Confictional for the Rowdy and Whimsical

FEAR

2009-08-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

Fear sucks.

Do I really want to do this?

Okay, I'll try to say more than that. Because fear is this thing that we all feel at times. Some people are all about confronting their fears. I know times when I've confronted a fear, face to face, and the fear ceased. And sometimes I've confronted a fear face to face and it has been awful and the face-off created new fears to arise and caused a lot of havoc in my life. So is it helpful to confront your fears, or is it dangerous and prone to backfire? I don't know. But some people are all about confronting their fears.

And some people are all about avoiding the situations and things that cause them fear. I've dealt with fears this way lots of times. Like I wanted to move in with a boyfriend once. And I'd asked him before and he said he wasn't ready yet. So I didn't ask him again. I was afraid of being rejected so I just avoided that topic for years and got very comfortable living alone until he was ready, I guess, and he needed a roommate. And then I moved in, but we never talked about how best to do it because I was afraid he'd say no and reject my ideas again. So I never brought up the fact that I didn't necessarily want to move into that place with him, but would have preferred to find a brand new place. And I rarely brought up the topic of rearranging furniture, or changing stuff on the bedroom wall, or getting rid of some of our stuff because when I tried to do this initially, I felt my suggestions were rejected because he didn't have time or he liked having all these matching but space consuming side tables and sofa set. So I stopped asking because I was afraid of another rejection-sounding answer. But sometimes, avoiding a situation that cause you fear, like driving blindfolded, is really smart. And safe. And perhaps can maintain the peace of a relationship instead of shaking things up over a minor disagreement that really doesn't have anything to do with love or commitment. You just ignore the fact that he leaves his tea bags on the kitchen counter or toss them in the compost bucket instead of letting that annoyance surface and having a big fight over a pet peeve, resulting in reinforced fear of bringing up annoyances--and those other annoyances might not be such small potatoes. So avoiding being afraid can be easy and it sure can feel like the safest option, or it can be a poisonous plant that eating a little of isn't so bad, but if you eat a lot, you're going to have to go to the hospital and get your stomach pumped.

Then some people ignore a fear. Pretend it isn't there, even though it is and your stomach is all queasy. Like I am afraid of falling down skiing or hiking or wake boarding. But I still do these things, even though I'm uncomfortable when the trail is steep and dry and I'm going downhill and my hiking boots are slipping with every step. Please, please, please DON'T BIFF IT--but hey, I'm still doing it. Maybe I'll biff it and get cut up. Or break a bone. And then maybe I will acknowledge that fear more and be reluctant to go hiking on steep dusty trails. If I don't ignore it, would I still go hiking? Or would I talk about the fear constantly while doing it and say out loud all the time "Please, please, please DON'T BIFF IT"? Ignorance is bliss, but if you aren't truly ignorant, but playing make believe, and the make believe sweet unicorn turns out to be a vampire unicorn... Eek.

And then some people just let fear take over and paralyze them. Actually, if confronting fear, avoiding fear-causing situations, or ignoring the existence of your fear backfires, well, it doesn't take much for paralysis to swoop in and stiffen your limbs with fear. I guess paralyzing fear is why I am writing about fear today. Because it SUCKS. And even when you feel paralyzed by fear, fearsome stuff still happens. Then not only are you paralyzed by fear but you are surrounded by the fearsome stuff that has mounded up all around you. You are now also frozen and surrounded by fears and it feels impossible to move. And if you move, you have to go through the scariest stuff possible and there could be more fearful stuff beyond the piles--you just can't know. Which causes MORE fear.

So I am having problems with fear. I always have had issues with fear. It doesn't feel good, so not having issues with fear seems kind of unrealistic to me. But I suppose I could have fewer issues with fear if I could learn to care less. I care a lot. About EVERYTHING. Care Bears--they know nothing about caring. And I care so much about how to do this or how to talk to y, that I don't do anything because the fear of doing it wrong paralyzes me and--whether my caring is about how best to communicate with a family member going through a rough time or about cleaning out my fridge and separating the compost stuff from the recyclable stuff from the garbage and doing the dishes so I can cook dinner--I end up doing almost nothing. I don't clean the fridge. I don't call. I obsess about my concern and how I could screw it up and then it is time to eat and I haven't called that family member or dealt with the fridge at all and I'm eating blueberries and tortilla chips for dinner because they're not stale or bad yet and they require no preparation--though I should technically wash those blueberries. I can be paralyzed in fear and concern and still eat those things. Yes, this is ridiculous and wasteful and self absorbed and stupid to the max.

So ever since I moved out of my place with Tomato and into my new old apartment, I've had scores of days where I'm just wasting my time away debating whether I should do this or that and it is because I am afraid. I am afraid I will organize my files wrong so I still haven't finished unpacking my files and desk stuff. I moved in early MAY. I haven't gone through receipts and updated my expenses and then applied that data to my "budget" that I haven't created yet because I'm collecting spending and earning data still because the project totally inspires fear in my heart because it's mounded up so high. When I was in Costa Rica, I didn't feel paralyzing fear. I did things. I dealt with the fear one way or another and if it backfired, I dealt with that. When I am out and about, I don't feel paralyzed by every decision. When I was on vacation with my family, I felt fear, but I wasn't paralyzed and not doing things. I did things. Being back here in this apartment now, after living somewhere else with someone else and having fears about us or the place or our time or how I said x or y pop up in my face all the time and having to deal with them whether they went away or not, being back here has had a somewhat paralyzing effect on me. I am afraid. I fear starting anything here or finishing anything in this space. And this doesn't bode well for my immediate future. And that doesn't bode well for my future further along. So I have to get out of the fear or get out of this apartment. This apartment used to be my sanctuary! What happened?

When I ask myself this--why am I so paralyzed with petty fears and wasting my time and sleeping hours away in a place where I used to be so industrious?--it doesn't take long for me to figure it out. I am afraid to embrace this place as my own again because that would be fully acknowledging that I live in a place on my own again and that I can't go back to that apartment I didn't want to move into necessarily in the first place because the person I wanted to move in with who wasn't ready when I first asked isn't living there anymore and I only moved in there because I wanted to live with him. And I can't go live with him because he and I don't share our lives anymore, and I hear his place is even smaller than my old new place anyway--I don't fit there, just like he didn't fit here. I am afraid to embrace this place as my own again because that would be fully accepting that I am not in a relationship where I can lean over and kiss my partner on the cheek good night anymore, fully accepting that I don't have a relationship with him at all these days, fully accepting that I am single, fully accepting that I am alone. Fully accepting that I can not entertain the idea that we can brush this under the rug and get back together for a second because it isn't going to happen, even if I don't know that 100%, another idea I can't entertain for a second because if I entertain these ideas, I will stay frozen in this apartment, I will never fully accept that I am single, that I am alone, and that I can live my life however I want to right now and that this fact alone has the potential to be exciting, productive, beautiful, and fulfilling, even if it IS going to be scary often. But being with someone was scary too. I can't escape fear. But I can avoid fearful situations if I want, or not. And I can ignore the feeling if I want, or not. And I can confront it face to face if I want, or not. But I can't let it paralyze me anymore in the place that I refer to home, even though I don't feel at home here like I did before, at least I don't yet.

Fear sucks. But it isn't going anywhere, and if I want to go anywhere or do anything in this place, I have to deal with it one way or another, and then I have to move on. Scary, but maybe it can be scary and fun at the same time. Like this...

How not to get any writing done

2009-08-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

1. Go out of town all the time and try to pack every moment with action. Forget to at least journal at all, despite buying a new notebook.
2. Return to town and be besieged with:
A. mess left from packing for trip
B. mess created unpacking from trip
C. build up of bills to pay, e-mails to reply to, plants gone mad or dying, replying to texts and voice mails
D. appointments made pre-trip
E. engagements with friends, the grocery store, and laundry machine
F. preparing for another trip
3. Trying to tend to all unfinished projects at once so that, when you return from this next trip, you have time and cleanliness for writing productivity (i.e. finish unpacking from move, filing bills from January on and organizing filing system in general, garden things, knitting projects from last fall, uploading pictures from last June on, cleaning up computer so it has enough memory for all this shite to be uploaded, setting up new external HD after old one died, getting rid of stuff so there is space to unpack from move, cleaning things really really good).
4. Get sick and watch stuff on Hulu late at night while drinking tea. Really late at night.
5. Sign up for a 5-class summer yoga pass and then realize that there was a brochure misprint and you only have a week and a half to use your pass and not waste the money.
6. Decide this is the perfect time to try waxing. At home.
7. Facebook. Facebook. And Facebook.
8. Reading other people's blogs.
9. Not having any food of substance to eat at home so needing to go out to eat all the time.
10. Writing blogs like this to give the illusion that I'm really a writer.

hello, I am a 33-year-old woman who isn't living up to somebody's, anybody's, this body's expectations.

2009-08-06T09:51:00.000-07:00

So if you read my November post about Tomatoes and Tomahtoes and the challenges of being a Tomahto in love and in a relationship with a Tomato, I posed a question about what it might look like if the Tomato-Tomahto Soup doesn't work out.
Here's your answer:

My feet in my hammock on the garden patio of my former and once again apartment for one. Yup, the Tomahto and Tomato called the whole thing off. And while I didn't know what that would look like exactly, I had some expectations and they totally were off base. I thought it would be sad (TRUE) and that we'd share that sadness and the process together (NOT TRUE). I thought we'd be able to hang out and be really good friends and help each other out and still confide in each other about tough life events (NO, NO, NO, and NOOOOO). Expectations--blech. What gives with expectations? And when will I ever stop having them and clinging to them?

This could get very Buddhist. I could go into the 8 Worldly (or Mundane) Concerns or Conditions. Hell, why not? These 8 concerns preoccupy a good deal of how we spend our time and generally monopolize our thoughts one way or another. They're all about craving, obtaining, and clinging to what we perceive as pathways to happiness and away from suffering, i.e. 1. pleasurable experiences; 2. pleasing material possessions, 3. pleasuring reactions from others to our actions (praise); and 4. having a pleasing reputation with others as a super-fantastic human being. The other 4 concerns revolve around our fear of losing or not obtaining these perceived pleasures and perhaps finding ourselves on pathways we perceive as undesirable and causes for suffering through 5. painful experiences; 6. loss or failure to obtain material possessions; 7. displeasure from others to our actions (blame); and 8. having a negative reputation among others as being totally unlovable or toxic or stupid or dangerous or unkind or a waste of the earth's oxygen supply, etc.

Anyway, humans (especially Americans) invest an awful lot of time working to get these things, be this way, etc. and not experience ugly things, like sitting next to someone with horrible body odor at a concert. And we are quick to form EXPECTATIONS that we deserve and can get the pleasure things and then we'll be happy. Vice versa, we EXPECT that avoiding the person with B.O. will prevent suffering in our lives, and that we will suffer great unhappiness upon losing one's i-pod. Okay, these are very superficial examples of expectations and how we feel entitled to happiness and seek it very superficial means and how suffering is for other people, "not me, God forbid" and we don't ever expect it and then when the shit hits the fan... well, it really hits the fan because we never expected it to hit the fan, we expected it to miss the fan all together and now we're covered in it and don't know what to do about poo.

And our expectations about what will bring us joy and what will save us from suffering tend to be wrong. I had a grocery list of expectations and wishes that I thought would bring Tomato-Tomahto happiness and end the Tomato-Tomahto troubles. And then some unexpected troubles arise, and wham! I was staring at my expectation list and going... "aw, shit, this stuff isn't going to happen. Not now. Maybe never." And I'd been wasting time clinging onto it, afraid to pursue certain items because I expected some items on the list to be difficult and cause some suffering to go through, though I expected going through the suffering would ultimately result in more pleasure. Which may have been true, except that the unexpected troubles pretty much rained all over my expectation list and blurred the ink beyond recognition so I was left thinking, "What DID I expect? How much time did I spend turning my wheels over this totally illegible expectation list? Did having that list make me happy even?"

