Surfacing

Do you have the secret to organization and balance?

I know about lists. I even make lists. Where do the lists go? I think they drown in the sea of nonsense that is my desk. Anyone can make a list. Look. I’ll make one right now.

(in insignificant order and incomplete)

finish organizing desk
do laundry
paint bathroom
grade papers
finish designing online writing course for work
call dad
write down ideas/plans for Plum Tree
catch up with blog reading
buy birthday gifts for Saturday’s party
finish illustrations for children’s book
start planning for October’s show
write that book jacket synopsis for the agent
make a better list

The problem with some of those things is that they never really leave the list. Laundry is forever. Sure, I could prioritize the list, but…well, that’s something else to put on the list.

prioritize the list

The list doesn’t appreciate how tired I am or that my son needs to eat.

Maybe I should put whinging on the list so I can mark something as done.

On the bright side, tomorrow I shall write the last story for story-a-day May. Whew. What will happen to my writing after that? No idea.

With my big move out of the way, so maybe I can now become the sane and organized person I’ve always wanted to be.

I’ll put that on the list.

be the way I ought to be

It’s on the list! That means I have to do it.

What about you? Do lists work for you? Or do they laugh at you behind your back?

Belief

Have you ever seen something–a garden gate perhaps, a picture hanging on a cafe wall, an odd, unexpected object in an odd and expected place–that made you stop and look again. That stirred your heart, maybe your gut, a place deep within?

I love connecting with a picture, a story, a random object.

Imagine if something I made did the same for someone else. Even if I never publish anything, connecting with someone through something I created would mean wonders.

When I was 16, I read this book, The Truth about Unicorns. I’ve blogged about it before. I loved that book so much, when I got to the end, I went straight back to the beginning and read it again. Why did I love it?

I don’t know.

But that book reached me. Maybe this is problem. I want to write a book like that book made me feel.

Or how Watership Down made me feel.

Or The Phantom Tollbooth.

Mama Day.

But how does one write a book like that?

I don’t know. But that’s why I write. Eight novels and a pile of short stories, and I haven’t written that story yet as far as I can tell. I believe in that story, and one day I’m going to write it.

What book do you aspire to?

String Theory Childhood

Have you heard the theory that there are countless parallel universes, that at particular moments in your life when one decision was made, another universe began with another you who lived the choice you didn’t make.

dad

What moment in your childhood would change where you are now? Of course, perhaps it the small forgotten decision that made all the difference. You’re alive because you took an extra minute to tie your shoe and so you weren’t on your bike in the intersection when the truck ran the stop sign. But those moments you can never know.

When I look back I think about the day when I was in the 6th grade and my dad chose to believe his wife, my step-mother, instead of me. Perhaps I wouldn’t have gone to live with my mother. If hadn’t gone to live with my mother, she wouldn’t have needed to move. If she’d hadn’t have moved, we wouldn’t have ended up living with her boyfriend. I’d be telling a different story today.

What happened though was that my father said, “I don’t understand why you’d say that. She works hard to make our home nice. I want you to try harder. She’s had a hard life, and she only wants what’s best.”

In the string theory, not only is there a world where I stayed with my father, there is also a world where he and his second wife never got together at all. I like to think a me is out there who experienced a tranquil childhood.

That me probably wouldn’t be a writer.

When I decided to live with my mother, I needed to lie. I left for my summer visitation, and on the way out the door, I kissed my dad’s cheek. “See you in two weeks,” I said.

But in two weeks my dad didn’t see me. He didn’t see me for almost a year because the judge wouldn’t allow it. Maybe there’s a universe where the judge told me to return to my dad and step-mother. I don’t want to know that universe.

Our universe though remains the only one we have access to. It doesn’t do much good to tell a child in trouble–you’re okay in another universe.

Believe your child. When they’re older, they’ll remember the person who believed.

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This is part of a blog hop–Self as Child. Plum Tree works to promote children’s art and stories (please submit!).

Other writers participating: Tonia at Passionfind, C.C.Cole, Deb Hockenberry, and more to come.

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On a side note–I’m writing very short stories for Story-a-Day May! Stories are here. Are you writing?

May is here. May is here. Life is stories, and life is fears…

I think the loveliest time of the year is the pub date, I do. Don’t you? Course you do!

Wait. What?

(A gold star to whomever gets the reference in my blog post title.)

I’m taking part in Story-a-Day May. Are you? I’ll post the stories over at The Fairy Tale Asylum. At the end of the month I may be locked up with rest of the inmates…

Do you participate in writing challenges?

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For artists–or rather for parents of artists–remember Youth Tube at Plum Tree Books. We are always looking for submissions of children’s art.