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?

The Questions

My son found the CNN page with profiles and photos of the victims in Newtown. He read every single one, and several he went back to. One little girl, for some reason, struck him more than the others.

An hour later he told me he was thinking about that particular girl a lot. I asked him why he thought that was. He wasn’t sure, but he said, “She seems so alive.” It was her photograph that made her seem that way.

My son is 9, by the way.

He’s had a lot of questions. Many you probably expect.

“Why did he do that to little kids?”
“Why did he hurt his mother?”
“What were the kids doing in class when he got there?”
“What do you think they were thinking when it happened?”
“Do you think any kids were absent that day?”
“One of the teachers killed was a substitute. How do you think the regular teacher feels cause she wasn’t there?”
“How did the parents feel when they were told?”
“I think if he came to my school, my classroom is too far away from the front door. He wouldn’t have time to get to our room. Don’t you think?”

Granted, he didn’t ask them in any rapid fire way. Just every so often as they occurred to him and as we talked about the shooting.

I still remember when I was a kid and heard about the shooting in a San Ysidro McDonald’s. For years and years after that, I never went into a place without checking the exits and possible hiding places. Just in case. Sometimes I still check for these things.

What news event do you remember from your childhood? Any story from the news ever have any lasting effects?

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.

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.

The Feminine in the Sky

A smart and talented woman I know wrote this book: The Coming of the Feminine Christ. (Which due to some technical difficulties, I’ve had to unlink to.)

at a church in London

This is not a review; I haven’t read the book yet. And this is not about your religion; I don’t need to know (and let’s not ruin a lovely relationship).

When I was a kid, my mother had a black tee-shirt that read in white script, “God is coming, and she is pissed.” My mother wore this in the 70s in our small hometown.

If she got any grief for it, she never said. (She was used to grief from people anyway.)

But my eight-year-old mind was stunned by that pronoun. She.

Not long after that I found a button in the bowling alley parking lot. It had been run over, but I could still read it. “A woman’s place is every place.” I pinned that button to my purse–my purse that held red rocks and barbies.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine how their lives would be different if they’d been born the opposite sex. My female students rarely have trouble with this. <My male students generally look horrified, make a joke about not being gay, and write either they'd go shopping and get married or that their lives wouldn't be different at all.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine a favorite character in fiction–and switch that character's gender. What if Harry Potter were Harriet? What if Batman were a woman–and I don't mean Batgirl. What if in Titanic you gave Leo Kate’s role and gave Kate Leo’s? What if James Bond were a woman?

(I’ve also asked them to change a famous character’s race or religion. Once I asked the students to imagine Edward from Twilight as Muslim…oh the expressions.)

Niamh Clune‘s book is not a game or a simple writing exercise. The book expresses a profound belief and way of seeing the world.

What are books about but seeing the world in a new way? (My mother used to say, “If you’re strong in your beliefs, you can always handle encountering someone else’s.”)

I’m looking forward to reading Niamh’s book. Maybe you would too.

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And for folks on Facebook, there is this.

The Butterfly Effect and Dreams

At 17 I put away my dream to be an artist. Art turned from dream to hobby. Sometimes people mistook me for an artist–usually because I wore a scarf or long earrings or too many bracelets. I don’t know. What do people mean when they say, “You look like an artist.”

rabbit on the moon

I figured they meant, “You look weird,” but “artist” was more polite.

But I also wanted to be a writer and was happy enough to pursue that dream instead.

When I was 39, the barista in charge of scheduling art for my favorite coffee shop asked me if I wanted to hang my art on their walls. She was scheduling a year out and she had a spot. She’d only once seen a few sketches I’d done, and an art show…? Since when I had ever thought of having an art show?

But she and a friend talked me into it.

The idea was crazy. I’d never had a show. I wasn’t an artist. Although I was terrified. Well, I reasoned, have the show and move on with life.

But someone came to the show asked me to apply to the fine art festival. I couldn’t do that! I wasn’t a real artist. I let my husband talk me into it.

Art City Austin

Someone from the festival introduced me to a shop owner. The shop owner asked if she could sell my art. Well…okay.

A musician saw my art online and asked me to design his CD cover.

Someone else commissioned me to do art for an anniversary gift.