I can answer those questions now: I don't know what I expected, but it was a lot of something; I probably spent a couple years spinning my wheels over that list, if it wasn't just a Tomato-Tomahto specialized amendment to a life-long expectation list; and having that expectation list made me miserable and stressed out. And realizing this REALLY made me miserable and stressed out because I realized I was defining myself by expectations of things that were not likely to come to bear, expectations and wants that actually stressed me out and were bad for my mental health--and the Tomato too--and if I eventually had checked off the things on the list, I might not be an iota happier and I'd form another list of expectations of wants and not wants. So I flipped out and ripped up the list, but that doesn't mean I didn't form a zillion new expectations and "If I just get a car, I'll feel happier" and "He's better off without me and he would have left me sooner or later anyway." (Those expectations? Yes, The car did make me feel happier at first, and it is helpful to have my own wheels. But it has drawbacks, like expenses and the environmental impact and I don't bike, walk, or bus as much anymore--which I don't like. And I don't know if he's better off without me or that he would have left me sooner or later--how could I know that? I'm not him and he might not know those things either.)

Sometimes, I expect the absolute worst, which depending on how much I want the opposite, can make me act like a total psycho. I cry and scream about something that might not even be real and then I'm REAL popular with my close company. Sometimes, expecting things to be crappy and deciding to suffer through it anyway can lead to some surprises--things aren't as crappy as I expected and I even experience moments of joy or peace in what I expected to be a shit storm. On those occasions, I really wonder why I waste brain space expecting anything because things really never go the way one expects them to. Maybe close, but not exactly. And if I stop expecting things, like a friendship with the Tomato, or for the Tomato to start dating someone I know which causes me to get insanely jealous... I'm just wasting time. Expectations and "What if?" obsessions are great for the characters and plot lines in my fiction. But in real life, I'd like to expect a lot less of everything and be in the moment as it arises, be it happy or miserable.

I expect not expecting sunbeams or hailstorms in my daily forecast would/could/will/might be very challenging for me!

8 months of ice skating

2009-08-04T23:33:00.000-07:00

So... I guess it has been 8 months since my last post. Can I wear that as a badge of pride, like how long it's been since someone in AA has had a drink?
And I'd like to say that I've been finishing my novel and selling it during those 8 months but I am a lousy liar.
Sometimes, life just gets in the way and you just have to drop all your expectations and the expectations of others and fall back and down. And then you hope you have the strength to come out through the other side. Like you're the female in a ice skating pairs duo and you're being thrown off your skating partner's shoulders and through his legs--and you don't want your ass to drag on the ice in this process because, um, OW--and then you're supposed to do a little spin in the air before sticking a landing on one skate with your other leg perfectly extended at a 90 degree angle and smile like you are sponsored by a toothpaste company.
So that's what I've been up to, falling back and down and tossed through and out. And I definitely made some contact on my butt and I didn't quite spin the full 360 degrees, and I know I'm barely coasting on that one foot and my other leg is more at a 45 degree angle... And I keep getting the eye from my toothpaste sponsors because I'm so focused on trying not to bite it that I forgot all about them, so my smiles have been a little spastic.
But I'm still upright and soon, I'll be ready to put my other foot down and free skate. And when I do that, you better bet I will be finishing my book and doing amazing things from the volition and strength of my own two skates. Things I want to do and that I don't have to do and that I can quit doing if I don't want to do them any more. But I will finish the book and then I will coerce myself to edit book a lot. And I think I'd like to take scuba lessons. Or dance lessons. Or wood shop. Or go to Costa Rica--wait, just did that! Blogging? We shall see. Blog v.s. salsa v.s. novel... Hmm, something tells me blogging isn't going to win that show down. Yes, we shall see.

I'm think I'm turning into my parents,turning into my parents, I really think so!

2008-11-25T00:51:00.000-08:00

This is the second post in my friend M's blog writing exercise, which you can learn about here. And I think I've stated the topic in the most obvious fashion in my title!My parents. I love my parents. I also love my step-parents, including my ex-step-parent. But this is about the Sperm and the Egg that made me, and how they've really made me ME.

In the last five years, I became really aware about how my parents' genetics are my genetics. This has a lot to do with being diagnosed by several doctors with ADHD as a 27-year-old adult. They also officially diagnosed me with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder)--which I more or less knew. Now, my mother was diagnosed with ADHD five years before my diagnosis. She's a therapist, she's long had the GAD diagnosis, but the ADHD thing was sort of a shocker. My mother at age 52 had started taking Ritalin. Then she switched to Adderall, which was smoother for her.

At the time, I was in a year of "I graduated from college! I have two part-time jobs that are okay, but I don't know what I want to do with my life, so I'm just going to party with my friends all the time!" Mom immediately copied a questionaire for me to fill out, a self-assessment for ADHD. At the time, all I could see was, "Dude, that's so my boyfriend." My self-assessment score was not high enough to indicate I was ADHD. I mean, seriously! I'd graduated from college with honors and made the deans list my two semesters! I'd received a gender studies minor! I was shy as a kid, not hyper. I'd made the grades in high school to get into the prestigious liberal arts college I'd just graduated from. ADHD? No way.

But then five years later, I was working for a lecture series and Dr. Edward Hallowell was a speaker. Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey were sort of the biggest of the ADHD wigs out there, though the field has grown as has research since they first published THE ADHD book, "Driven to Distraction." Hallowell has ADHD himself, and during his talk, he talked about that and about his daughter's diagnosis, the differences between how girls and boys manifest their ADHD and how ADHD girls have often gone under the radar because they don't exhibit so much of the H in ADHD. H=Hyperactivity. But the AD..."Attention Deficit"--for ADHD girls, the AD manifests in lots of daydreaming, looking out the window a lot in class, getting lost in their thoughts instead of fully engaging in class or social activities, preferring to play make-believe alone than go over to a friend's to play afterschool. SHY. QUIET. OFTEN MISSES SOME OF THE FINER POINTS OF AN ASSIGNMENT. OUT TO LUNCH.

At this point, I almost slapped myself in the side of the head and yelled, "Holy CRAP! Did you get a docier with all my elementary school progress reports?" I'd gotten the grades, but yeah, they tended to be B-pluses and A-minuses because I'd missed that something while thinking about something else. Like a strong thesis statement, or to use margins, or write in pen. My neighbor Karl used to make fun of me running around in my backyard, going in circles physically, but going all over the world and through time in my mind: "Ha, ha. Jessica's in her little make believe land again. She's stupid."

My mother was fairly shy when I was a child, and I think she was quite shy as a child. She didn't know what she wanted to do in her life. When she was young, she probably had her own make-believe land, but she didn't get to go there as often because her parents were strict. She was a quiet woman while married to my father. That's changed for her. Likewise, I'm not exactly quiet anymore, though I do get extremely shy at times. My mother and I exhibit our shyness in the same kind of way--overly enthusiastic, asking inane questions to overcome the shyness and to get that feeling that we belong. Sometimes, we're just too much and a person becomes overwhelmed by our sometimes desperate attempts to feel connected and at ease. But Mom isn't as loud, as stubborn, or have as short of a temper as I do. Those things I've learned from my father.

My dad's family talks a lot, and they talk loud. I have a softer voice, so, with a little ADHD power, I've developed an unhealthy knack for interrupting my loud family to be heard. And my father's family, we're all total drama queens and kings. We get pissy at each other at the drop of a hat. In group settings, it's virtually impossible for any of us to drop our point to hear each other's opinions in a fair, balanced way. We scream at each other when we're pissed and then we forgive and forget within twenty minutes.

Now I love my father and he loves me. But this history makes it incredibly difficult for me to discuss dilemnas because I feel like he's always telling me I'm wrong, and he feels like I won't let him ever finish a damn sentence before I get defensive. We let it go, but it's harder than it used to be. I guess Dad and I have grown too, because we don't flow with the fast fights and fast forgivenesses anymore. I'm sick of yelling for attention or to get a point across and I'm sick of him yelling at me when I interrupt him. I think the shift has a lot to do with W and with my step-mother, who are more sensitive about the family's old tendencies, and who recognize how much my father and I both want to be listened to and feel respect from each other. Likewise, through our independant romantic relationships, we've also recognized that Dad and I desire more from one another. But our dynamic has been really resistant to change. There's a distance.

Part of that distance is that I live in Seattle, and he doesn't. W's family treats me like I've always been in their family, and my father's dedication to his in-laws and step-sons is strong. And then there is the ADHD. I honestly don't know if he buys it. My stepmom, who is certain one if not both of her boys are ADHD, doesn't buy it. They think of the H, not the AD and the latter is the part that which causes me to struggle to connect in meaningful ways in large family gathering, to listen fully to my father's opinions and to consider them fully before responding.

My mother, she gets these things. That doesn't mean that we always connect in meaningful ways in large family gatherings because our ADHD often manifests in a craving for structure and plans, which is emphasized by the anxiety. We panic solo about if this family member is paying enough attention or love to this member, about how we're all going to get to point A from point B and back again in time for this and this. We're so busy overstimulating ourselves, we can't stop to notice that everyone would rather kick it in the kitchen than gather around the living room, and that's a deficit. We struggle to connect with everyone in the family because we're so hyper focused, or unfocused in our attention. The attention deficit isn't always an inability to focus on anything; it's often an inability to shift the focus off what it's zoned in on.

As an adult, I see how I've turned into my parents pretty clearly. But I've been like them all along. The things I've shared here, they're the tricky things I share with my parents, and they also are the things about me that don't always mesh so well in my private day-to-day interactions, dilemnas, and feelings. And while I can't change that I have ADHD and so does my mother, and I can't change that Dad and I will always have differences in opinion and struggle to listen to each other (I'm not entirely convinced that he's not ADHD too), there are changes I can make--creating time one-on-one with my parents away from the rest of the family zoo, building my compassion towards them when I'm feeling Dad's frustration or when my mother is trying to eat a snack, walk to the doctor, and drop off a letter in a mailbox while I'm trying to talk to her on the phone. I can say, "I'm feeling hot and having a hard time listening to what you're really saying right now, Dad, maybe we should pause." I can say, "Hey, Mom, can you call me back when you're not in-between ten things so I can ask you some questions that are on my mind?" I can build my mindfulness of where my anxiety and my interruptions and inane comments are more prone to pop up and devise ways to avoid those places, or try to look at them in new ways.

There are so many things I've adopted from my parents that are good. Generousity, dedication, a caring heart, a social compass, and passionate drive to right what is wrong. I might not always invest these qualities in the right places, but I try. I care. They care. We want to learn, and share too and I know this won't change; I'm okay with that.

Let's call the whole thing off, eh?

2008-11-17T17:41:00.000-08:00

So my friend M challenged her blogging friends to write on this topic of "Let's call the whole thing off" as part of a bigger subject-related, flex-your-writing muscles challenge. And I thought, why the heck not? The particulars don't have to reflect tomato/tomahto intimacy and relationship conflict, but it could...

So my long-time accomplice of 8 years is a Tomato, and I am a Tomahto. We were raised in very different families, and despite what we share, these differences in our world outlooks that stem from how we were reared, by who, and where often cause Mr. Tomato and me to scratch our heads and study each other like two different species of monkeys from opposite hemispheres might. I wish to understand my Tomato, but my Tomahto-ness often gets in the way, causing my Tomato so much stress. This is reciprocal, but I don't want to beat up my Tomato right now, so let me tell you how my Tomato struggles to communicate with me.

Tomato often struggles with my Tomahto responses to his Tomato comments. Ill-timed, abrupt, off-topic... whew! Sometimes, we wonder if I suffer from Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD). Maybe, but I also grew up in a house of constant debating and questioning each other. I found it fun then, but my accomplice doesn't think it is fun. He wants to be listened to, not questioned when he's talking about his tomatoes. My Tomahtoes don't belong in the conversation, at least not RIGHT THEN. Another thing that makes me question an ODD diagnosis: I was so shy as a young girl and I had a really hard time asserting my wants, opinions, and feelings to my bossy best friend at home, my bossy best friend at school, and a few noteable bossy school bullies. When I hit puberty, being compliant to these girls went out the window over night and I became a LOUD DEFIANT PRETEEN, who could be a bossy brat, a bully, or just fought with my parents and brother about every little thing. I spent a lot of time being grounded until puberty phased out and I stopped being a bully and so bossy. But I still get pretty defiant when I'm feeling attacked or just feeling feisty. TOMAHTO.

