Brimming Over

don’t stay in the cup

Sometimes the mind just brims over with ideas. Do you ever have trouble deciding what to focus on or what to pursue?

I’m going to pursue as many as I can.

One is the idea of a princess detective. I want to try to write a princess that isn’t what most people think. I’m writing about her over at The Fairy Tale Asylum.

Another idea goes back to my love of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks and Agent Dale Cooper. Cooper is one of my most favorite characters on television ever. Twice readers have said that my writing reminded them of Twin Peaks! I don’t know why since I don’t have a murder nor do I write about the northwest, logging, or the FBI–but my character do drink a lot of coffee.

Anyway, I’ve started another blog for a character in love with Agent Dale Cooper and determined to find him in the real world. For her travels and travails, read searching for Agent Dale Cooper. If you want to help her find her man, feel free to leave a comment.

I’ve got an art show coming in October as well. Projects will be posted over at Words Are Art.

And finally, there is always facebook.

What projects are you juggling in life?

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.

The Dreaded “A” Question

I hate the “A” question.

So, I read a blog post by my friend JES regarding the “A” word–as in What is your novel About?

An agent is currently looking at my first novel, and this “A” question is on my mind. My first novel is about a difficult subject…a conversation stopper subject.

Now let’s be clear. I didn’t begin the novel intending to write about dark and difficult things. I started writing about marbles.

I was with my writing group (which is now no more) and the writing prompt pulled out of the box was “marbles.” Okay. Well, I didn’t want to write about a game of marbles because that seemed too obvious and I don’t know anything about the game. The sound of marbles hitting a hard floor came to mind. This became the sound of marbles hitting wooden stairs.

Why would marbles be spilling down the stairs? Someone dumped them on the stairs. Hmm. Who? A girl. She comes to mind. She stands at the top of the stairs pouring marbles out of a blue jar.

Why would she do this? It would make a mess. Marbles would probably be lost. So they must not be her marbles.

So again–why would she do it? Oh, they are her brother’s marbles and she is angry at him. She wants him to know she is angry.

Why is she angry? He has done something wrong.

And he sees his marbles falling down the stairs, go in different directions, and he yells at her. He chases her. I see them in my mind and she is about 16 and he is about 5 years older…still living at home.

Because he can’t hold a job.

Because he’s an addict.

Because he does terrible things.

And he chases his sister into her room where she hides. He finds her, but she pulls out a knife she keeps hidden her boot to protect herself.

Why would she need a knife?

Because he is violent obviously.

What violent things has he done?

And before you know it (if ten years count as a before-you-know-it explanation), I’ve written a novel with drug addiction, incest, rape, and prostitution. (First chapter here.)

Hmm. What is your novel about?

Ummm…?

Well, the novel does have a reasonably happy ending. Does that help?

Usually when people ask the “A” question, I say something vague, “It’s about loyalty and friendship in difficult times.” Yes. I’m a chicken.

I have had a few agents reject the novel because of its subject matter. Which surprised me a bit because these are not new issues for fiction. Maybe if the novel were about a detective hunting down a serial rapist murderer instead.

Anyway, I don’t think of my novel as being about those dark subjects. Crazy as it sounds, i think of it as a novel about friendship–two girls saving their friendship.

All right. So I guess if I struggled to be honest about what my first novel is about, I’d have to say that it is about a girl whose brother raped her best friend, and perhaps it was a secret the girl had kept hidden from her best friend and everyone that allowed the rape to occur.

There. Said it.

Reading posts like this about women writers doesn’t make answering the “A” question any easier.

What is your novel about? Marbles.

Challenges in Creating Your Own Parallel Universe

Have you ever created a parallel universe?

‘Tisn’t easy.

If a writer is famous, said writer will have things like interviews. You would click on Famous Writer’s website, and there would be links to such interviews. Obviously, I can’t actually link to The New York Times or some parallel universe equivalent. And a blog doesn’t allow you to dramatically alter a blog page to look like a newspaper…and while I can create a newspaper type document on my laptop, I can’t post it in a blog post because the fonts, columns, pictures, etc. won’t simply copy into the post.

I also have an idea for the characters of the novels to contribute…but for similar formatting reasons can’t pull that off either.

Free blogs don’t really have that much flexibility (freedom for imagination), do they? Hence the free.

I’m not even sure a regular paid-for website could do what I want. Certainly not on my budget–my budget being $0. This project isn’t going to make me any money after all, so taking money from our there-is-no-money-for-random-projects budget isn’t going to happen.

If you’ve any thoughts or suggestions, please tell me.

My parallel universe might not be as vast as I’d like. Not at the moment anyway.

P.S. And to make the parallel universe interesting, it has to have a story. Reading about the daily routine of a famous writer isn’t much more interesting than listening to the daily routine of an unknown writer. So…something else has to happen over there.

All the same, my parallel universe is here.

I’m deluded and that’s okay. (I angst all night and I worry all day.)

