that,” he said. “That really makes sense to me because you carry yourself differently than most people.”

I laughed. Other people have asked me what country I was from, and when I’ve said I’m American, they’ve acted surprised. “You seem like you’re from somewhere else.”

A few times I’ve even had people say, “Your English is really good!”

“Well, it should be. I’m American.”

“Really?”

Once when I worked at Barnes & Noble a customer–who turned out to be French–said, “You don’t seem American to me.”

I’ve tried to figure out why some people say these things to me. Might be my name, which isn’t a typical American name. (Sometimes when people hear my first name, they say, “Funny. You don’t look Mexican.” Which proves to me they don’t know that many Mexicans, but still, I’m not Mexican.) Might be my height, but Americans aren’t known for being short, so that doesn’t seem to be it.

Many times in life I’ve felt I was missing some essential aspect of girlness. Not that I could tell you what that is. But I wasn’t one of those girls who got along better with guys either. I wasn’t a tomboy. I didn’t have mostly guy friends.

So when the maintenance guy said I carried myself differently, I wondered what that meant. When he and I had chatted other times–usually when I was walking the dogs–what was different? Maybe it’s that we are both Doctor Who fans. Or maybe it’s that I always stop to chat with the maintenance guys.

I’m probably never going to know.

But I wonder too, of course, when people read my work, what they will think about me. What assumptions will people make?

Wouldn’t someone like VS Naipul guess I was a woman writer? When you read a story without knowing the author’s name, what do you think you can guess about them? Gender? Politics? Ethnicity? Religion? The parent they were raised by?

Have you ever been startled to learn who a particular writer was? Really? A woman wrote this?

Pick the Right Baby

the lineup

The agent wasn’t taken with the pages I sent from my manuscript The Labyrinth House. I rewrote them, but they still work for her. The agent was willing to read a few pages of The Blue Jar, and she liked those pages enough to ask for more. I’ve sent more, and I’m now waiting.

I have this crazy wish. And yes, I know it is stupid and would never work, so you don’t need to tell me everything wrong with the idea or why it is silly or any other words of wisdom. But if I could, I’d like to send an agent the first chapters of every manuscript I’ve written (eight) and say, “Please pick one.”

Yeah. I know. But it is hard to shake the feeling that I’ve sent the wrong thing. Call me vain, but I love every manuscript. Plenty of writers compare writing a novel to having a baby. Now, I hate this analogy because I’ve had a baby and I think the comparison is insane. The doctor told my husband that if I’d given birth 20 years ago, I might well have died. So. Writing a novel is not like having a baby.

However, just to play a hypocrite, if my novels are babies, how could I say one is bad and stick it under the bed?

But I’ve got my manuscripts lined up…and which one casts a spell? (Ooo! babies that can cast spells! Oh wait. No, no, no.)

Of course, there is always the possibility that the answer is–not a single manuscript works. They’re all first novels really.)

How do you know what you’re writing is working?

Kill the Ones They Love

a different end for the 9th Doctor

Fans are a mixed blessing. I’ve been reading about True Fans and I’ve been reading commentary by the fans of Harry Potter, Doctor Who, and Torchwood. And it seems there’s a lesson in there about Fan Rage.

Fan Rage may be more prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy genres sicne they’re the genres in which fans dress up as characters–truly inhabiting that character and walking public streets in the character’s clothes and attitude. So the writer who kills off that character may never be forgiven.

Now, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle got sick of Holmes and killed him off–only to have to bring him back to life to satisfy Fan Demand. But I’m not really talking about writers who come to hate their creation and commit murder to liberate themselves. That’s another issue.

No. I mean writers who create a story, see what has to happen to follow their vision of the story, and killing characters accordingly. J.K. Rowling kills off loved characters. Russell T. Davies killed off more than one beloved Torchwood character–and he is still getting grief for it.

Some fans refuse to watch Doctor Who because Rose Tyler was no longer the companion or because David Tennant regenerated into Matt Smith or because Russell T Davies left the show to Steven Moffat. For some fans it isn’t a matter of they just don’t like the show anymore. The vitriol spewed at Davies for killing certain Torchwood characters is amazing. They talk about Davies as if he roams cities to suck the blood of pretty children. They haven’t even seen anything past the death of “their” character because they are so angry.