My long-time accomplice also struggles with my loud yells of TOMAHTO that occur often when he's telling a story which I too witnessed (orwhich I have heard 200 times before). I exhibit this form of Tomahto-ness by interrupting his story often to ensure that every little detail is thoroughly explained, or I'll ask leading questions that I SO know the answer to, like, "and wasn't there a really obnoxious dog next door that barked through the whole meal?" My partner HATES it when I ask leading Tomahto questions and he feels that most of my must-include details make the story confusing to the listener. But I think they're all so interesting that I can't bear the idea of leaving any of them out. Now this is known as the funnel effect in the Adult ADHD world. Instead of getting to the point, and then elaborating on all the details--like a thesis statement in the first paragraph of an essay, subsequently backed by evidence in each following paragraph until you hit the big conclusion, which is more or less what you said in the first paragraph but with more conviction!--an ADHD adult likes to lay out all the evidence like puzzle pieces and then funnel them all down and out for you in this dramatic, and time-consuming, and maybe puzzling fashion. Ummm, this is also kind of how a novelist writes, so being both a novelist and an ADHD Adult, I love to put out all the ingredients and then pop them into the funnel for the yummy funnel cake result. But some people, my accomplice included, shake their heads and say...Ummmm, what are you talking about again??? And I say, "Like, TOMAHTOES, silly-heads!"

It is hard for a tomato to become a tomahto, and vice versa. Sometimes, I feel like yelling something like, "Let's call the whole thing off!" and I know my accomplice feels that way sometimes too. Sometimes we feel like yelling this a lot and I think the only thing that prevents us from doing that is that, despite being a tomahto, I love this one tomato and I want to understand what makes the tomato a tomato, and what makes me such a tomahto. And that tomato, he loves this here tomahto, and he's committed to working with me to make tomato-tomahto soup, and we really want it to turn out AWESOME. And sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't.

This is for sure: this particular tomahto and that particular tomato don't give up easily and don't like to quit. Sometimes the challenges of our differences are really enriching, enlightening, beautiful, even if other times, the challenges are really exhausting, painful, and make me want curse and kick things--which isn't pretty, so I try really hard not to do that. When does a tomato and a tomahto really know that the challenges are past enlightenment and growth and beauty, and are just painful, overspent, and no longer offer forward progression? How does a tomato and a tomahto, who love each other in spite of themselves, know when to say, "Let's call the whole thing off," by a mutual decision?

Maybe the tomato and tomahto need to discuss what that would look like. Now that's a scary conversation, regardless of whether you like pajamas or pahjahmahs.

Yes-We-Can Kenobi , You're Our Only Hope: A Skeptic's Reflection on Last Week's Election

2008-11-11T15:02:00.000-08:00

HOPE:
--noun
1. The feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best: to give up hope.
2. A particular instance of this feeling: the hope of winning a game.
3. Grounds for this feeling in a particular instance: There is little or no hope of his recovery.
4. A person or thing in which expectations are centered: "Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope."
5. Something that is hoped for: Forgiveness is my only hope.

--verb (used with object)

6. To look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence.

7. To believe, desire, or trust: I hope that my work will be satisfactory.

At some point in my thirty-two years of life, I lost touch with "Hope.” I don’t speak of the feeling of hope that arises in the face of a particular situation, like, “I have hope that I can make your gathering next weekend.” Or in terms of whether or not there are grounds for hope in a particular situation, “There is hope of sunshine on Saturday.” The “Hope” I refer to is that feeling of desire and optimism and dream, of expectation and aspiration and faith, of chance and prospect and possibility. I speak of “Hope,” the action of expecting, trusting, wishing, anticipating, and looking forward to a desired something with reasoned confidence. I mean “Hope,” the opposite of despair, the reverse to seeing no light at the end of the tunnel, the refusal to lose heart.

Over the past two plus years, “Hope” has become the catchword in America’s political landscape, ever since the October 2006 publication of a book by the junior Senator from Illinois. The book was entitled The Audacity of Hope. “Audacity.” The synonyms of this noun include daring, boldness, courage, bravery, nerve, overconfidence, cheek, and impudence. The antonyms? Cowardice, weakness, spinelessness, fearfulness.

Upon the book’s release, I wasn’t impressed with this title. It sounded vague and wishy-washy in my judgmental literary opinion. I didn’t bother however to break down the title word by word at the time, nor did I consider the phrase’s implications at length. I ask myself now: what if I had merely considered the definitions of “audacity” and “hope” back in 2006, and paraphrased the title in my head with stronger and more direct synonyms of these two words, like “The Courage to Trust” or “The Boldness to Aspire?” If I’d undertaken such simple contemplation, I wonder if my approach to both my life and my outlook on politics over the past two years might have come from a radically different place. Perhaps my perceptions and actions would have taken direction from an open heart instead of from a skeptical brain, if I’d followed the body organ that keeps me alive versus the organ that recalls, forgets, and misinterprets information with equal ease. I’ve come to believe over the past week that if I’d let my heart do the leading, the incredible feelings of the past three days wouldn’t merely ripple in my bloodstream—they’d surge like Class VI rapids through my veins. For one week ago, the author of The Audacity of Hope, Senator Barack Hussein Obama II, was elected the first African American to the office of President of the United States of America.

Born in Hawaii to a Kenyan father and an American mother, Barack Obama defeated his candidate—Arizona Senator John McCain, a generally respected member of Congress, war veteran, and American citizen—by the biggest landslide in over thirty years. Both candidates launched their campaigns well in advance of the election—Obama officially announced his run in early 2007. The campaign of our president-elect was multifaceted and encountered typical twists and turns en route to Election Day, but the campaign’s road never strayed from its original groundwork: the belief, expressed so simply in the Obama campaign’s slogan “Yes We Can,” that the future success of America depends on its citizens having the audacity to hope.

When I think about it today, this nation was built on this mentality. If not for a strong conviction of “Yes We Can,” America would still be a British Colony. African Americans would still be owned by Caucasians and working as slaves in the cotton fields in the South. People of color and women would not be able to vote, own a business or home, or run for any office, be it for President or County Treasurer. “Yes We Can” put a man on the moon. “Yes We Can” built the first automobile and airplane. The citizens of America have gone far by audaciously putting hope into the notion that “Yes We Can.”

Still, during the years leading up to this and the past election, I have been wary of hope. When dreams fail to materialize and urgent voices receive little to no acknowledgment, disappointment is the natural result. And disappointment hurts. Some people grow accustomed to the sting of disappointment and they learn to adapt as its pain dulls with continued exposure. Some of these people have been born into disappointment or grow up surrounded by it. To this population, disappointment is a fact of life and they endure its blow with greater resilience because they’ve never known life without it. The choice posed to these people is by what means they adopt to endure disappointment. There are those who choose to survive in apathy and there are those who choose to build insurmountable walls around their emotional selves. And then there are those who choose to pursue their dreams because they are so familiar with disappointment that it inspires minimal fear as they already have so little to lose. It’s as if this group has built up immunity to disappointment’s most dire symptoms: the crushed spirit and broken heart, all-consuming anger or depression, isolation and abandonment, perpetual skepticism, and the inability to commit to any one thing—be it a decision, belief, individual, or dream—in fear of that thing’s failure.

But some people are born into environments that present few and fairly insignificant face-offs with disappointment. I was fortunate enough to grow up in such an environment. The branches of my family tree have been white, healthy, college-educated, and attractive, historically leafed by smart bankers and businessmen who made sound investments or by accountants and self-starters with Depression-era frugality on the maternal limbs: a solid upper middle class tree. My own part of this tree had just branched out and away from the security of the trunk to enter kindergarten in 1981, the same year President Ronald Reagan first entered the White House. I grew up in the 1980s America—an America who got what She wanted without raising a finger.

Despite our family’s relative wealth, my parents did not spoil my little brother with toys. My allowance was rather modest with slight increases based on continuous progress at school and execution of my household chores, and with decreases and forfeited payments occurring in light of a significant decline on a recent report card, overall neglect of household duties, or any display of unkind, ignorant, and disrespectful behavior. There were rules: bedtimes, bath days, and curfew hours; hygiene guidelines, mandatory fruit and vegetable daily quotas, and exercise recommendations; restrictions on sugar cereal, soda pop, and dessert consumption; and a daily TV time limit. These rules illustrate the caliber of disappointments I encountered until adolescence.

When my parents separated and subsequently proceeded to have one of the most peaceful, cooperative divorces of all time, I looked it as an opportunity. I milked my teenage friends for pity and attention. I reveled in the extra time spent with my father who had to forgo his two-to-three day business trips every other week when he had custody. My brother and I easily convinced my guilt-ridden mother, the instigator of the divorce, to get three things my parents had withheld from us during their marriage: cable TV and two kittens, which my father’s allergies had prohibited. My parents’ divorce forced change into my life, but did it cause me great disappointment? No, though my parents certainly experienced such feelings. Did I fear the future, or lose my potential to dream? No. I see now that this is where I was spoiled in my upbringing. Spoiled rotten.

When a child grows up in a loving, well-to-do family, even a divorced family, she learns to cope with disappointment in well-monitored rooms with exceptionally soft padded walls. The blows of disappointment are applied with little force—a gentle slap on the wrist—and the pain dissipates so fast that the child can easily forget the painful experience of disappointment. For this child, hope, dreams, desire, and expectations are birthrights. This child needs no audacity, no courage, and no cheek to desire something and expect with confidence that something’s eventual deliverance. I was that child. The 1980s produced legions of children just like me. It is only when such a child steps out of the padded room as an adult that she discovers that she is vulnerable to the full sting of disappointment, that what she hopes for does not exist in a vacuum and is subject to the acceptance and cooperation of other people, who have their own hopes and dreams. On Halloween of my freshman year at a small liberal arts college, I first truly experienced disappointment and its pain acutely when my boyfriend back at home officially dumped me for a high school acquaintance he’d been seeing behind my back.

It’s a typical story for a first-year college student away from home. I’m sure such break-up stories happen to at least half the freshmen who leave their high school sweeties to attend a college more than an hour’s drive from home. Somewhere deep down I knew, in the weeks leading up to my exodus to college, that my relationship wasn’t built to last. But that inkling wasn’t enough to protect me from an embarrassing emotional collapse and overwhelming feelings of loneliness and self-loathing. I had no clue how to cope with disappointment, with the loss of hope for the relationship into which I’d bared so much of my soul and invested so much love, time, and energy.

The pain finally dulled after a nine-month emotional roller coaster ride when I hooked up with a happy-go-lucky pothead who worshipped me. He coveted every word I spoke as if it was the word of God, wrote me long love letters weekly, conceded to my request to “see other people” during my semester abroad without a fight, and immediately returned to bask at my feet when I returned to the States. Finally at the end of my junior year, I mercifully broke it off. I had liked him well enough, but I hadn’t loved him. I’d kept him around because I knew he couldn’t and wouldn’t hurt me and because I was afraid of meeting someone who could. Someone who triggered genuine hope, desire, and expectations, feelings that could be ripped away at any moment against my will. Someone who might make me face disappointment and its unbearable cuts again. I’d built up some walls, and though I’ve fallen in love with twice in the years since, I’ve stayed vigilant in these relationships; I’m always on the lookout for signs that the ax is about to fall so that I can drop it first.

I’ve constructed similar walls in response to disappointments in friendships, work experiences, American politics, and my beliefs in myself. My emotional core, where hope once flowered freely, grew malignant, its soil lacked essential nutrients, like trust, confidence, courage, and enthusiasm. Instead, I was infested with defensiveness, skepticism, cynicism, doubt, apathy, anger, and fear, fear, fear. I responded to uplifting stories and enticing possibilities with shrugs and pessimism. Hope became a mythical creature with wings. Audacity was a word I used to describe the behavior of a person, behavior that offended my self-righteous sense of morality. My life was fueled by outrage—with myself, with my friends and family, with my community, with my country, with the world. I wanted facts to prove the wrongdoings of every person, place, and thing. I had set up camp in a world whose mantra was, “Oh No You Can’t!”

When Barack Obama rose to vie for the nation’s greatest office, I observed him as an English major observes a complicated science experiment to pass the compulsory lab science class required for graduation—from the outside. I watched as he challenged Americans to confront the fear and skepticism that the events of 9/11 and the actions of the current presidential administration deposited so successfully in the minds and hearts of many of our nation’s citizens. With his campaign mantra “Yes, We Can,” he dared us to reclaim our hopes and desires for our individual lives, for our diverse communities, and for our nation and the world—for both present times and the future—and to pursue these hopes and dreams with unrelenting bravery and determination. From the outside looking in, I noted all of this while still holding myself an arm’s length away. I was too afraid of disappointment to embrace his words.