I sold quite a lot of art–and much of it not to friends and family, but people who’d never met me.

And now I’ve met Niamh Clune, the founder of Plum Tree Books. Plum Tree is her vision, her dream, and she’s invited me to be part of that. I would never have met her if it hadn’t been for that barista. She was my butterfly.

That barista moved on to another city a while ago. She doesn’t know how she changed my life. I doubt a butterfly knows it wings are rumored to cause hurricanes. What a butterfly that would be if it knew.

Maybe you’ve changed someone’s life, and you don’t even know.

So, Niamh and The Plum Tree have published an anthology–The Butterfly Effect. Who knows what might happen if you took a look?

The Butterfly Effect

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Other participants in The Butterfly Effect are C.C.Cole

De Ann Townes

Niamh Clune, and

Nicole Smith. More to come.

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?

Chronicles of Ink and Paper

One agent suggested my novel was young adult. This surprised me because I wasn’t trying to write a young adult novel. The main character is a teenager though. But I never thought I was writing for teens.

Writing for teens…that’s a minefield. Well, it can be. Adults are allowed to read anything without much of the world getting into a snit. Okay, that isn’t entirely true, but you know what I mean. Suddenly what had seemed tamed in my novel then seemed dangerous.

Which isn’t to say the agent was wrong. I just hadn’t seen my novel in that category, and if I need it to be in that category, how will I be expected to change it? And my other novels…will I be expected to be a young adult author?

This is rather putting the cart before the horse. (The printer before in the paper?) The agent who suggested this decided she couldn’t represent my work–too tough a sell in today’s climate.

The thing is though is that I am liberal when it comes to reading. My parents let me read anything I picked up. My grandmother had treated my mother the same way. If you could choose the book and stick with it, you could handle whatever was inside.

Of course, I never picked up anything extreme, like porn. Well, that’s not entirely true. My dad’s second wife had a magazine of stories hidden–sort of–under her pillow. My step-sister showed them to me. I was about 10 or 11. The magazine looked like Reader’s Digest. I read half a page and put it down. The story gave me quite a shock and I knew I didn’t want to (and shouldn’t) read those stories. So, I didn’t stick with it.

Nor did it cause me to rush out and find a boy.

Au contraire.

But anyway. Adults worry a lot about what young adults read. And they should know what kids read and they should know their kids. Obviously. We know this and have heard it before.

But it felt different when I thought about being the writer instead of the parent. Writing for adults is so much easier! Right?

Young people are better fans though. Don’t you think? Do you love any book now as much as you loved a book as a teen?

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?

The Nicest Guy!

Because of facebook, I now know that a certain individual from my hometown is having serious health problems. He and I are not facebook friends, but we’ve known each other since we were five. Well, he was five and I was four.

Anyway. On facebook a mutual friend posted about his illness and asked people to pray for him, and she added, “He’s the nicest guy you could ever meet.”

And I, perhaps a bit ungraciously, thought, “No, he isn’t.”

Not that you shouldn’t pray for him if you believe in that sort of thing, but there is a reason why I’m not facebook friends with him even though thanks to the alphabet we sat next to each other for years in school. I’ve long though him a jerk.

Not that he doesn’t have family that loves him. He isn’t evil or anything. If prayer works then by all means he should be prayed for. I mean, if you believe in prayer, do you have to have a “nice” measurement to decide who to pray for? Obviously he has been nice to some people.

Of course, facebook is a natural habitat for hyperbole. Exclamation marks are the rabbits of the social networking!

But I was thinking about character and who we like and who we don’t the other day as I edited novel number one. In the story is a guy who is kind of a jerk. He isn’t a truly bad guy (like the antagonist). He tries to do some good things..while still being kind of a jerk. And I love him. And my protagonist grows to like him too.

Part of me thought…some readers will be annoyed that she likes this guy. He’s a jerk! She should slap him! Yeah…probably…but still…deep down he’s a nice guy.

The nicest guy you’d ever want to meet!

Characters that are too nice are boring, aren’t they?

But I wonder if this novel is ever read by anyone else, how they’ll see this guy. Will they find him oddly charming or a smarmy jerk?

You could pray for him, of course. But as the creator of my little world, I’m not going to intervene.