On those American Idol tryouts you see those people who believe they can sing. They sing their best with all their dreams flung about for the world to see and then are told how awful they are. And they are awful. Perhaps you’ve laughed at their self-delusion. Perhaps you’ve cringed.

Actually, I’ve never watched the show, but I’ve seen enough clips over the years to get the idea.

Then I wonder if I’m the writerly version of those deluded contestants.

Rejection from agents and literary magazines doesn’t mean you can’t write–no more than a lover deciding not to marry you means you can’t find the right partner later. Maybe you just have to start asking the right people out. Or go into therapy. Or realize you really would make a terrible life partner.

Hey, life partnership isn’t for everyone. Why does it need to be?

There are the numbers. Pesky things. Number of books out there. Number of readers. Everyone can’t be a bestseller.

Hey, bestsellerdom isn’t for everyone.

If you’re willing to keep going in spite of the rejections and the critics, stop making fun of other deluded people. Just a thought.

So. Speaking of deluded people. I’m famous in a parallel universe. See for yourself. Click on the Time Vortex.

Crazy Writer Alert

So. Here’s the thing. I’ve decided I’m a famous writer in a parallel universe. If this real world isn’t going to read my work, then my world will.

my parallel universe

Right?

Of course.

Prove me wrong.

So, I’ve got a new blog, Famous in Parallel Universe. You could subscribe or leave my parallel self a comment. Some friends are even writing me letters to use on the site–they are either writing as themselves or as who they are in this parallel universe. And if you’ve got any ideas, let me know.

And if you think I’m crazy, don’t let me know that.

The site is a work-in-progess, so you never know what might be different with each visit. The travel to a parallel universe is volatile after all.

Warning: Blog Pit–Watch Your Step

Once you start on your blog journey, there’s pressure to travel that blog path forever. I mean, what is the destination anyway?

For a while, I’m taking another path. Soon I’m going to start another blog–a writing blog with a sci-fi twist. A time-wimey twist in fact.

Hmmm. This blog pit seems bigger on the inside. Not sure I’ll ever get out.

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?

Maybe Keep Going

This may be the end.

Well, of the whole National Blog Post Month is over for me. Whew. I tried this a couple of years ago and it may be a couple more years hence before I do it again. Maybe! You never know.

In the meantime, I’ll be hanging out at the roller rink because that is what I do.

my speed skater

There was a time when I thought the strangest place I’d ever written was in the car, sitting with my laptop on the way to Thanksgiving dinner. Now, I write at the roller rink while my son skates.

The first time he put on a pair of roller skates was at a birthday party. We rented the quad skates (you know, traditional skates), and he got on the rink and fell. He fell. He fell. He fell. He cried. He fell.

He wanted to go back. We went back, and eventually he managed to stay up all the way around the rink. Then he saw Rollerblades. We rented Rollerblades. He didn’t fall so much. He got faster. He began participating in the open session races–the races during regular public skates times, races that are just for fun, and where most participants stumble along and barely stay up. He began winning all those races–until speed skaters showed up.

“Mom, can I do that?”

I saw how fast the teenage speed skaters went around the rink. “You don’t really want to do that, do you?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Rollerskates (yes, that’s what all the kids call him and he gives skate lessons) encouraged my son to talk to the speed skate coach. The coach said he’d seen him skating during open session, and sure, he could come watch a practice any time.

I rather hoped that the first time my son saw a serious spill, he’d change his mind.

The coach lent us a pair of speed skates (because they are insanely expensive and you want to be sure you’re going to stick with it before spending that kind of money).

My son goes to every practice–4 days a week. Usually two hours at a time. Practices are boys, girls, women, and men. Ages 5 to 50. At meets you only get a medal if you place. Lots of kids and grownups go home without medals. They don’t give ribbons or anything for showing or participating or for being a good sport. If you win, you get your medal (sometimes trophy!). If you lose, then practice more.

racing

He has fallen and lost skin. He has fallen on his face. He has been kicked by skates. He has seen other skaters lose skin to the floor. Bloody patches the size of a baseball. Bruises. Twisted ankles. Pile ups. Crashes into walls.

My son is 8.

My nerves are getting stronger.

Speed skating is not a popular sport around here and most people have no idea what we’re talking about. My son is the only kid at his school who speed skates. Roller skate, sure. Other parents look at me as if I’m nuts. And there is no skate season. Skate practice is all year round.

But you can see the writing metaphor here, can’t you?

You start writing. Stories fail. You keep writing. You practice regularly! You might win–publication! You might (most likely) get nothing. Practice more! And other people will look at you as if you’re nuts. You may not literally bleed (should hope not!), but metaphorically you will. And it’s all year round.

What isn’t all year round (thank the merciful heavens) is Story-a-Day May. But that crazy month is over and I’ve written story 31! This doesn’t mean I’m done writing stories, of course. (Of course!) But tomorrow starts The Summer of Submission.

Write. Edit. Submit. Write. Edit. Submit. Write. Edit. Submit. Around and around we go.

What are you submitting these days? Come on. Put on your crash helmet and go!