But as Election Day grew closer, I felt a slight tickle of optimism. I have an uncomfortable tug-of-war relationship with being tickled. I don’t enjoy the tickling sensation, but I still find myself laughing and I adore the intimacy that the sport affords. That tickle of optimism had a similar effect. I didn’t know how to sit comfortably with it because optimism had become so unfamiliar to me, yet it whetted my tongue for a little more of the flavor. I stepped closer to the political process and coughed up a hundred-dollar donation for Obama’s campaign, the first donation I’ve ever bestowed on a political candidate. I began to think, “Well, Maybe We Can…”—a minute crack in my fortress of walls.

One week ago, almost 12 hours after casting my vote for the president-elect, my partner of eight years led me by the hand down Pike Street to where it intersects Broadway Avenue at the heart of Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. I’ve lived in Seattle for over seven years; it is city of people frequently who are quick to smile at you but frugal with their friendship, who are armed with facts and ideas but are weighed down by their sharp cynicisms, who are a lot like me. However, when we entered the spontaneous gathering at Pike and Broadway, those people were nowhere to be found. I thought I saw them, in their NW hipster tight jeans and funky librarian glasses and raincoats, but it couldn’t have been them—where was the witty sarcasm, the rain-bogged pessimism, and the so-cool shutters closed around their emotions? Gone, gone, and gone. Instead, their faces were alive, filled with glee and optimism. Their arms were wrapped around strangers of all ages, all ethnicities, all genders, and sexual preferences. When Neighbors, a gay dance club started to pump out of its doors a techno remix of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” the entire mob moved and screamed to the lyrics, regardless of whether Journey has ever fit into their musical preferences. People climbed up on one another’s shoulders or body surfed while those on the ground nearby monitored the levitators, ready to catch them if they fell. For hours, a young African-American man with incredible biceps carried around a huge portrait of Obama and led the chant of “Yes We Can!” throughout the crowd of several thousand people.

The tickle of optimism grew stronger, the discomfort and the pleasure likewise evolved in size. “Yes We Can!” I chanted. “Yes We Did,” I thought. Then the truth dawned on me as I realized, “Yes THEY Did.”

They, the people who broke out of webs of fear and doubt, the people who had the courage to believe in someone’s vision of a better future, the people who fought through the fiery flames of disappointment before—without licking their wounds—they fought further. The people who had the audacity to hope, whether they’d been born with it, dared to find it, or had nothing to lose by having it. These people hadn’t been like me at all. When we came home from the spontaneous celebration in the street, my partner and I stepped into a hot shower to wash away the scent left in our hair by Capitol Hill’s die-hard smokers. Under the stream of hot water that poured from the showerhead, I began to cry. A few tears at first, then the sobs rose in my chest. I pulled my partner to me, wrapped my arms around him, and pressed my face against his chest. I was mourning the last two years of my life and how I’d wasted that opportunity to allow hope and courage back into my heart.

At the same time though, those sobs and tears forced the crack in my walled fortress to break open further, and further yet. My tears were giving birth to Hope right then. I may have lacked the audacity of hope to claim any credit for the historical election and the re-energized America I saw dancing in the streets of Seattle one week ago. But now I’m raising my own, newborn Hope. If I nurture it with devoted care and compassion, it may itself regenerate into trust, strength, dedication, and optimism. My person, my relationships, my work, and my life have incredible growth potential if I gain these qualities and overcome fear to maintain my fledgling Hope. However, that’s looking at my little picture, not the bigger picture which urgently needs our attention. And that picture is this: our future president will need as much of these qualities as he can get when he is sworn in on January 20, 2009 if he, and we, are to continue the revitalization of America and all its citizens’ dreams. I am finally ready to be audacious and hope for my country.

"Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists." - Thomas L. Friedman

"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

Why I don't post

2008-09-19T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last night, we went to see "The Visitor" at the Crest. For my partner, the movie spoke vividly to him as a musician and music teacher in certain parts. For me, the movie spoke to something I've been feeling all summer. In one scene, in a cab drive, the mother of the detained illegal immigrant character says to the main character Walter that he doesn't need to do all this for their family, that he is busy, he has his class to teach, his book to write. And Walter confesses, "I have been teaching the same one class for the last twenty years. I haven't worked on this book much at all. I'm a pretender. I've become very good at pretending." Okay, so that's not exactly what he said, but you get the gist of it. Now Walter really doesn't want to teach, he doesn't want to write this book, he doesn't even know what it should be about. Until meeting these illegal immigrants, he has been spiritually dead inside and for years has been pretending to uphold whatever sense of importance he had when his wife was alive and his son lived at home and he actually wrote books. These new people, and the drumming he takes up at the encouragement of the detained immigrant--they are his spiritual awakening and he can finally face the fact that his life is based on pretending to be something that he isn't now, and maybe never was.
Okay, so back to this summer. Hell, let's go back to late last November. Now, I wrote a great deal in late February thru May on my novel. But the winter was very dark. I felt spiritually dead inside. I say "spiritually" in terms that my human spirit didn't know its own desires. And to be honest, while I don't feel spiritually dead inside right now, I've been spiritually confused. My spirit wishes for too much and cannot prioritize. This situation really became complicated with "summer." The summer that sort of was, but sort of never was.... In the summer, I like to be gardening in the sun, swimming in cool lakes in warm sunshine, reading books in the hammock. I don't like writing that much. And I struggle with transitioning in and out of vacation mode. I want vacations. I dread vacations. I want to visit family. There's baggage wtih family. I want to spend quality time with Wes. I want to spend quality time alone. Then the "I should do... " & "I ought to be..." junk starts coming, especially when the weather is not that summer-y. And this summer had additional stress waiting for a family member's cancer diagnosis. A diagnosis that we know is coming, and know will be one of two things, but because of some misleading information and arrogant medical practitioners, we still are waiting for here on the brink of the fall equinox.
My point: with such a confused and still weak spiritualality, I feel like I've been pretending at everything all summer. Nothing feels complete. I have been unable to harness my spirit to any one--hell, I'd take two or three even--things and the lack of accomplishment or dedication on my part is beginning to take its toll. I'm not making money. I'm not making much progress with the book. I'm not making much progress with my personal life. I'm struggling to uphold my relationship with my partner of almost eight years. I need my spirit to step up and recognize its will. I need to stop being afraid. I need to complete things. I need to release things. I need to make decisions and act on those decisions. I need to shine up my spirit and share it. I need to embrace that spirit and embrace what I can not control and open up and relax. I need to quit pretending to be everything, or to have a hold on what is going on around me. I don't right now. I can.
I start now. And my spirit says, "you aren't a good blogger. you want to be doing something else. so knock it off."

Pages and word counts

2008-05-17T12:49:00.000-07:00

I keep meaning to write. A blog, I mean. Because the book keeps going and going and going.
Here's my word count (accord. to Microsoft Word, not standard publisher equation): 168,409.
And page count (double-spaced, Justified, Times New Roman, size 12 Font): 563.
Let me I just tell you all that, for first novels in the literary fiction genre, publishers like the word count down around 100,000--maybe 120,000 if it's really worth it. Page count? Somewhere around 300 is nice.
And I'm going to need to write at least four more chapters to fulfill the climax and the outcome of my story. The end gets closer to my reach, yet it moves further away at the same time.
So come that day, when I write the last sentence to the last paragraph for the first full draft, I already know one thing for sure: I will need to cut out about 50% of my novel. 50-f*#king percent. Editing hell. And of course, I'll need to back up every single version, every single revision so if I cut something out that I change my mind on and want to reinstate later, it still will exist somewhere and I can find it. Just thinking about this process exhausts me. Maybe I am subconsciously preventing myself from reaching "The End" because I am so intimidated about the revision process.
Then there's the part where I've re-envisioned the format of my novel somewhat. My anticipated changes will allow me to cut some sections, even a few chapters perhaps. But they also will require extra attention to make sure that vital story information in the cut sections is conveyed fully in the new format. A lot of these changes revolve around the family characters' background and development, and stuff about Mormonism relevant to the plot. I tell you, DOOZY A COMING.
But it is exciting. It is possible. Completion is at hand, somewhere. So my blogging will continue to be highly inconsistent, because I'm frying a big fish. And then there is all the extra stuff in the frying pan: summer travels; maintaining healthy relationships with my lover, friends, and family; my gardening, knitting, and reading obsessions; self-care; doing household crap.... You get the picture. And with a little luck, and the power of Grayskull, I'll be de-boning the big fish next time I blog, getting it ready to serve up on platter with some extra nice garnish.

March 31

2008-03-31T22:50:00.000-07:00

*I learned the difference between concertos and sonatas, fugues and preludes, and what "una corda" means.
* I enjoyed a piece by my accomplice in UW's newspaper, the Daily.
* I read, analyzed, critiqued, and enjoyed a story by a writing group colleague.
* I wrote five pages, by hand, on my novel.
* I attended the Mariners' season opening day game against Texas, and was snowed on in the fifth inning (photo by Philip Smith).

* I learned that Yuniesky Betancourt's favorite web page is MySpace.
* I spent time with writing peers and felt happy that I write.
* I found out about another writing colleague's new Internet start-up.
* I came home tired but content.

Birthing

2008-03-27T02:21:00.000-07:00

Okay. The title is for dramatics. I am not pregnant nor expecting to be in the very near future. But sheesh! Just about every single person in my peer group has either given birth in the past year and change, is about to give birth, or has plans to get birthy in the near future. Let me give you the tally and names (last names excluded for privacy of course) of the babes born in the last year and a half.
Boys:
1. Oliver Atticus--December 2006
2. Oliver Lewis--January 2007
*note that neither Oliver is my dog nephew, born in April 2007, who often goes by Shitbrains
3 & 4. Sam and Ben (technically born in May 2006 but adopted and brought home officially in January 2007).
5. Another Ben--June or July 2007
6. William IV--July 23 (my birthday!), 2007
7. Miles--October 31, 2007
8. "Banjo" (can NOT remember his real name)--January 2008
And most recently, 9. Kieran--March 2008
Please note that I can not remember the names of at least three baby boys of acquaintances that must have come out of the womb by now too. Boy crazy year.

On the girl side:
1. Sanika--Early April or Late March 2007
2. Yuki--April 2007
3. Serai--May 2007
Yup. Just three. BUT there's a baby girl due in May....
Then there's plans for a sibling for Oliver L. to be conceived this summer. And I know I am forgetting more babies. They're all over the place.

So while my friends, and Wes' friends too, birth actual humans, I am in the process of birthing other things. Broccoli starts. Peas. Potatoes. Oh, yeah, and the novel.
The novel, the novel, the novel...
Here's the good news: I am writing like a mad woman.
Here's the bad news: this is one big, fat, unhealthy sized baby.

And the four year pregnancy, ugh. Don't get me started. I don't have trimesters, see. I have year-mesters. But I'm tired of carrying around this bulge of notes and computer documents and files and books on psychiatric evaluation techniques and suicide survivors and code-cracking, and Utah, and Mormons and the Bible. I'm tired of listening to Mozart piano concertos and late 90s music to inspire my characters. I'm ready to go into labor.

So friends that are expecting--please expect a delay in receiving your infant's hand-knit booties or hat or ugly sweater or leg warmers. I am preoccupied with my own epidermal, c-section, induced labor, you name it. And forgive me if I keep running away to Idaho and pitch my cell phone into the river--if this helps me finish it, then that's the way it's going to be. And then, my friends, I will be kissing your asses and knitting goodies for all the babes like there is no tomorrow--and maybe a few of you will read the massive manuscript and help me potty train it or ween it, or whatever!

And now I must decide whether to sleep, type up a hand-written chapter, or start a new section in the book. It's 2:30 in the morning. I'm leaning towards sleep, but typing may win. Or those books on my bedside table I've been meaning to read: Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," highly recommended by my friend Mary and the cult of Oprah, or "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan (I've actually started this one, but then I got derailed by P.D. James. How have I never read P.D. James, what with my obsession with Agatha Christie who-done-its and PBS Mystery! However, I did come up with an idea for a new novel from one of those early Pollan chapters. Which is why I stopped reading--I had to write the concept down!). 2:30 in the morning! Why do I do this to myself--does anyone even read this thing? I read all of yours, even though I rarely comment, and I must confess, my own blogging habits are highly irregular.

