Criticism: A Writer's Biggest Fear and Best Friend

I've never skydived, I'm not keen on motorcycles and I don't drink, gamble or otherwise engage in risky behaviors. Just the same, I consider myself to be something of an adrenaline junkie. I say this because I'm a writer and if you're a writer, too, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.

For you non-writers let me try to explain.

The writing itself is the easy, fun part. You sit down, pick up a pen or turn on a word processor and let your imagination have a field day. You, and only you, have complete control over your story from beginning to end as you write. You get to choose everything from the color of your character's eyes to the world they live in to who they fall in or out of love with. You are a God, happily creating in your own little universe.

The hard part comes after you type "The End." Now you have to let others read what you wrote, knowing full well they are going to pick it apart and criticize it from one end to the other. All that lovely control you had while writing is stripped away, given instead to your reader. Whether you ask members of your family, your writing group, or classmates to read your manuscript, you do so knowing it is going to hurt. If they're any good as critics they'll show no mercy at all for your finer feelings, nor will you want them to. As much as it might hurt to read what they have to say, all those red pen marks, strike-outs and scribbles in the margins are more valuable that gold. You will use every drop of feedback your reader provided to revise your manuscript, then send it out for review all over again, time after time, until your manuscript is as reader-centric as you can possibly make it.

Of course, knowing how important feedback is doesn't make it any easier to put your darlings out there, ripe for the killing. Because most good writers put so much of themselves into what they write accepting, much less embracing, criticism can be extremely difficult. Yet just as the skydiver digs down deep to find the courage to fling himself from the plane, if you are serious about what you write you'll keep right on jumping into the void, knowing that if you trust the reader to tell you what she really thinks, by doing so she'll help you polish your manuscript to a brighter shine than you could possibly achieve alone.

Meandering no more

New Destination Ahead

You won't find the Slow Lane on any map, but I'm willing to bet you've been there, even if only briefly. You might even be there right now. For some, living in the Slow Lane means living on a shoestring. For others it means getting through a 9:00 to 5:00 job dreaming about a big break that hasn't come along yet. In other cases it means knowing you have more inside you to give or grow into, but no idea how to let it out. Simply put, The Slow Lane is that place between what your life consists of now and what you secretly know it could be.

There are a lot of walls built up between me and the things I want to do in life and the irony of it is I put most of them there myself. It is time to start taking them down, brick by brick. One of the benefits of middle age, I'm finding, is being pretty much fearless. I'm fatter and more decrepit than I was twenty five years ago (not to mention much less well-groomed), but oddly enough I like myself a heck of a lot more now than I did then. Maybe that is what's different now, what it took to be ready to finally look life in the eye and say "bring it!" I've fought more than a few battles on behalf of others over the years. Now I'm ready to start fighting a few of my own.

I may be stuck in the Slow Lane now, but my intention is to become un-stuck as soon as possible. I'm giving myself three years to buy a house, be published and be moving towards my long-term goal of writing becoming the primary way I earn my bread and butter.

Over the next few weeks I'll begin by re-categorizing my previous posts. Instead of randomly assigning categories to things I'm going to stick with just a few, namely:

Home and family: Updates and anecdotes on life as a second-time-around parent in the foster care system.

Dollars and Sense: Since money talks and bullshit walks I know making my plans a reality starts with the bottom line. Here I'll share my strategies and progress as I work to save a down payment on a VERY tight budget.

The Writing Life: As the name implies, this category will be all about the wonderful world of writing, everything from resources I've found and tools I like to status updates on my most recent WIP.

Heart and Soul: This category will be dedicated to the things it takes to keep my head in the right place, make time for self-care, and cultivate a spiritually satisfying existence through service to others.

Strategy and Planning: Every non-profit worth its salt creates and continually updates a vibrant, realistic strategic plan to ensure the change it wants to create really happens. Like most non-profits I'm working with very limited resources, so I, too, need a strategic plan to maximize my results.

Yes, I'm here in the Slow Lane right now but I'm ready to put the pedal down.

Am I still a writer if I'm not writing anything?

My netbook waiting for me on my messy desk

That is the question that has been running through my mind lately, along with all the other unanswered questions about where our lives are going.

