Where does writing begin?

the front of a card made by my mom–a self-portrait

We all have a story why we write or make art or create whatever it is we create. How far back does the story go?

Does my story go back to the first book I fell in love with? (Watership Down) Does it go back to my mother’s love of books? My grandmother’s love of books?

Does it have anything to do with books at all?

Does it go back to rarely being listen to and hardly ever believed?
Does it go back to my dad making up stories about the world around us?
Does it go back to my DNA coming together in just the right way?

Is a writer’s brain wired differently? Or does writing rewire the brain?

Does it go back to trying to remember something I forgot or back to trying to forget what I don’t want to remember? If you retell a story often enough, do you forget which version is true?

How true is your memory anyway?

How did you come to love books? (If you’re reading this I can’t help but think you love books. Am I wrong?)

It can’t be simply because you grew up surrounded by books. If you did. Some people discover books away from their home. They don’t grow up in a house filled with books, and yet they become writers.

I grew up in my father’s house. He had few books. he couldn’t read well. He had a Bible, a few Time/Life books, a dictionary, and a copy of Huck Finn. That was it.

My mother didn’t have many books in her apartment because she had no money for books and moved all the time. But she was always reading library and cheap used paperbacks that she’d sell. Grandmother didn’t have many books because she didn’t like the dust. She hated to dust. She didn’t buy many things because they’d have to be dusted. But she read library books all the time, took me with her, and if a librarian wouldn’t let me check out a book, my grandmother would check the book out for me.

I have hundreds of books. We have so many book cases and still I don’t have enough room for my books. But I can’t bring myself to get rid of them. I don’t notice the dust.

But shelves of books alone won’t make you a writer.

What makes you a writer?

Speaking of mug shots…

a book cover

Do you ever google people from your past?

Hmmm?

Well, okay. So.

I set my novel in 1985 because that’s when I was a teen and because I didn’t want to deal with cell phones and google.

I used my hometown as a starting point for my novel. But then my fictional town of Lake Belle became something more than where I grew up. The connections between the two are now almost nonexistent.

The novel isn’t autobiographical, but writing a particular scene did bring my former step-sister to mind. So, I googled her name. It was late and I haven’t seen her in 25 years. My dad ran into once while she was working as a cashier. He didn’t recognize her. My dad is like that.

Anyway. I google this girl of my past. She is forever that girl in my head. That young teenager who hit be with a baton and protected me from an aggressive boy. She’s the girl who when I found a way out of the crazy house we were living in said, “How can you leave me here?”

Saving myself.

She was such a tough girl. She could fight and shout, while I just sat quietly with my head down. I thought–she is so strong. She’ll take care of herself.

Googling her, I found her mug shot. For battery. It was a random search and I didn’t expect to find anything. But there you go.

I’m not entirely sure how I feel about learning this information. Seems wrong for people’s mug shots to be online, doesn’t it? Feels wrong to search for people too–but also tempting. I’m as curious as anyone else, especially when I’m putting off the really hard work of editing my novel.

She isn’t in my novel, but some of her spirit is in an odd roundabout way.

So. Have you/would you google someone form your past? I don’t know if I’d recommend it.

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?

no apologies necessary

my mother--the photo used by the newspaper to announce her engagement to my father

When I was 18 years old, my mother wrote me this.

Something you said really struck me, and I wanted to reply to that. It was when you said you knew you’d been a lot of trouble. Well, yes, you’ve been a lot of trouble…a lot of pain and sorrow and just plain ain-in-the-ass. Point being, my dear, that that is what children are. No apologies necessary or expected. When one takes on the responsibility of children, then one takes on all kinds of pain. It’s ahrd to learn; hard to teach [life]. And, let’s face it, parents become all kinds of pain too. Isn’t that so? Are you really going to tell me that your parents aren’t sometimes the biggest pains of all?

Love calls for sacrifices of all kinds including (or especially) peace of mind. You can’t love without being concerned, even if it doesn’t always show. Indeed, I spend a lot of time trying not to be or show as much concern as I feel.

You were and are everything a child is supposed to be. Please don’t ever apologize for being what you are. If you did some things that made me disappointed or dislike you, well, can’t you reverse that and say the same thing of me (or your dad)?

I like you as a person, as much as I can ever know of you, that is. And you’re right, something you said once long ago (as far away as last summer?), that your dad and I trusted you and you didn’t want to abrogate that trust. You’re right, we do trust you. Not in the sense that we think you’re never going to make mistakes or do something we dislike, but in the sense that you’re ok as a person and we can let you go.

The gods know, life can sometimes be a terrible struggle, and sometimes you’re going to think you’re not going to make it. Sometimes you might even get irriatated when someone tells you how strong you are and how you’re going to be OK. As if the strong don’t suffer as much as the weak! Come 40, when you’ve got to look back and reconsider, I hope you can look back with less regret than I. But human beings being what we are, I doubt it. Your regrest will not be mine, but uniquely yours, and I can tell you now, no one will ever really understand the losses you feel. That isn’t what’s important–that someone else understand. It’s only important that you try to understand yourself. It’s then that you’ll come closest to understanding your parents, I think.

Do you understand your parents yet?

The answer is 42.

a letter from my father

I’ve no ideas for blogging. I’ve ideas for stories, for art, for conversation, and no time to pursue them. My laptop won’t accept any discs and so I can’t get my scanner to work because I can’t use the start up disc. One camera is broken and the other camera needs batteries. My writing time I’ve been using to grade assignments and I’m still behind on grading. I can barely keep up the lesson plans.

And I’m foolish enough to not only think I can do NaNoWriMo but to think I can write my mother’s novel.

Funny.

The books I want to read are going unread. The book my mother-in-law wants me to read is going unread and she keeps asking me about it.

I can’t even begin about the dogs.

But today students baked me a chocolate cake and since my age is now the answer, my husband gave me a towel. Don’t panic!

I’m trying to finish reading the biography of Douglas Adams.

Tomorrow I give an art talk to my son’s class!

My husband’s going to Argentina and Chile for a week!

And I’m not going to apply to the art festival this year.

Mush.