It's official. Sleep is winning. But first, five things I am grateful for today:
1. Fresh snow on the fir and cedar trees and everywhere. There is so much snow here, it boggles my mind. Look at the pictures in my littl' Flickr side badge, and you'll see what I mean. I feel like I'm in a time warp, back to Sun Valley when I was really small and the snow piled up in huge heaps twice my height (then) along the sides of the road.
2. Girl Scouts and Campfire for teaching me to build a fire for a cold morning.
3. My father for not dying like he did in my dream last night (I am knocking on wood as I type) and for letting me use this awesome place.
4. The two deer who allowed me to stare at them for quite a while before prancing away in the snow today.
5. Words. They just won't stop coming out of my fingers, my mind, my mouth. God, how could I be anything other than a writer? Thank you, words, for making me eager to work, most days.

And that is all she wrote.

Oh my, oh my, it is a blog.

2008-03-03T15:07:00.000-08:00

So I have been silent for awhile, and after attending the Whidbey Island Writers Conference this weekend, I've nudged myself to blog again.
You may be wondering: How's that novel going? Weren't you trying to finish it by New Year's Day? Are you writing ANYTHING?
Well, here are the answers: the novel is going. I was trying to finish it by New Year's, but life does sometimes get in the way. I've been writing in my journal some, and writing on the book some, and scrawling notes to myself daily since the commencement of '08. But I have not written one single word for Amazon.com since July 31st. Coincidentally, I received my last true pay check sometime in mid-August.
The Amazon drop-off was intentional, though I didn't necessarily plan for it to go on for so long. In fact, at this point, it may be permanent vacation. I am blessed that, on both the paternal and maternal sides of my family, I've had family who thrived in the accounting and banking worlds, and who worked long years for profitable companies on the NYSE, and chose to give me stock or a saving bond for my birthday in lieu of the ever-desired Power Wheel, or say a pony. Thus I've been ransacking the savings as I try to finish "the book."
My new "full draft, damn it" due date is April 1st. I have a "massive revision/slaughter your word count" due date too: June 30th. Then, Buddha, God, Allah, Goddess of the Moons, and Satan willing, I will begin to send out the oh-so-tedious and daunting query letters to agents in hopes of finding someone awesome and energetic who thinks my book is the most engaging thing since breastfeeding (either as an infant or with her own infant). And this awesome, energetic agent (Indulge me for awhile, okay?) and I will then do some more revision, I'd imagine under some ridiculously short time constraint. Then she/he will shop my book to the editors and publishers of the world until they're salivating over my book, prompting an exciting bidding war, that will end in a book contract at a mid- to large- sized, but respectable, publishing house. Said contract will offer me a decent first sales check, and publishing house will have design, promotional, editorial teams that are so excited about my book that they're piddling all over themselves. And then the pre-sale copies and upcoming release catalogs will go out to the major book distributors (B&N, Ingrams, Borders, Amazon, etc.), and they'll ear mark the page with my book's details and consult their staff and estimate that they'll need to pre-order copious amounts of the book. This will get the publishing house pr peeps really in a frenzy, pitching me to the Today Show and to Oprah's Book Club and the notable book review papers and magazines.... and then, well, I'll be the hottest thing since Jonathon Safran Foer or Zadie Smith or Jhumpa Lahiri.... AND well, won't I be full of myself at this time next year....
Okay, so maybe not that's not feasible, but let me say this: I NEED to finish this novel. Then I NEED to revise like there is no tomorrow. Perhaps 15 times. And then I will be begging anyone for proof reads and feedback, etc. It could be you. If not you, I encourage you to please, please, please throw tons of encouragement and love my way this spring. Because this has been the darkest winter of my soul during my life thus far, and it is time for everything to come to fruition. Let the blooming begin.

Words, wonderous words!

2007-10-26T14:04:00.000-07:00

About progress:

People often ask me when I think my book will be done. My responses vary from groaning, hemming and hawing, or saying one of the following: "It's difficult to say." "Soon, I hope." "Before I hit menopause." You might notice that these responses fall under either the Vague and Ambivalent Umbrella, or the Somewhat and Really Pessimistic Blue Tarp Shelter. If I'm prodded to elaborate further by an inquisitive mind, I'll regurgitate a variant on this: "I wish I could say it will be done tomorrow, but right now, I'm just trying to finish the full first draft by New Years, and that might be pushing it, to be frank. After I finish that draft, I'm in for massive revisions and cuts. I have a whole shopping list of things to fix in X chapter or with Y character. And it's already too long. First novels shouldn't be that long. So, it's difficult to say and I hope it is sooner than later, but definitely before menopause, unless I start that before the age of 40."

On the other hand, if people ask me how my book is going at present, my response will indubitably reflect my progress in the past three days (weekends not included). If you asked me today, I would say, "fair." I worked on it for two hours and change yesterday and three and a half hours on Wednesday, and today, I indulged in two of the novel writer's guilty pleasures: I did both a total word count and a page count!

The reason I refer to these as guilty pleasures is because these numbers don't hold much weight until I have a finished, edited manuscript to shop to publishers, editors, and lit agents. At that point, these numbers may actually help or hinder me in the process of selling the book. But right now, the numbers don't mean a lot because they are going to continue to change daily, probably until the day when my novel actually goes to print somewhere.

But, like UsWeekly, it is FUN to check the numbers out. It makes me feel chipper and light, just like I feel after seeing a photo of Cameron Diaz without her make-up on or that Mischa Barton has cellulite! It positively fills me with hope and something akin to confidence to look at the numbers every three or four months. You want to see these numbers? Voila:

THE NUMBERS! (as of 10/26/07)

-Approx. Word Count: 121,500 (121,580 if you include "Chapter 20" and other headers)
-Approx. Page Count: 403 (Microsoft Word, double spaced, Times New Roman 12 font)

5 Instances October 3-9

2007-10-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

My problem with posting excerpts--if I procrastinate about posting, I can't remember what I wrote on what day. Here's my best guesses for:

5 Instances Over 5 Days When I Did NOT Procrastinate!

Wednesday, October 3
The meetinghouse isn’t anything spectacular inside either. Although a few murals of Jesus flanked by adoring followers and lambs decorated the hallway walls, the walls of the chapel itself were bare, except for half a dozen opaque windows for natural lighting. The rows of pews face a stand in the front of the room that held the pulpit and an organ. That’s about it. Yawn. Grandpa and Dad were already seated on the left side of the chapel, about five rows back from the stand. Grandpa had saved seats for the whole clan, so I followed the Harmons over keeping my eyes on the floor to avoid making eye contact with anyone I might know from school. I slid into the pew next to my dad and slunk down in my seat. “Hi, Grandpa, Dad.”

Thursday, October 4
Mr. Johnson then made a bunch of announcements: sign-up had started for the stake basketball league; so-and-so’s baby had been blessed; a Relief Society Thanksgiving food drive for needy families; and on and on. Then the organist started the opening hymn. “Page 128,” Aunt Sarah whispered down the pew at me and I fumbled through the hymnal and then mouthed like I was singing along. When the hymn concluded, Mr. Johnson gestured to a woman near the front to come up to the stand. She folded her arms and bowed her head. Immediately, everyone around me did the same. Whoopee, it’s Prayer time! I wondered what would happen if I didn’t fold my arms, or if I looked up at the ceiling instead. But when I saw that even little Georgie folded his arms over his chest and had his head down, I gave in and followed his example.

Friday, October 5
“Teachers and Minute Maid? Do the teachers come in here to drink orange juice?” I asked.
Kacie giggled. “No, silly. The 14- and 15- year old boys are called Teachers, and the 14- and 15- year old girls are called Mia Maids.”
I looked her skeptically. “How can I be a teacher when I hardly know anything about the Book of Mormon?”
“It’s just a label, Sam. Before I was a Mia Maid, I was a Beehive for two years. Do I look anything like a beehive?”

Monday, October 8
Elder Reid’s story went on for a long time, a really long time. Most of its content was just filler to draw out the tale for as long as possible. Here’s the quick version: the two men are Jesus and Judas Iscariot. Judas grows jealous of Jesus’ power and is angered at how his friend squanders money. Judas gets so fed up with his friend that he decides to sell Jesus out to his enemies for 30 pieces of silver. After he’s committed this ultimate betrayal and Jesus is on the road to crucifixion, Judas feels guilty and tries to confess and return the money to a priest. The priest and his men tell Judas something like, “You dug this hole for yourself so you can dig yourself out.” And then Judas throws down the money, runs off, and hangs himself. Meanwhile, Jesus is nailed to the cross while his enemies ridicule him from below. He lifts up his eyes to heaven and says, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t realize what they are doing.” After he’s been up there for 12 hours, Jesus takes on himself all the sins of mankind and dies. The end.
I wisely did not wave my hand to ask Elder Reid what was his point in telling us this classic downer.

Tuesday, October 9
The class spent the next hour reading passages from the New Testament and discussing the necessity of repentance. “If you know in your hearts that the gospel is true, and you do not repent your sins, what will happen to you on Judgment Day?” Mrs. Reid scanned the room for a volunteer.
An unfamiliar girl raised her hand. “If you defy the Holy Ghost, you will be cast into the Outer Darkness to suffer and burn for eternity.”
“Like Judas,” Joey Peters added.
“Exactly,” Mrs. Reid said grimly. “Like Judas.”

And that's it for this edition of 5 instances!

And now, a new feature!

2007-10-02T22:22:00.001-07:00

So, I am trying to write on my book, consistently, five days a week UNTIL I have finished that elusive first full draft. To give evidence of my productivity, I am going to start posting a snippet of text from each day's writing! Or maybe I will instead post 5 snippets from those 5 days in one blog every week, because I am a lazy blogger.

These snippets may make no sense to you, as they're somewhat out of context. You should not expect context, my dear readers, as the purpose isn't to sell you on the book, but enable you to testify that: yes, Jessica did write something for her book today. If you really want context, you can comment, or e-mail, or at least read my dusty synopsis thus far, which you can link to on the left of this blog! Thus, without further adieu, I introduce to you my new feature:

5 Instances Over 5 Days When I Did NOT Procrastinate!

Wednesday, September 26:
Of course, my sister and I didn’t have to wait for a sleepover invitation to experience a Sacrament meeting for ourselves. We had the Grandpa Myers hook-up.

Thursday, September 27:
“I’m not kidding, Dad,” I had said to my father over dinner that night, “when those kids found out that I’m 9 years old and haven’t been baptized, they all looked at me like I was the Thing.”
“The Thing—he’s the big rock guy, right?” he asked, passing a bowl of steamed broccoli to me.
“Yeah, he’s in the Fantastic 4. Do I have to have broccoli?” I scowled at the green stalks.
“I didn’t cook it to put it back in the fridge,” Dad said.
“So did you cook it to make me puke instead?”

Friday, September 28:
I remember that I made a joke of it, warned Mom not to take the name of our Savior Jesus Christ in vain or she couldn’t join me in the Celestial Kingdom, or some dumb bit of sarcasm like that. Mom had really busted up at my Saint act, and I think Dad was laughing too. But Amber didn’t crack a smile. She must have been in fourth grade already. She stared down at the half-eaten barbecued chicken breast on her plate. Clasped in her right hand, her fork hovered three inches above the plate, a chunk of meat dangling from its prongs.

Monday, October 1:
Almost a year before her suicide, something had already twisted in her soul, and my parents and I had written it off as a bruised ego. It sickened me to recognize how we had chosen to be blind to Amber’s warning signals back then. We’d thought it was safer to adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy than to pursue the truth, but we were dead wrong.

Tuesday, October 2:
“We aren’t babies!” Jules hollered.
“Or monkeys.” Georgie frowned at me in disapproval.
“Sorry.” I rolled my eyes. “Besides, don’t they have pretty good snacks during Sunday School?”
“We get Capri Sun in Nursery,” Jules boasted. “And animal crackers.”
Georgie smiled up at me. “I like to eat de hippos.”

And thus includes the first edition of 5 instances over 5 days when I did NOT procrastinate!

Summer's end....

2007-09-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

I've been on the road a lot this summer. The warm weather took me to New York for a week in late May-early June, Pullman, WA-Grangeville, ID for a week in early July, Lake Coeur d'Alene, ID-Priest Lake, ID for two weeks in August, and, most recently, the Tri-Cities, WA for the annual Tumbleweed Music Festival.

Priest Lake is BEAUTIFUL

As Fall approaches, we're traveling to Illinois/Michigan for a week in mid-September, and have tentative camping plans for later in the month. In addition to these travels, we also have hosted many visitors, and managed to squeeze in a big hike last weekend in the Cascades.

Check out all the huckleberries we picked!