I went into NaNoWriMo ready to kick butt. My story was planned, my plot made sense, my characters were well developed. It should have been easy to write, but it wasn't. My plot unraveled and my characters started to annoy me. Thinking maybe I was trying to squeeze a sequel out of characters that simply didn't have one in them, I switched stories halfway through and kept on plugging. Having something totally new to write about worked for awhile, but I never really felt passionate about that story, either. While I could see it's potential it was as if I was viewing it through plexiglass. I could see it, but not access it. On November 30th I crossed the finish line and technically "won" Nano for a second time, but it was a hollow victory.

Although I have sat myself down in front of the computer every single morning since with the intention of writing, and have, in fact, blogged regularly, I still haven't been able to get my fiction writing back into the groove again. Eventually it occurred to me what my problem is; I can't be a fiction writer right now because I'm too busy being the protagonist in a story that isn't over yet. The kids, their issues, the uncertainty of our lives are the threads of the real-life story that I'm living. Getting through the plot twists that pepper our days with tension is taking all of my creativity and imagination with none left for fictional characters. Until this is over (whatever "over" ultimately consists of), there is simply no other story I can possibly think about or try to tell.

In answering this question I realized something else, too. By middle age most of us are well entrenched in ourselves. We know who we are and what we're about. We've left the angst and questioning of our earlier years behind and, for better or worse, we simply are who we are. Self-awareness is supposed to be one of the perks that make up for thicker waistlines, graying hair and the emergence of wrinkles and I liked to think I had it. Turns out I thought wrong. I went into 2012 believing I was one person and I'm leaving it realizing that maybe I'm not that person after all. This year has been so intense, has pushed me so far beyond my limits, I truly believe it has changed who I am, and not necessarily for the better. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that my perception of who I am has changed. Either way, certain things about myself that I thought were true and absolute were not. It is very sobering to look into yourself and see somebody you don't like looking back. Creating fiction is great when writing, but not so great when living, so I console myself with the thought that at least now the things I know about myself are real, even if some of them aren't pleasant.

As uncomfortable as some of my self-discovery this year has been, as all-engulfing as the children and their needs and the uncertainty of our futures are, having all the superficial things removed has had it's benefits. One thing that has come into sharper focus as other things have been stripped away is the fact that I am, essentially, a creative person. I am a writer, whether I am writing right now or not. I am an artist, whether I am creating art right now or not. These things are not choices I've made or attitudes I've cultivated, they are the elemental components of who I am as a person.

Over the years I've done many things that I've wanted to do, many others because I've had to do them and still others because I thought I should do them. What 2013 will bring remains unknown, but I intend to do more of what I want to do, what I need to do, which is to create. While I would like to ultimately create words or art, for now I'll focus on creating healing and change in the lives of three hurt little kids.

Sliding across the Nano Finish Line, Slow Lane Style

Well, I did it. Last night I dragged myself across the finish line during the very last half hour of NaNoWriMo 2012. My official word count came in at just over 52,000 words. I'm not quite sure how that happened, because by my own count I should have come in at around 50,500 or so. I might have accidentally copied-and-pasted part of my last chapter twice when validating, but I'm not sure. All I know is I did it. I stayed in the game and I crossed the finish line, despite life constantly trying to get in the way.

I wish I could say I produced a complete draft of a novel, but I didn't. I started out with one idea, then switched to another. In reality I was starting over completely, halfway through, but keeping my original text for purposes of word count. So in the end although I did write the requisite fifty thousand words during November, they weren't all part of the same story. But you know what? I'm okay with that. My goal this year wasn't so much to write a novel as it was was to prove to myself that I can still do this with three little kids in my life.

Yet I almost didn't make it. After the very difficult events of Thanksgiving weekend I very nearly gave up. I worried I had lost too much time. I felt defeated. But then after lying awake thinking about it for two nights in a row, I decided I wasn't going to go down without a fight. It wasn't easy and it meant getting up extra early and going to bed extra late, but I buckled down and got back in the game. Once I had made that decision the story flowed, the words appearing from reserves I didn't even know I had.

In the end I made it across the finish line with a Slow Lane twist. At about 10:30 p.m. a neighbor started banging on our front door, as if she were trying to batter it down. She has some issues and, I suspect, was off her meds. Whatever the reason she was insisting - loudly and aggressively - that we were doing things to her car and trying to choke her with gasoline fumes. To thwart us in doing these things she had built a giant barricade around her car in the driveway with trash cans, one of which had tipped over somehow. She took this to mean that we were at it again and came pounding on our door to have it out with us over these supposed high jinx of ours. So in the middle of Nano I had to call our landlord and ask for help to defuse this very awkward, somewhat scary situation. I swear, I think I wrote the last three chapters on pure adrenaline after that.

