Imagination Fail

oncologist bunny

Eight days until surgery.

I’ve got my post-op shirts and even two small post-op pillows. One pillow is recommended for the drive home from the hospital. It will go between the seatbelt strap and me. I’ve seen post-op pictures of others to give me an idea what to expect. I’m getting my house in order, people are arranging to cook and to pick my son up for skate practice, and fundraisers have been set up.

And still I can’t quite believe this is happening.

Like when you’re a kid and you know that one day you’re going to be a grownup, but you can’t really believe it. Or your childless and decide to have a kid, having no clue as to what you’re in for. Or you get a publisher for your first book, but the book isn’t out yet and you can’t hold the book in your hands.

My imagination fails me so often. At least, it is easy to imagine these things happening to someone else, like a character in a book.

What events in your life did you find impossible to fully imagine until you got there?

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?

The Perplexity of Others

one of my son’s projects

A fellow human being does something you don’t understand, how do you react?

It depends, probably.

Maybe you get confused, angry, or sad.

Maybe you tell yourself to keep an open mind, but maybe you’re clear on right and wrong.

I try to open my mind to another possibility. Sometimes I manage it. Sometimes not.

Now, if you read my blog, I assume you read fiction. Am I wrong?

But in the real world, I meet people who say things like, “I don’t read fiction. I only like true stories.”

A student of mine recently said she doesn’t watch movies because they aren’t real and therefore are a waste of her time.

Stories. A waste of time.

Okay, I realize I’m a fiction writer, and so my reaction is self-serving. Fine. Whatever.

And part of me does want to be reasonable and say, “Well, everyone is different and likes different things. That’s okay.”

But a less generous side of me exist. (Don’t you have such a side?) And this side says something more like, “What? What is wrong with you?”

Because, if I’m honest, that’s what I really think. Something is wrong with these people.

Don’t like fiction. What?!

My good-and-noble side battles with my I’m-right-you’re-wrong side. I fight the urge to shake these people. What did your parents do to you?!

Is it okay not to like fiction? What does liking or not liking fiction mean?

And this doesn’t even begin to touch on the people who don’t like fantasy or science-fiction. It’s not real, they say. I only like real stories.

One of my least favorite lines in the English language. I only like real stories. No matter how rationally a person says that, I hear it as only a whine.

And I know that deep in my heart I think something is wrong with that person even as I scold myself for being a jerk.

I recently watched a TED Talk (can’t remember which one at the moment) that talked about how we feel when people disagree with us. First, we think something along the lines of, “That person is stupid.” If we realize that person is not stupid but still disagrees with us, we think, “That person is ignorant. If they had all the facts, they’d agree with me.” Then we realize that the person is not stupid, has all the same facts we do, and STILL disagrees with us. We conclude, “That person is evil.”

I’m not saying I think you’re evil for not liking fiction…but…

I do think it is important to realize that normal, good people can get the same information and come to a different conclusion–and not be evil. Hard to put that into practice, don’t you think?

But I still think you’re living only half a life if you don’t like fiction.

Surfacing

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?

“What kind of person writes a book like that?”

This is the question my mother-in-law asked about The Hunger Games. Now, she didn’t ask in a harsh judgmental way, but in a true mystified way.

My first thought was, “A person like me.”

She’s never read anything I’ve written, and I’m afraid if I ever get published and she reads my work, she will be just as baffled.

That she went to see the film surprised me. She knew nothing about the book and she doesn’t like fantastical, impossible things. She went to see what all the fuss was about, but she didn’t understand it at all. She had no reference points for the story. The story wasn’t good or bad because there wasn’t anything she could relate to.

She likes stories about things that can really happen.

When I talked about the book, she said nodded. “That helps me understand the film more.” And she liked Katniss, a strong female lead.

Dystopian novels aren’t for everyone–I’m not a huge fan of bleak futures either. But I’m always curious about why certain types of people only like “real” stories.

What does it say about individuals who love fantasy, sci-fi, magical realism, and such? Why can one person get lost in these stories, and others can’t. Others spend the whole time knowing this is impossible, not real, no way. Why do some people have a great ability to suspend belief?

I can think of the good and bad things that might say about the person. Since I love those fantastical stories, I focus on the good points…

My in-laws have no idea what I write. Should they ever read anything, well, they’re under no obligation to understand it.