My summer also has been full of vegetables. I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver currently and my awareness of the repercussions of the global food market (already fairly informed) has been heightened. This coincides with a summer wherein I've grown and consumed more local produce than ever before. For the past few years, my friend Mary and I share a vegetable box from a Community Sponsored Agriculture(CSA) program with Helsing Junction Farm of Rochester, WA, about 100 miles south of Seattle. If you are unfamiliar with CSAs, they work kind of like corporate stock or bonds--you buy a share of the farm, provide the funds to enable them to plant the seeds. In return, you receive boxes of bounty for 4 months. If the climate is fertile that year, the vegetable return may be greater than expected; however, if there's excess rain or too much sun, the yield may be lesser than desired. It's a risky investment in some ways, but it pales in comparison to the risk that the farmer takes. By extending the fruits of one's labor to the community, the farmer doesn't have to stand completely alone to shoulder the fiscal brunt of a tomato blight or drought.

In addition to bringing home a box of produce every other week this year, Mary challenged me to take my love of local produce to a new level by growing our own. Mary owns a rental property with a big plot of fertile dirt in the back. This May, Wes, Mary and I turned over the dirt, yanked weeds, and ultimately planted a nice-sized garden for ourselves. We planted tons of tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, snap peas, green beans, squash, tomatillos, peppers, carrots, arugula, onions, basil, and cilantro. The beans were the big disappointment--hardly any popped up and we had to replant them. Likewise, I think the peas didn't yield as much as I hoped. It wasn't the hottest summer in Seattle, with the big rains in July--so the squash also has been less than prolific and the tomatoes slower to ripen. But the tomatoes sure are ripening up now! I've been trying to find use for all these great veggies--cooking lots, gifting to friends, and speculating about canning and pickling options.

Yes, I grew these tomatoes.

The downside of all these fun adventures=my writing productivity has suffered. And that knowledge really bums me out and makes these adventures and experiences less awesome in my mind. I NEED to finish this book. I NEED to move into a new stage with my writing. I NEED to see what lies beyond this story--what other stories am I sitting on? I do have ideas about next projects, but until I finish this project, I'm not allowing myself to mull them over much. Must finish book. Next time you see me, bother me about finishing my book. I may glare at you and groan, but I need as many kicks in the ass as possible.

And now, I am off to finish cleaning up my office in hopes of writing there again! Happy end of summer!

where did that damn sun go?

2007-07-26T11:14:00.000-07:00

Okay, so when summertime hits the Pacific NW, it is often difficult to get anything done. The sun lures me outside with a book to the hammock; I want to garden excessively; it just feels too nice in the world to look at my lap top's screen for too long. Especially when you are writing a book about child suicide in Mormon Utah. BUT, because this is the Pacific NW we are talking about, there are these weeks when the sun goes away, the clouds come, the sky performs that dang precipitation act, and it gives us encores for five days. With the yucky weather, one might think I've been eagerly holed up with my computer and plot twists. Alas, no.

This might be an exaggeration, but I believe I am actually less inclined to write on crummy summer days than nice summer days. Tuesday and yesterday aside (because yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL summer day), I have spent the last week fuming about the BLAH weather. Frankly, it wasn't just BLAH Friday and Saturday, it was muggy, downpour YUCK. Where do the weather gods think we are, the Northeast? If not for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for all-consuming company, I really would have been a poor state over the weekend.

I've tried to be productive, but it's so hard to get up when it's gray and muggy out. There's no sunshine to propel me out of the house to the library for a few hours of work. The hammock would be a damp place to set up camp with the laptop to write. And I just feel too crabby to have any constructive thoughts at all. So I actually made some headway on a project the last few days, a Amazon.com project, but writing nonetheless. Today is another gray, blah day. Will I rise above it? Think extremely productive thoughts for me and if you see the sun, will you tell it to get on back to Seattle ASAP?

For a tiny bit of sunshine in your day, here is a picture I took with my new Canon Power Shot yesterday during a short break from writing from a blanket in the front yard. It's of my neighbor cat, Muffin, who can be quite distracting in her own cute way.

audience? Shmaudience!

2007-06-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

I am feeling a little Grrrr today. Actually, I've been a little Grrrr in general for two weeks now, but overall, I am coming out of that funk. The Grrrr feeling today, however, stems from feedback. A writing colleague asked me the old "who is your intended audience for this novel" question. S/he isn't the first, nor will s/he be the last to ask the question. But this is also perhaps the 4th time s/he has asked this very question after reading my work for some time. And again, s/he isn't the first nor the last to ask me this question multiple times over years of reading from my novel. And this makes me feel GRRRR.

To be honest, I am a person who puts too much value on the feedback of others. And that is dangerous to my sense of self worth--as a human, as a woman, as a writer, etc. BUT it is important for a writer to learn to receive feedback in an open-minded manner. Sometimes, I need another person's critical eye to show me what isn't working, or what is working better than I suspected. When I get the latter type of feedback, it rocks. It's like getting a pat on the head, it is validation. I can proceed with my work revitalized, with confidence. When you are writing a novel, you crave this positive feedback, because it is such a long, solitary journey, and until the day when you sell your book to a big publishing house and Oprah calls and the NYT book review runs... There are few barometers the writer can use to assure her insecure self that this is the right path, that the time spent writing this book has not been in vain, and that her writing is, in fact, good.

Then there is the former type of feedback: what isn't working. Most of the time, I actually like receiving constructive feedback about what needs clarification or feels out of sync with other parts of the book or chapter. I like it because I often know this or that part is off, maybe I'd struggled with that section. Thus the feedback validates my concerns. All about my ego, I tell you. I especially LOVE it when someone offers possible solutions. Not that the solutions are always, or often, good, or appropriate to my characters and plot. But now and then, I luck out and someone offers me a truly workable solution. LOVE that.

The feedback that has me GRRRR today doesn't necessarily fall into either the positive or the constructively negative categories. Perhaps it falls into the personal opinion category. A separate example from a few years ago: I was enrolled in a writing program with eight other novelists. Over nine months, this group read several chapters of my novel for workshop (workshop: group discussion/critique). And every time the group workshopped my work, at least five minutes of the discussion was squandered on whether the language of my protagonist Sam was too coarse for a 9th grade boy in contemporary America. Half the group thought that Sam cussed too much and that 14-year-old boys (or 10-1/2-year old girls in the case of Sam's sister) don't swear that much, still more or less innocent. The other half agreed with me: once kids learn a little profanity, they use it abundantly--it makes them feel grown up, cool, and tough. My subjective experience: Between the ages of 9 and 11, I spent the majority of my time grounded because I would call my mother a "bitch" when quarreling. My characters talk more like I did at that age than Beaver Cleaver--they are MY characters.

So it frustrated me to no end when workshop after workshop, this same discussion came up. To make the matter more aggravating, several group members would dedicate much of their written critiques to this same subjective debate: "I still wonder if a 14-year-old boy would use that language so liberally...do kids really talk that way?" Please. Give me some real feedback. Get past the surface and actually pay attention to my work. And if you can't, tell me where the swearing really doesn't work for you and where it feels more appropriate. Don't just ask the same old question.

Back to my GRRRR feeling today. Like my protagonist's ample use of cuss words, my colleague's question revolves around voice in the story. Who is my intended audience, adults or teens? The answer: I am writing a book intended for adult readers and mature young adults. Think Catcher in the Rye. It is hard to write from a teenage perspective about child suicide and a crumbling family in Mormon Utah. I struggle daily with questions about whether his vocabularly is becoming too sophisticated, too educated, too grounded--unrealistic and out of character for a teenage boy. Likewise, I struggle daily with questions about whether dialogue and scenes between Sam and his teenage friends feel too "teen-y" for an adult audience.

So I concede that the question of audience is relevant and important. When I receive feedback about a specific passage that paints Sam as too grown up, or a specific scene that resembles Saved by the Bell more than Stand by Me... that it is helpful. But please, gentle readers, do not ask me who my intended audience is again and again. Show me that you've paid that much attention to my work, like I pay attention to the work that you do. Cut the questions and go straight to the evidence; be specific and my characters and I will thank you.

I am a bad blogger.

2007-06-18T09:29:00.000-07:00

Truly.
Perhaps you wonder what I've been up to since my last post almost 2 months ago....
Here is the brief summary, in photos:

Amazon.
Gordon Ramsay cookware anyone?

Met my first nephew, Oliver at his home in NY.

Spent a week with W, J, & T at the Priest Lake cabin.

W's family tradition:

And that's about it. My final 826 Seattle field trip of the school year is this Wednesday. I'm writing about mattresses and gardening and receiving visitors. I hope to write more on the blog, but I especially want to write more on the book as the summer commences. Think productive thoughts!

p.s. I have updated my synopsis. If you are interested, the link is in the sidebar....

still alive!

2007-04-21T15:10:00.001-07:00

Keeping up a blog, with remotely intelligible content, is hard! Especially with travel and taxes and trying to stay organized... Oh, and writing too...

The work I'm currently doing on my novel doesn't resemble writing as much as assembling a patchwork quilt--or the crocheted blanket I made for Rachel and Charity's wedding last year. The blanket is made up of crocheted granny squares. Here's an example of a granny square for all you in the dark:
The squares in this blanket are in a cornflower, eggplant, scarlet, and dark moss (= blue, purple, pink, and green). And I'd estimate that there's about 80 of them right now. The squares are quick to make, but then I have to make enough in the right colors and then attach them together. It's slow, so I decided that the blanket should grow over time, like their love. Aw, shucks.
Now, let me try to tie this metaphor together. The chapter(s?) of my book I'm currently working on is made up of assorted scenes and descriptions, pieces of the story that strive to:
A. move the action forward through several weeks of time, without losing the narrative thread.
B. break up, while gradually advancing several separate plot lines (Dad's growing attachment to the Church of LDS; Mom's continuing abuse of alcohol; Sam, Charlotte, and Ozzie's gradual decryption of Amber's coded music)
C. prevent the author from getting bogged down in any one particular plot angle in the interest of finishing this book this year.
Hopefully, the resulting chapter will be amazing and complete in itself, like Rachel and Charity's blanket. Right now, though, it's pretty heady. I spend a lot of time parsing out the data I wish to reveal and wondering how much time the teenagers would realistically take to dissect Amber's code. Trying to figure out what day of what week X and Y take place and in what relation to Z. Crafting what I hope are seamless transitions back and forth through time and place. I have much of the decryption scenes written already, which was exhausting in an entirely different way, but the scenes with the mom and dad are new. I really like writing those, actually. I really like writing all of it. But the snapshot scenes with the parents are quick writes and more or less self contained--like making single granny squares.
On that note, I invite you all to make your own granny square. They're super easy, and you can learn how right here. Also, for those of ye interested in my latest knit hat creations, I've put them on my MySpace.com page for the viewing pleasure of those of you who double as MySpace WebBots. Check them out!

Distractions du jour

2007-04-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

Creating avatars of self

Knitting hats for friends' new babies!
(Oliver models the skull cap)

Oohing and awing over my spring flowers
(I planted the tulips me-self!)

Trying to diagnose this rhodie ailment

Baseball! Baseball! Baseball!
(Felix KO's 12 on opening day!)

Very secular Easter festivities
(from l. to r.: angry egg and femme egg, bunnyectomy 2007, spiral and nipple eggs)

Taking pictures of my nun in bloom

And this...

Big Bad Synopsis

2007-04-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

So I now have a link in my sidebar that leads you to a synopsis in progress of my novel in progress! Maybe my musings on character will make more sense now. As is the nature of "in progress," plot/character, etc. are subject to change or rearrange. In fact, I have an another synopsis that outlines potential edits for each chapter! I won't subject you to that though. You need a little surprise.
I really HATE writing chapter-by-chapter synopsi (what is the proper plural of synopsis?). You'll see that my synopsis is ridiculously verbose and detailed. Every detail seems important to me, so I never can bear to leave anything out. When I have finished a full draft and have revised to coherency, I hope to have a friend read the whole thing to:
A. give me feedback on the coherency factor, -and-
B. volunteer to write a concise, brief chapter-by-chapter synopsis to submit to editors and lit agents.
If you think you are that awesome person, step right up!
And now, I depart to work more on Chapter 16, which may not end up being CHapter 16, but perhaps 17. Or 15. Or....

I have been writing. Really!