And Davies wasn’t trying to get rid of anyone. He believed that the death of this or that character made for a stronger story. Fan Rage seems to prove him right, doesn’t it? Who wants to kill off a character and get a big blah, “meh.”

But these fans won’t watch his show anymore.

Are they True Fans? Do True Fans stick by you no matter what? Or do they kidnap your imagination? How beholden are you to fans who love, LOVE, a character?

Or forget characters. Think of stories. How many writers (singers, actors, artists) begin in one genre, change genre, and then must suffer the outrage? How dare you?

Oh well.

Over at The Imaginary Lake I’ve posted a few first chapters of the different novels I’ve written over the years. Some stories I’ve written have magic–I’ll call it magic though I’m not sure that is the word I really want–and some a straightforward stories without one drop of hocus-pocus. One story is a dragon and quest adventure. Another is a dark emotional magical tangle.

Not sure what fans–should I have some expect–but all readers are most appreciated.

Have you ever been angry at a writer for changing their style or killing a favorite character? Did you ever get over it?

Coffee, Action Figures, and Love

Yes, my David Lynch coffee and my Captain Jack Harkness action figure

The other day one of my students (remember, my students are all adults) said (with affection) that I was a child inside. This was because I said I was going to the midnight release of the last Harry Potter film.

Since I don’t have any friends who will stay up that late, I’m going on my own–as I’ve done four other times. I went to the midnight release of the last book too.

A few weeks ago I agreed to pay extra money every month so that I could get Starz and see the new Torchwood on Starz.

Oh. And I keep an action figure (usually of Captain Jack Harkness) to take pictures of in different places when I’m out. And these pictures often involve cups of coffee. My son, so far, thinks this is a normal thing to do.

Sometimes I get flak acting this way at my age.

Isn’t Harry Potter for children?
You keep an action figure in your purse? Why? (And “why” is asked in a way that means the speaker isn’t interested in understanding the answer, they just want you to know they think you’re doing something you shouldn’t.)

I also spend an inordinate amount of time making stuff up and not cleaning the apartment.

But you’re not published?

Well, I want to create characters other people love as much as I love Captain Jack Harkness and Gwen Cooper, Hermione Granger and Harry Potter, Agent Dale Cooper and Sheriff Harry S. Truman. Or Harley Wescott and Lilith Bascombe in The Truth about Unicorns.

I love people who dress up as characters and wait in lines for days. People will say, “Don’t they have anything better to do?” To which I’m tempted ask, “And what better thing are you doing with your life exactly?” What is better if the alternative is staying cool and bored?

Of everything that might be wrong with my writing (odd sentence structure,let’s say, or incoherent plot perhaps), the one thing I really want are characters that stay with people. Characters you’d want to hear from again. Characters people would wait in line for or even want to carry around in a purse.

Not there yet.

What characters would you wait in line for a chance to meet again?

Go hula!

See things from another perspective. Like a hula hoop.

I’ve been reading a lot over at Tribal Writer. Justine says a lot of things I wish I’d said. Now I wish I could figure out how to say what I want to say.

She has a post about having True Fans. I don’t know how to get True Fans when I have trouble asking people to read what I write. I’m afraid people won’t read what I write and that they will read what I write.

Some days I think I don’t care.

But then I do.

As if panic and insecurity are mixed in with hormonal changes. Hmmm.

When I was a teenager I refused to wear makeup. Not because I thought wearing makeup was bad. I wanted to wear makeup and fuss with my hair and wear cool clothes. But I was convinced everyone would say, “Who do you think you are? You can’t do that!”

Anyway. The hula video is fun (I love Robert Krulwich) and Tribal Writer is worth reading.

And to those of you who keep reading what I write, thank you from every corner of my heart and soul.

It’s not what you think.

How often do you look back on a past moment in your life and wonder if you missed what really happened?

I am very good at this.

thankfully there aren't that many pictures of me in high school

The other day I was reading about some hubbub going on over a storyline on a television series. I don’t watch the series but the issue of writer responsibility caught my attention. In the show a teenage girl has an affair with her teacher. And instead of the usual this-is-very-bad point-of-view, the show seems to have a let’s-hope-they-get-away-with-it point-of-view.

