FEAR

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...

audience? Shmaudience!

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.

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

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!

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.