So what comes now, post-Nano? Well, I've made some lovely new Wrimo friends who I hope to continue to keep in contact with. I would like to keep going with my revised story idea, see if I can't produce a full first draft before year-end. And between now and next NaNoWriMo 2013 I know I need to do something to improve my craft, not to mention overhaul my spotty grasp of grammar and punctuation. My life changed so much this year I don't even dare imagine where I'll be or what I'll be doing at this time next year. All I know for sure is when November rolls around, I'll be writing.

Halfway to the NaNoWriMo Finish Line

Yesterday I hit the half-way mark in my NaNoWriMo novel, meaning I've officially crested the summit of the hill. Starting today whatever I write will begin my decent down the other side towards the finish line.

I have to say, the view from up here is really something. For example, look over there. Do you see that? What is it? Oh . . . wait . . . that's just the laundry I haven't put away for the last two weeks. Never mind, don't look at that. Look over here instead and you'll see . . . dust bunnies? Oh God. Forget that, too, then. Come to think of it, wherever I look I see something I didn't get to or that I let slide to be able to find time to write.

Big mess in my house or not, I'm still pleased with what I see. That is because NaNoWriMo isn't about climbing a hill or admiring the view. It is about writing. It is about making time to put words down on a page every single day, come what may. And this year, it is also about me, proving to myself that I'm still here, that who I am as an individual hasn't disappeared completely into the morass of Motherhood. If that means putting up with a few more dust bunnies than usual, that is perfectly fine by me.

One of the parties responsible for the dust bunny explosion, helping me write.

True Confessions - NaNoWriMo Edition

My manuscript in Srivener as I work my way towards 50K

One of my favorite things about doing NaNoWriMo is the chance to network and learn from other aspiring writers. To that end, yesterday on the NaNoWriMo facebook group I participate in everyone was posting links to their author sites, blogs and facebook pages so we can all link up. I happily posted mine and began making the rounds, checking out everyone else's pages. I saw some really great looking websites and facebook pages that had tons of followers and practically screamed AUTHOR! WRITER! LOVER OF BOOKS! Very impressive, indeed.

I came away feeling envious. It isn't that I feel like I'm less of a writer, because I don't. I suppose I just envy those who know, with absolute certainty, who they are and how all the pieces fit together in their lives. I too often feel that my own life is like a patchwork quilt, little pieces of various odds and ends, all thrown together, that somehow add up to a full-sized, if somewhat skimpy, existence.

Although I write and always have, I have to wonder, will I ever be A WRITER anywhere except in my own imagination? And if so, am I writer enough to do this as more than a hobby one day? Doing Nano not only reminds me of everything I love about being a writer, it also reminds me of just how far, far away I still am from ever being able to make writing anything more than a peripheral theme in my life.

Ironically, NaNoWriMo is going swimmingly otherwise. My word count is at 20K, which gives me a buffer zone of 5,000 words. My story is taking on a life of its own, going places I wasn't planning on. That is OK, though. It keeps things interesting.

How is Nanowrimo going for you?

Does gaining on your writing goals sometimes still leave you feeling melancholy with no explanation, or is that just me?

Getting Ready for Nano: My Writing Nook



Believe it or not there really is a desk under there somewhere.

Once upon a time I actually used my desk for writing and other desk-appropriate purposes. Then the kids came along, and with them a tidal wave of papers that I clearly am not doing a very good job keeping up with. My desk went from being my productivity spot to a catchall for everything I needed to get done "someday, when I have time."

There is no "someday" in Nanowrimo. It is all about "now" and making writing a top priority. I know if I'm going to really do this, then I need to make a commitment not just to the time it takes to write, but also to a dedicated space to write in. It took a lot of coffee and a significant chunk of my Sunday afternoon, but I banished the clutter monster from my desk.

Battling all that paper into submission wasn't fun but the end result is well worth it.

I Might Be Insane, But . . .

Last November I participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWiMo) for first time ever. Every night for a whole month I rushed home from work and sat hunched over my computer keyboard for hours, tapping away, striving to write a complete novel in just thirty days. I went into it not knowing if I could do it, but wanting desperately to prove to myself that I could. I had a lot of reasons for not just wanting, but needing, to do NaNoWriMo last year and I am very pleased to say that I achieved my objective. I scraped by with just over 50,000 words on the very last night. It was an amazing feeling.

