May is here! And I don’t know what you’re writing these days, but I’m taking a giant stab at Story-A-Day May. I’ve managed it before, but I’m not sure this time how chemo treatments are going to get in the way. To be accurate, how the side-effects are going to get in the way.
But don’t we always have things to get in the way?
I like to post my stories in their rough, rough form over at my other blog The Fairy Tale Asylum. If you’re participating, let me know.
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?
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?
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.
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
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!
Maybe I fret too much. Sure. Fret. Sounds like a knot to me. A knot I can’t possibly undo.
If no one says anything about my stories, I think the stories are bad. Or at least failures. Or boring. Or something generally not nice. If someone says something nice, I think awesome and OMG I’ll never manage that again. They shall be so disappointed. If someone says something bad…well, I try not to think about it.
This is a lose/lose situation.
You know what else is lose/lose? Sleep deprivation. Which I am experiencing and which is going to make me draw this post to a close.
But first a question: Why do you think some people tie themselves into knots and others don’t? Why do some people accept a compliment and other foolishly react to them? Nature or nurture? What?!
And last, I’ve finished (kind of) story 29.
Whew.
This may be a lame excuse, but I’m in Waco. Waco! And I’ve got to be at a roller rink tomorrow morning and the next at 5 am. These are the joys of being a mom to a speed skater.
I have trouble writing in hotel rooms. I can write in my home, in cafes, in parks, in cars, in stores, but hotels rooms… So I finished story 27! Whether I write anything else…
ah, excuses, excuses.
Oh. I can’t write back in my dad’s house either.
What about you? Are there places where you can’t write? I don’t mean you aren’t allowed to. I mean, psychologically you can’t get into your writer mind. What is it about these places that makes writing hard?
This may be meaningless to you, but did you know that today was the 34th birthday of Star Wars?
I was nine. I saw it in an old theater with balconies. I went with my dad, his second wife, and her youngest daughter. My father and I loved it. My step-sister thought it was okay–but the guys were cute. And my step-mother hated it.
But who cares about that?
And maybe you don’t like it.
But that film influenced thousands. What if you ever wrote something that had that kind of impact? It’s a bit harder to get that with print, but JK Rowling managed it. Can you aspire to a story on that scale or does it happen with the writer not even realizing what is coming next?
My stories are certainly not epic. No maybe about that. But I have finished story 25! Really it’s a story drop in the world’s narrative bucket (or maybe that should be ocean).
“Stay on target!”
You may belittle horoscopes. As well you probably should because there is no sensible reason to think anything light years away can guide you anywhere in the tiny swath of land that is your life.
All the same, I like my horoscope–and I don’t see why you have to believe something to enjoy it.
Here is my Rob Brezsny horoscope for this week:
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): According to the *Guinness Book of World Records,* the longest love letter in history was written by an Indian man named Harish Kondakkuli. The gushing 143-page message took him over three months to complete. Oddly, it was addressed to an imaginary woman, since there was no one in his life he was actually in love with. I encourage you to consider the possibility of exceeding his achievement in the coming weeks, Libra. You’re at the peak of your ability to express wickedly delicious passions and profoundly tender intentions. There may even be a real person, not an imaginary one, who warrants your extravagant outflow.
I’m hoping this means I can write a wickedly delicious passionate story with profoundly tender intentions… What would that story be about?!
Can a story be a love letter?
Well, this posting every day for the month of May is almost over. Thank goodness.
And so is Story-a-Day. Whew. And while my horoscope suggests I could write a 143 page love letter, I could barely manage a proper paragraph for today’s story. Today’s story is, in fact, not the longest but is the most ridiculous. But it’s done!
Your parents may bequeath you many things… like brown eyes, a house, a fiery personality, an obsession for antiques.
My parents have not left me any of those particulars.
One thing about writing a separate story every day is that you notice what your repeat. In fact, I think I’m repeating that idea. Was that in an earlier post? Maybe. But this time I want to focus on a particular type of character of issue that keeps appearing in my stories. What you think of someone who kept writing stories about bankers? Or construction workers? Or nuns?
Literature students do this all the time, right? They look at a writer’s collection of works and they notice threads, themes, motifs…like bullfighters and rich men who throw too many parties. Next thing you know, you’ve got a thesis.
I noticed a lot of my stories have prostitutes in them.
Why the blue blazes is that?
Of course, marginal characters, people who live on the edge of society, who skirt danger, who make terrible choices, they are more interesting to write about. Sure. But I don’t write about homeless people much.
Sex sells. There is that. But I’m not sure I’ve ever written anything with a market in mind. And I’m not really writing stories like that even if there are prostitutes in them.
When I was 14, I was traveling alone on a plane for the first time. At the Houston airport my mother decided before sending me on my way to give me advice about how to stay out of harm’s way. Almost 30 years later and I can still remember the chairs we were sitting in when she explained to me how certain types of men and women trap girls into lives of prostitution. I’ll spare you the details. But not only did she give a deep fear of strangers, but she very likely if inadvertently ruined years of dating.
What character keeps appearing in your stories? Why is that do you think?
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And so I’ve got part of story number 23 posted. Make of it what you will.