This reminded me of a chemistry teacher in my high school.

I was terrible at chemistry. Half the time I couldn’t even tell if a questions needed a sentence or a formula for an answer.

My chemistry teacher suggested that if I wanted extra help and to take the most recent test over again, I could come to school on the upcoming student holiday—-the teacher work day—-and I could take as much time as I needed to redo the exam.

This wasn’t a class-wide announcement. He stopped me on my way out of class to suggest this. I assumed he stopped other failing students too, but I didn’t ask. I did show up. I was the only student there. But how many students want to go to school on their day off?

I took the test. He and I chatted. He was one of the younger teachers and it was his first year at our high school. Lots of girls thought he was reasonably cute. He was tall and funny.

I never thought teachers were cute. They were teachers. Girls who had crushes on teachers were inexplicable to me.

So as I was gathering my things, my chemistry teacher said that a few months before he’d found a bracelet in the room. No one had ever claimed it, and since it had been such a long time since he’d found it and he wanted to clear out his desk, perhaps I would like it.

Several things occurred to me in something of a muddled order. Things in lost-and-found aren’t supposed to be given up on until the end of the year. Teachers aren’t supposed to give students presents. It wasn’t really a present. It wasn’t like he bought it. Wow, my teacher trusts me enough to give me a present and not get him into trouble. Hmm, maybe I’m not supposed to take it. Well, I can’t say no to a teacher. I’m overthinking. It is just a lost bracelet after all.

I took the bracelet—-a thin gold chain with fake pearls.

I did feel slightly strange standing there with the bracelet in my hand, but I was also flattered. He was a popular teacher after all. But it seemed weird to stay any longer, so I thanked him for the bracelet and left.

Later when I wore the bracelet, he didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t exactly think it was wrong to have it, but at the same time I told only one friend that the teacher had given it to me. She was impressed. I told her it was only a forgotten bracelet about to be thrown away. Still, part of me wanted to hold my wrist up to others and say, “Mr. So-and-so gave me this.” But I didn’t.

I did get a much better score on my retaken exam. My grade went up to a B!

A few weeks passed and my teacher announced to the class that he was leaving. He’d gotten another job—-a better paying job and he needed to money. He wasn’t even able to stay until the end of the school year.

He stopped me after class to tell me that he thought the company he’d be working for was down the street from my house. Honestly, all these years later I can’t remember how he knew where I lived. I may have told him the day I came in to retake the test because I lived out of town away from everything. But there was indeed that one small company at the end of the road. He told me I could come by and see him there at work.

I thought about it. I passed by that company building a lot. It was in walking distance of my house after all. But I also thought, surely a grown man doesn’t really want to see some silly sixteen-year-old girl show up at his office. I never went.

I still think of him when I drive by that building.

Part of me wants to believe he was just a friendly, helpful teacher. My dramatic writer mind puts a different spin on it. Ah, that crazy writer mind.

My point isn’t whether or not my chemistry teacher was innocent and foolish in his thoughtfulness. My point is—-I don’t know. I rarely trust myself to know, for sure, what someone else is really up to. One little voice says, things are not what you think. Another little voice says, you’re over-thinking again, you just want there to be a story here. Stop imagining things.

But I’m always imagining things.

Anyway. When people tell me they like something I’ve written, at first I believe them. Then I don’t. Then I do. Then I can’t decide.

An agent has asked to see more pages of one manuscript. Said agent may or may not feel enthusiastic about me. I can’t tell. So far I could believe this agent has a particular type of personality and is very busy and I shouldn’t worry too much. Or I could believe that this agent is just being nice, making a little extra effort to be sure, and isn’t really that interested. That when it comes down to it, said agent will look at my work, pause, and say no.

And if said agent says no, I’ll spend a lot of time trying to figure out what I did wrong. I won’t be able to decide if it was me (my novel isn’t that good) or the agent (my novel just isn’t that individual’s thing).

I’m sure to keep the rejection letter though. After all, I’ve still got that bracelet.