Fast forward a year and just about everything in my life has changed more than I ever imagined it could. Today, only two weeks away from the start of NaNoWriMo 2012, I am sitting here at my kitchen table, enjoying my coffee and what passes for peace and quiet around here these days. I can hear the toddler jumping up and down in his crib, shrieking and giggling, and two little girls arguing over a toy. The table in front of me is covered with unopened mail, a snarled up tangle of pipe cleaners and other crafty stuff mixed in with the dregs of a goodie bag from yesterday's birthday party. In other words, I am surrounded by chaos, noise and mess. I would have to be certifiably insane to think I could do NaNoWriMo this year.

I'm doing it anyway.

I learned a lot from NaNoWriMo 2011. Aside from learning that I do indeed have it in me to write a novel, I also learned that planning and writing a novel by the seat of my pants was harrowing in the extreme. The endlessly worrying over what should come next in the plot took some of the fun out of the writing itself, so this year I'm going to plan my plot in advance and write from an outline. I will need to because I won't have the luxury of time that I had last year. This year when time to write appears I will need to get right down to business, not waste precious minutes mulling over plot twists.

Once I made the decision to go ahead I started to get really excited. While I do enjoy having the kids here, I have nevertheless been grappling with the feeling that who I am and my own needs and interests are just dissolving in the face of the constant care and attention that these kids need. Sometimes it really does feel like slowly drowning in quicksand. I know that isn't the image of motherhood portrayed by Hallmark, but I'm sure that any mom reading this will know exactly what I'm talking about. NaNoWriMo is a lifeline this year, a way to hold onto something about myself that is too important to just let sink into the ooze of mommyhood.

Another reason to look forward to NaNoWriMo this year is because it will be a family affair. My nephew, Zach, Princess Jasmine and my mom will all be doing it, too. My mom has been doing Nano for years and this past summer she and Zach collaborated on a book of short stories that they published on Amazon. Princess Jasmine is super-excited and we have been working together on planning our novels. She is planning to write about a little girl who woke up one day to find her whole family and all her friends were gone. Seems like NaNoWriMo might be a lifeline for her, too, a way to get some of her bottled up feelings out on paper and conquer them with a happy ending of her own choosing.

Crazy or not, NaNoWriMo 2012, here I come!

Going NaNoLoCo as the Finish Line Looms

What 40,000 words looks like

I can't help but think that whoever designated November as National Novel Writing Month must have had a sadistic streak. Otherwise, why, oh why, would they have scheduled the darn thing with Thanksgiving smack in the middle of the home stretch?

As you can see from the photo, I'm a good forty-thousand words in by now. I'm proud of myself for getting this far, but 40,000 words won't win the race. I know if I want to cross the finish line I've got to dig deep and pull another 10,000 words out of the hat.

The shops may be filled with crowds of eager shoppers today, but I, for one, will not be among them. I'll be holed up here in my house, writing. Fortified by lots of strong coffee, fueled by Thanksgiving left-overs, I hope to finally type the words "The End" sometime between now and Sunday night.

If you want to watch my final dash (or perhaps crawl) towards the finish line the widget below is the way to do it.

Procrastination Beat Down

When I signed up for NaNoWriMo and dedicated myself to writing a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days I knew it would be a challenge, but I didn't count on me derailing myself almost right out of the gate.

I did great for the first week. Every night once the dinner dishes had been washed and the kitchen tidied up, I sat myself down in front of the computer and made myself write for one hour. Each day that week I produced, on average, 1,600 words. I hadn't done too much plotting, but I had a basic story idea in mind to work from, and for the first few days the words flowed easily. I thought okay, I've got this, this won't be so hard after all.

Then week two dawned. Because I'd done such a great job during week one, I decided to reward myself with a little break. So I missed one day, and then somehow one day became two, and two quickly became three. Before I knew it, my "little break" took up the entire week and I found myself more than twenty thousand words behind. That's a lot, folks.

Talk about feeling like a big loser! I was so far behind I started to question whether or not I really even had it in me to do this. If I was slacking this early on, was I really meant to be a novelist? After a weekend of soul searching, I decided I wasn't going to go down without a fight. I might still be a big loser and could very well go down in flames at the end of it all, but at least I'd know I didn't quit.

As week three began I forced myself to get back into my evening writing routine, pushing myself to up my nightly word count. I even started trying to squeeze in 500 words or so before work. But I was so far behind, all I was doing was treading water. By Tuesday night I knew, if I had any hope of finishing on time, drastic action would be needed.

