Is that the best you can do?

In high school I spent one year on the yearbook staff. I started the class really excited, and I ended the class hoping never to speak of it again. When my mother saw the section I’d worked on–the advertising section, which I hated but did work hard on–she said, “That doesn’t look very good. That’s the best you can do?”

Or maybe she said, “That’s terrible.”

It’s hard to remember exactly because what I remember best was the pain that went through my chest. My mother wasn’t a mother of false praise.

The ads weren’t good though. I’d struggled with designing the ads. My relationship with the teacher was a disaster since I realized I wasn’t pretty enough to warrant his attention.

Maybe that wasn’t the problem. But I knew the popular boys and girls invited him to their parties and that sometimes he went.

You probably don’t need to be told I wasn’t ever invited to these parties. But I didn’t want to go to their parties. I wanted my mother to tell me I’d done a great job, that I had talent, that I should be an artist when I grew up.

She said (and this I remember), “I wouldn’t show that work to anyone if I were you.”

Twenty-five years later and I still haven’t.

So, last night I sent my “final” draft of my novel to my publisher. (Final until I get edits backs, that is.) All I have to do is wait for her to read the rewrites and tell me what she thinks.

It’s funny how something said to you years ago can stay lodged in your brain for decades. I wouldn’t show that work to anyone.

And here’s me trying to send my novel out for the world to see. (Although, the world isn’t going to see it. A tiny group of friends and some random strangers.)

We’ll see how it goes.

No Witnesses

I’m reading this book about the films of John Hughes. Of course, I’m rethinking those dreaded high school years.

Sure, I hated high school, but perhaps my animosity towards former classmates is a bit unnecessary. My classmates were not that awful. Many teens have far more unpleasant experiences. Anyway, while reading one of the essays on Molly Ringwald, I realized why I want next to nothing to do with classmates from high school.

Witnesses. They are witness to that life.

And who wants those?

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.

High School, Facebook, and Who the Hell Am I Anyway?

Former high school friends find me on facebook. This happens to everyone who ventures onto fb-land. Maybe this makes you happy.

Most of the people who “friend” me, are nice people. They never did me any particular harm back in school. In some ways, catching up on their lives is good.

But here is the thing. I didn’t lose touch with most of them. No. Lose sounds so accidental, doesn’t it? Well, when I was 2 months away from turning 18, I packed my bags, got on a plane, and looked back reluctantly. I stayed in touch with one friend. One. We’ve stayed in touch for 20 years because she means an entire world to me.

Everyone else, no matter how nice they are, just reminds me of those high school years.

Did you like high school? I don’t understand people who liked high school. I’m 42, and still, to this day, when in my hometown I feel pressure on my chest, and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m going to be unable to leave. This irrational fear lurks in my mind that one day, no matter how far I go, I will end up back there. In which I shall go mad and drink myself to death.

But my hometown helped make me the writer I am today. So. Make of that what you will. I’m reading If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland. So far, so good. She mentions how our personalities are reflected in our writing.

A college friend has a published novel out,(you should read it!), and she mentioned to me how readers would come up to her at different events and talk to her as if they knew her. She, of course, didn’t know the first thing about them. But they felt they knew her because they’d read her book.

Last night I was looking over three stories I’d written, and the mothers in these stories are all horrible. They do terrible things to their children in one way or another. I do not think this means I hate my mother…but should I ever be a successful writer, there is a future college paper that says I do.

If someone read only my fiction, what kind of person would they think me to be? Who are you in your writing? Is it possible to even tell?

Is it just more self-obsession or part of the struggle to understand the self?