2007-04-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

I've been slacking off on my writing blog. I admit it. I have been writing though. And thinking about writing and structure and plot and character development and all those fun, fun things! But I also have been doing a little of this:Writing content for Amazon.com. Good times. This has been my primary source for dough for three full years now. And guess what? I'm about to re-up my contract as an independent contractor (i.e. freelance writer) for yet another year. To which I ask myself, "Are you mad?" Sure, I whine about my Amazon assignments all the time. You would too if you had to think up content about some of these things:

A log splitter!

A hose connection set!

A Ferrari projection clock!

A leopard-pattern hooded pet bed!

The Happy Dog Toys Bubble Kitty Cat Toy!

Lone Star Metal Detector!

Happy tableware set!

Rachael Ray fondue set!

AND, of course, these guys!

But for all my whining, I must admit that Amazon.com does pay good money, that I sometimes enjoy writing about this junk, that I have definitely learned about what you might use to reseed a lawn and what LCD stands for (liquid crystal display), and that I know more about grammar and style than before. This Amazon.com deal works for my erratic writing swings, frequent travel plans, occasional teaching gigs, and volunteer adventures. So, yes, sign me up for another year. Anything to keep the bills paid until A Bug Stuck in Amber comes to print. Don't you dare ask me when that will happen.

Lately, I've worked on drafting a new time line for the novel's plot to unfold. Right now, I'm not worrying about implementing new time line, but I've got two Publisher calendars: one for the time line that the book currently follows, and one for what I'd like it to ultimately follow. This detail stuff takes WAY too much time and I suspect no one will notice any lingering inconsistencies in the long run, aside from myself and my writer cronies. I've also been working on some decryption scenes where Sam, Ozzie, and Charlotte decipher a message left in a piece of music that Amber mailed before her suicide. Another task that takes WAY too much time. Word count progresses slowly, but this groundwork is essential as I start trying to tie up all the loose ends. That's the goal. Start tying them all up. All 100 of them. This thing is going to be epic. And great, I think.

As I sign off to walk around the block on a GORGEOUS spring day in Seattle, it occurs to me that I should probably put up a chapter synopsis and character outline to provide blog readers with some context for my novel ramblings. I shall work on that. Tomorrow.

Eavesdropping on Bus Rt. 65 Northbound, 3/13/07

2007-03-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Future Character #1: white male, average height/weight, glasses, ~22 years old. He shared his side of a cell conversation with Bus Rt. 65 Northbound on 3/13/07, around 4:15 PM.

"Oh, you'll enjoy this. I went on a date with this girl on Saturday and we're talking, getting to know each other and stuff, and suddenly she asks me, 'Are you a Mama's Boy?' And I said, 'A what?' She goes, 'You know, a Mama's Boy? You just seem like you really love your mother. Do you?' And I said, 'well, yeah, i love my mother.' Yeah, I knew you'd love that."

"I'm totally pissed at Randy. He's changed his MySpace page and he put this girl before me on his top 8.... I mean, bros before hoes! And she's old.... She is, I mean she's more wrinkly than you!...Yeah, you just want her for a daughter-in-law so you'll look good.... No, I mean she's really old; she's like 36 or something."

Yeah, I know. That's SO old. I guess I used to think that was old too. I'm much more shocked by how this guy just rattles off to his MOM "Bros before Hoes." CLASSY.

The best littl' character - part two!

2007-03-13T16:57:00.000-07:00

Yesterday's post discussed the 5 different methods to present a character. My exercise of using the latter 4 methods on the character of Gil "Grandpa" Myers from my novel continues with:

4. Speech. “I do not use profanity, nor am I prone to slang. Such terms degrade the English language. I’m not against the occasional conjunction, abbreviation, or compound words. Clearly, I am not a purist, but I have standards.
"Do you know what a ‘leading question’ is, young man? You best become acquainted with that expression, as I ask leading questions frequently. Asking a leading question often puts me in a position of power over the question’s target: if the recipient does not know the answer, a concise definition on my part creates a dichotomy of teacher versus pupil. If the recipient does know the answer, I have forced them to bring up my topic, thus they must submit to the discussion as I would have it run. I also find sarcasm useful now and then. I do enjoy jokes, but most tend towards vulgar or insult my personal code of ethics, and I have never been skilled in crafting my own.
"I do not take the Lord’s name in vain. While I seek to be judicious to those who uphold a different faith or code of conduct than I do, it is my duty as a Saint to try to illuminate the true faith to those disillusioned souls and to correct those in the Church who have strayed, whether inadvertently or by choice. For it shall come to pass that our Holy Father will meet us on Judgment Day to separate the true believers from the ambivalent, the misled, and the perfidious, admitting our souls to the Celestial, the Terrestial, or Telestial Kingdoms, or condemning us to suffer the outer darkness for eternity. On that day, I will rise up into the Celestial Kingdom to live forevermore. This I know is true, and I intend to share that information with every man, woman, or child within hearing so that they may choose to join me in paradise."

5. Thought. Deliberate. I must be deliberate. I cannot afford to make missteps, to reveal the inner blackness which chews at the lining of my stomach, my intestines, my lungs, and my liver. Secrets are made for keeping and I am a man of my word. The black thoughts only come to me when I become idle. I must focus on activities and following through with every intention to keep the receptors and signalers in my mind well-greased and moving. Stillness allows too much space for those thoughts to slip through and sink roots. I will not be consumed by the evils I have witnessed, committed, feared, or thought. I must stay focused. The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not wont. He makes me lay down in green pastures. He binds me in His strong rope, my body and soul bared face-up to the spring sky. The wind hurries the pale gray clouds across the cornflower sky to clear space for the charcoal thunderheads that roll in from the west. He leaves me there and the thunder croaks and claps, the lightening flicks and flacks. He leaves me there and the hailstones pelt my body, freckling my skin with red splotches. He leaves me there and the rains begin, pouring down and blowing hard, beating against my skin until it is scrubbed clean of the rotten sin. He leads me not into temptation, but delivers me from evil, each and every time he leaves me there.

An Elder duck.

This exercise was so liberating for me! I really enjoyed stepping into another character's voice. Especially this character, who my point-of-view (POV) character Sam only knows in a very specific, limited capacity. Sam knows his grandfather as someone who disapproves of his mother, as a patronizing, headstrong father to Sam's father, as a Mormon blow-hard, as an old man, and as an occasionally doting grandfather. But it's what Sam doesn't know about Gil that creates an intriguing character. So I'm glad I've delved deeper. Especially because I finished a 30+ page chapter today that revolved heavily around the two of them!

I did page and word counts today, so I could pat myself on the back. I have written 302 pages on my novel (Times New Roman, size 12, double space)! I can't believe I'm over 300 pages. Per word count, I'm around 89,000 words. The average first novel falls in between 80,000 and 100,000 words. SO by that measuring stick, I should be about done. Except I'm not. There's so much more to write! But after I finish the full first draft, there will be so much to cut and trim and condense. Even though I've plenty of work ahead of me, it is still so exciting to look
at this work's growth from when I began writing it three years ago and now.

The best littl' character in the whole wide world!

2007-03-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

After two weeks away from my novel (bad, Jess, bad!), today I journeyed to my not-so-secret-but- adequately-not-stimulating writing hideaway in the Natural Science Stacks of the UW's South Allen library. Opening up my current chapter-in-progress, I realized how disconnected I can become from my work in a short period of time. Note to self: if it feels like a steep incline after two weeks away, don't you even think about taking two months away like in years past! Ugh.
Luckily, I brought my notes from the writer's conference last week. I flipped my notebook open to see what I'd scribbled to myself, inspired by different talks and workshops over the three days. After getting through the fairly vague agent/editor notes from the first morning, I came to my notes on Gail Tsukiyama's fireside chat, entitled "Body & Soul: Developing Character."
I've always found that character development is somewhat intuitive for me, right up there with dialogue and voice. Plot--trickier. Setting--oh boy, bores me to tears. But I have been struggling with a particular character in my novel of late, Grandpa Myers. I took a look at my notes from Gail's talk. For example: to help the author further understand a character (particularly a bland character, a small character, or one who is really bad or really good), Gail suggests the author create/discover a defining moment in that character's life, often from childhood. A miscarriage. Witnessing a deadly house fire at a neighbor's. A drunk man peeing in the yard. Winning first place in the spelling bee. Basically, the most important moment in determining who that character will come to be, be it a wonderful moment or ghastly or just incomprehensible. I'm still weighing Grandpa Myers' big moment in my mind. I'll keep you posted.
The other thing that caught my eye is more along the "intro to creative writing" line. She briefly outlined the five methods for presenting character:
1. Author’ interpretation (or POV character’s, i.e. my protagonist, Sam)
2. Appearance
3. Action
4. Speech
5. Thought
As an exercise to get closer to Grandpa Myers, I decided to write a paragraph for four of the five methods. I excluded #1 because my novel employs this method throughout due to Sam's first-person POV. Anyway, I thought I'd post a few of these here today, the rest tomorrow. First, here are a few basic facts to root you with Gil "Grandpa" Myers: 70-year-old white male from the imaginary Salt Lake City suburb of Micah Hills. Widower, wife Ellen has been deceased approximately 10 years. Two children, Kevin, 42, and Sarah, 34. Four grandchildren, Sam (14) & Amber(deceased, 10-1/2) Myers, and 2-1/2-year-old twins Julian and George Harmon. LDS. That's the basic lowdown. So:

2. Appearance. Gil “Grandpa” Myers looks younger than his 70 years. Relatively fair in complexion, he burns then tans in the summer, though his long, parsnip-like nose and the skin on his high cheek bones stay pink throughout the year. His skull, like his nose, is long and narrows from his crown down to his chin. A scar the shape of an bow tie marks his skin between the right-side jut of his chin and his lower lip: he got it on a Boy Scout cookout when Hubert Ellis turned around too quickly with his hot-dog roasting stick in hand, the tip aglow from just poking the campfire’s cinders. Gil has blue eyes the color of sky on a clear winter morning, but icier—there are only minute flecks in its blue canvas giving no texture to his irises, like they’d been polished with a sealant that rendered them unable to let dust particles in, or allow teardrops out. His eyebrows don’t have much of an arch, nor do they dip down, but run in modestly bushy horizontal lines over his eyes, separated by a centimeter or so.
He is bald on top, but still has abundant hair around his ears and the back of his head. He keeps it long enough on his left side that he can comb the hair over his massive bald spot. His hair used to be blond, but now it is white as snow. Gil never has grown facial hair, aside from a few days worth of stubble.
He has broad shoulders and strong arms, but overall, he’s kept himself fairly lean, aside from a healthy-sized belly, about the size of bread loaf. Gil’s tall, like his son, maybe 6’2”. Despite his height, broad shoulders, and strong forearms, his hands are small, with short fingers but wide palms. When he curls his fingers in to make a fist, his hand takes on the look of a croissant—the skin withered rather than flaking, the surface accentuated by a network of indigo veins rather than folds of dough. His size-12 feet correlate with his height appropriately.

3. Action. Gil never walks idly. He takes large steps with his feet, placing his heel down first then dropping his toes with a concise snapping motion. His shoulders jut ahead of the rest of his torso, following the pace of his footsteps. His movements tend to be quick more than slow, but not so fast that he becomes clumsy or cedes a smidgen of control. He is not prone to flamboyant gestures; he doesn’t wave his hands in the air to emote nor kick things in fits of rage. When he uses his hands while speaking, the gestures are quick and contained within the range of his torso. He rarely makes sudden movements, nor is he prone to abrupt stops. Gil Myers is deliberate with his every action, be it physical or behavioral.

Tomorrow, I get really down and dirty as we compare how Grandpa Myers speaks and how he thinks. WILD. I swear.

Rejuvenation and Resolution

2007-03-04T16:07:00.000-08:00

I'm declaring March 1 my new "New Year's Day."

You don't have to follow my example. I mean, really, who am I to tell you that New Year's Day should actually fall two months after January 1st? And about two weeks after Chinese/Korean New Year's? Or a week and a half after Mardi Gras and Fat Tuesday? You are not obliged to follow my example. In fact, you shouldn't. Everyone should have their own personalized New Year's Day--the day of the year that gets you pumped up, enthusiastic, and ready to start something anew (or new). For me, that day has, for the last two years, fallen around March 1st and the Whidbey Island Writers Conference.

Anyone who has visited Whidbey Island--or any of the San Juans in the Puget Sound/Strait of Juan de Fuca waters--knows that this is a stunning region to pass a few days. Rain or sun or snow, I don't care. It is divine. Wednesday evening, I arrived on Whidbey during a surprisingly thorough snowfall. I took a Community Transit bus from the U-District. I have to commend my bus drivers who, due to the sudden onset of the snow storm, did not have chains on and had to drive up and down some steep, snowy hills amid a plethora of Bad Seattle Snow Drivers (BSSDs--I swear, this city takes the cake, abandoning cars on floating bridges and express ways to walk home instead). My drivers were wise to show so much caution as we passed two jack-knifed Community Transit buses en route to the Mukilteo/Clinton ferry boat. On board, I listened as people complained about their treacherous commutes. My writer friend, John, met me near the ferry terminal on the Island and we drove back to our temporary homestead, a 2-bedroom house that perched atop a hillside overlooking Admiralty Bay and Bush Point. The roads were dark except for the headlights on John's Honda, which illuminated the snow-glazed pines along the road. The world felt so still. Outside the cabin, I studied rabbit footprints in the snow. The clouds parted to let the moon sneak out, along with a handful of scattered stars. Inspiration curled its way from the snow beneath my feet, through my toes and ankles, thighs and hips, belly and breastbone, up into my lips, eyes, ears, crown, my mind. I let it seep through me and in the morning, when I awoke, I was hungry for more.

I spent Thursday walking in sunlight, watching the snow melt gradually--dropping off the boughs of trees and power lines overhead and mushing under my hiking boot heels. I ventured to the South Whidbey Island State Park to wander. A far-off deer and I engaged in a staring contest. The deer won. In the blue morning sky, a bald eagle circled. In the afternoon, when the clouds came in again, I walked down to Bush Point to the beach and collected beach glass. A blue heron hunched over on a piling 25 yards from the shore. I went to bed refreshed and ready to learn.

For me, the conference began officially on Friday. After a ho-hum keynote address by an editor at Hyperion (she was really all over the map) and a panel of lit. agents and editors (interesting, but I'm not there yet), we broke into our groups for the afternoon Fireside Chats. Fireside Chats are the WIWC's signature event, where island residents graciously welcome writers into their homes for an afternoon of discussion. There are fireside chats for most interests and genres of writing: publishing, nature writing, humor, screenplay, poetry, short stories, literary fiction, mystery, romance/erotica, childrens, YA (young adult). Both years, I signed up for the literary fiction chat. While I enjoyed myself thoroughly last year with oral storyteller Jack Dalton and novelist Chris Bohjalian, this year blew last year out of the water. If you know anything about contemporary literary fiction, you should recognize some of these ladies and you'll know that they are pretty much literary ROCK STARS: Dorothy Allison. Karen Joy Fowler. Gail Tsukiyama. Jane Hamilton. AND our island resident host? Elizabeth George, author of the Inspector Lynley books and subsequent BBC/PBS Mystery! series. I about blew a brain gasket. No joke.

So I could have been speechless and googly eyed all day. But these women are so down-to-earth, funny, smart, and thoughtful, I forgot to be awestruck. After listening to them talk about creating vivid characters (Karen), powerful openings (Gail), the quandaries of plot in literary fiction (Jane), and writing violence (Allison--by far the most incredible talk I heard all weekend), I felt so safe and warm, why not ask them my questions? I asked them what they did to make ends meet before they published successful novels and what they do now. And I asked them how they retained balance in their lives between their work and their personal relationships with family and friends. And they each gave me the most thoughtful responses: Making ends meet before? Odd jobs and husbands and sheer desperation. Making ends meet now? Teaching at conferences, serving as writers as residence, judging literary contests, husbands, short story sales, an advance now and then. Balancing art and relationships? Apparently this struggle doesn't ever stop--Karen said her marriage almost collapsed in the first few years of her writing success, Dorothy tries to take an away residency every other year that avails her alone time to write, and Gail is the single girl, though not necessarily by choice. The most beautiful thing about these gals is their tremendous friendship. They're best friends! I am so excited about the prospect of making such awesome writer friends, and I covet those I already have--there is nothing like spending a few days with a group of like-minded artists who know how to laugh too.

The weekend offered more opportunities to learn from seasoned writers and meet others who are in the throes of that first novel too. I could go on and on and on. But I've already over-indulged my urge to gush. So, a new year begins today. I WILL finish a complete draft of my novel this year. I will also post here about writing much more, as apparently the agents like to see that. Some posts will be about my writing adventures (like this one), some will be more craft focused, and some will be excerpts of my writing. I promise not to post bad poetry--at least not often. And only for laughter's sake.

Word Count--day three

2006-11-01T18:16:00.000-08:00

A better day! And with only an hour and a half to spare!

Word Count--day two

2006-10-31T16:01:00.000-08:00

word count--day one

2006-10-30T22:40:00.000-08:00

So not lots of words today, but I'm writing an intense scene and every word feels weighted. I hope to crank out more tomorrow. Maybe if I can produce a little more each day than the day before.... I plan to document AT LEAST my weekly word count, if not daily, through out the month, in my own NaNoWriMo of sorts!

Bright things and some less so...

2006-10-27T15:25:00.000-07:00

The light today is not as gray as I'd anticipated, rather the sun breaks through the clouds and I feel something akin to cheerful, even though I've stowed plenty of less harmonious feelings just below my skin. I spent forty minutes digging out unwanted shoots of holly in back while waiting to change over the laundry. My hope is to plant some tulips and other spring-flowering bulbs there in a month or so, after they've chilled appropriately.

This is what I call a transition day. I polished off two weeks of Amazon work last night and sent off the invoice today. Now I'm trying to get myself re-acclimated, into a more creative frame of mind, so that I can pursue novel work in the right head space. That's probably not going to happen today though, as here it is, already 3:30 on a Friday afternoon. WW is working tomorrow though, so perhaps I can make some creative writing use of my Saturday morning/afternoon, if the fall pleasantness doesn't lure me outdoors.

The nice thing about transition days is that they allow me to attend to the little things that I've put off. Thus, I made the bed fresh and washed the clothes. I practiced piano for an hour, then weeded and did a crossword puzzle. Next I'll do the stack of dishes. I can't wait to get rid of those. And before we go to friends' for dinner, I'll try to squeeze a bike ride or a run to feel something akin to fit.
Tomorrow, the dishes won't be bugging me. That plot of earth is cleared up, the clothing is washed and, with a little luck, folded and put away. Maybe I'll feel the temptation to clean the bathroom or mop the kitchen, but maybe I can wait until Sunday for that too. Tomorrow, I'll dig in again with Sam and the Myers family, with Sam's friends Charlotte and Osbaldo, with the mystery of Amber's suicide, and junior high in the fictional Utah town of Mica Heights, or is it Hills? You see?!!

November is Nanowrimo--National Novel Writing Month. The idea behind Nanowrimo is pretty much what it says: write a novel in a month. The official website allows folks to register for regular posting, reading, and support. If Nanowrimo didn't require you to start a novel from scratch, I would LOVE to use this network. If only to post my daily word count and track my progress in a supportive network! It's all about having someone to hold me accountable for my productivity--even if that person is a complete stranger. It's that notion that someone might look to see how my progress is coming along on a regular basis.

But, since I need to finish my novel in progress before starting anything new, I think I shall post my weekly word counts here instead through November. I'll break it down day by day, for the perspective. NO one reads this thing, as far as I can tell; but it is a public blog, and it does link off of a friend's blog who many people I know and love do read, and which i often comment on. So perhaps someone will see that picture of driftwood by my name and drift over, stepping up to be that person who, unbeknowest to me, holds me accountable for my words....

Coolest Fundraiser EVER!

2006-10-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Of late, I have been volunteering for this great organization, 826 Seattle. 826 Seattle is part of a greater 826 network started by Dave Eggers of McSweeney's fame in NYC. The organization is committed to fostering creativity through writing with children, via creative writing classes, after school tutoring, publishing endeavors, and field trips. In particular, I've been leading Storytelling field trips and performing as an "actress" in the Screenwriting field trips on Wednesdays or Thursdays once a week.
In the Storytelling field trip, I help an elementary class develop the four criteria for a good story (setting, characters, plot, conflict), and then we write the first three pages of a story together. At the end of the third page, we leave it at a cliffhanger, at which time all the kids go to the writing tables and write their own ending to the story. We print off the first three pages and the illustrations (drawn on the spot by an artistically gifted volunteer) and bind them into books for the kids on the spot, with photo stickers and about the author stickers on the back. VERY COOL! I love doing this! I feel so lucky to have the opportunity to spread the love of writing zany stories with kids from all over Seattle!
Anyway, below, you'll see a banner and blog link for 826 Seattle's latest fundraiser. AND it rocks! If I could grow a mustache, oh, I would! If you feel inclined to pledge a mustache farmer, I suggest Brock, Tim G., Tim M., or Joel, because they volunteer with me. Otherwise, help spread the word! Go youth literacy and creative writing!

Life is short

2006-09-21T16:55:00.000-07:00

Today I received an e-mail from a very good friend, telling me that her father had been struck and killed by a car. He was crossing the street to pick up a paper. Simple task and suddenly his life was over. I'd only met him once, at my friend's wedding, where he patiently hosed the country club patio after one of his nephews puked up his dinner after too much good cheer. My friend's father was so cheerful, even as he dealt with puke, because he was so happy for his daughter on her wedding day. And that alone made me think he was delightful.

Of late, many people around me have lost someone. My stepmother's father passed away in mid-August after a brief illness related to lymphoma and a weak heart. Don was in his mid-80's, and he'd lived a full life, with a devoted, loving wife of 60 years (their anniversary was just two days before he passed), five good-looking and kind children, a baker's dozen of grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. When he went, the family felt a mixture of relief and sadness: relief because Don's suffering had ceased and he had gone to another place, and sadness because he was gone. In the month since his passing, my father and stepmother have often commented on his widow Esther's remarkable resilience, how she's been a rock. After seeing her last weekend, I can attest to that. She's 85 years old and she still has some fire in her belly. Even so, my stepmom still finds herself crying each time she drives her mother home, worried sick about her mom being there alone and sad about her father's departure. But Esther wants to stay there, with his things and hers, like always.

Don's time had clearly come, but it is more difficult to say that about my stepfather Tim's sister Robin. Robin passed away two weeks ago after complications related to a last-ditch effort surgery to save her life after a long battle with cancer. She turned 54 on the 7th of September and died early on the 8th. Her oldest son turned 18 years old on the 9th. He started his senior year two days before her death and Robin's younger son, almost 15, started his freshman year in high school. Now their father, divorced from Robin since the youngest was two, has suddenly decided the boys should move from the Pacific NW to Cleveland where he's a surgeon. He's never had time for them before and the boys want to stay with their stepfather. So that's ugly. It's hard not to feel angry at the fates that be for taking Robin away at this important juncture of her children's lives. She was so confident too, that it would be okay. She thought she might be able to go home that night after the surgery until the doctor told her she'd definitely need some time to recuperate. Was that naive or a tremendous show of strength? I don't know. But I definitely learned some things at the memorial--about Robin, about her family (MY family), about the boys she raised. She left too soon, but she did her job--of all the people who spoke about Robin that day, only her boys really acknowledged her greatness and her challenges on earth. Only they could paint her with complete honesty and understanding. They're amazing boys with tremendous futures. I wish Robin could see it. Who knows, maybe she can.

There's been other untimely passings this year. A friend's mother in her mid-50s--cancer. A community musician who frequented one of our concert series--sudden heart attack, age 44. A family friend of Wes, in his 90's, is expected to pass any day. I wish they wouldn't go, but there's nothing I can do about it. This is all I can do or say: We are here today. Let yourself love and be loved. Open yourself to the full possibility of each day and minute and live it. Unload your secrets and unsaid words. Feel and watch and listen. Do the things you dream of doing. Take time to savor your family and friends, the essential relationships that tie one person to another. Care and Laugh and Share. DON'T HOLD YOURSELF BACK.

writing tithing

2005-10-16T16:50:00.000-07:00

So this one's for me. and so i can leave timmy comments. but as my novel requires great study of the church of latter day's saints, i know all about tithing, the gifting of ten percent of a household's salary to the church. well, this blog is going to be my way of giving to my church of writing. i write to live. and i think that writing fiction requires more than just indulging my imagination's fantasies. it demands reflection and research and practice and exercise. so this is where i give back to my fiction writing, to think through ideas, try new things, document progress and passion and agony, as i work to bring my first masterpiece to fruition....