The very next day I took a vacation day from work. I got up early, fortified myself with some strong coffee and parked myself in front of the computer. I wrote from about 8:30 in the morning until 6:00 pm at night. I took short breaks here and there, and of course "somebody" had to make dinner, and that somebody was me, but for the most part my entire day was spent writing.

I am happy to report that I am caught up and back on schedule now. It feels great to know I conquered the twenty thousand word monster I created, not to mention my own inner fears of inadequacy. While I'm not proud of myself for procrastinating (you'd think I would have learned something after the paper shredding incident), spending a whole day totally immersed in the business of writing was an amazing experience which probably wouldn't have happened otherwise.

My NaNoWriMo Stats as of this morning

 
Below is another excerpt from my novel. Please feel free to comment.

Chapter 8

In Which Kate Gets Her Groove On

That night after Kate put Aiden to bed, she forced herself to put her daily verbal doodles aside and pick up where she had left off with Lydia instead.

“Come on, old girl. I know we can do this” she wheedled as she poised her fingers over the keyboard. She wasn't sure if she was talking to Lydia, herself, or possibly both. She hammered out a few paragraphs, but when she re-read them they sounded trite and forced. Her attempts to re-work them were no better and she began to become frustrated.

Pressing her fingers to her temples, she closed her eyes and tried to think back to when she wrote the first Lydia Thorne novel, and how she had felt doing it. She had been totally relaxed, that she knew. She had written the first book propped up on down pillows, with a glass of good wine on the night stand and a fire in the fireplace. It hadn't been hard to write a romance, relaxing in a romantic setting like that. All she had really done was take her own fantasies and put them down on paper, letting her imagination fill in the rest. It had been great fun, she recalled. She certainly hadn't been like this, all tense and pressured and hunched anxiously over the keyboard. There was no way she could call what she was doing now fun, not by any stretch of the imagination.

After another couple of attempts, with no better results, she got up and padded into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. As usual, Jill was in the living room, sitting up late grading papers in the recliner while Letterman blared in the background. Welcoming the distraction, Kate wandered into the living room, sipping her wine. After so many months of living together she knew better than to offer a glass to Jill, whose religious beliefs prohibited drinking. When Jill first told her she didn't drink, and why, Kate had felt intimidated about drinking in front of her at first. But over time, she came to realize that Jill was not the judgmental type. She probably wouldn't appreciate living with a roommate who drank excessively, of course, but Kate's occasional glass of Merlot wasn't an issue.

“Hey” Jill said casually, glancing up from the spelling test before her. “Looks like both roomies are burning the midnight oil tonight. How's the writing going?”

“Eh.” Kate shrugged. “It doesn't seem to be going at all, really. At least not with Lydia, anyway. I can churn out thousands of words about just about anything else, but whenever I sit down to work on the novel for my book contract I can't seem to focus.”

Jill made a sympathetic noise. “Would you like to trade? You can grade spelling tests; I'll whip up a few chapters for you.”

Kate tried to suppress a smile. It was hard to envision virginal little Jill writing a steamy romance. “We'd better not.” She said, deadpan. “I don't think my spelling is up to it.”

Jill put her red pencil down and leaned forward over her lap full of papers, stretching her arms and back. “Kate, I was going to talk to you about this anyway, but since you're here maybe this is the right moment.” Jill leaned back against the recliner again and turned to look at Kate. Kate's stomach did a flip-flop of premonition, fearing by the look in Jill's eye that this might not be good news.

“Donny proposed and we set a date. We're getting married!” Jill beamed, her cornflower blue eyes glowing with happiness for just an instant before she regained her composure. “The thing is I'll be giving up the apartment when the lease runs out in January. We're going to live at his place after the wedding, so rather than keep paying here, month-to-month, I'm going to live at home with my parents and save the rent money to put towards the wedding."

Kate's first thought was to be happy for her friend. She jumped up and gave her a bear hug of congratulations, the news about the apartment barely registering until she had sat down again. Not wanting to derail Jill's happiness – her eyes were glowing again – Kate kept a firm smile fixed on her face as Jill recounted the details of the proposal. As she listened she was mentally counting the weeks she would have left before she needed to move. Seven weeks, that was all. She needed to finish this novel more now than ever before, or finding herself out on the street with Aiden would be a real possibility.

Kate sat up late that night, and each night thereafter, hammering out paragraph after paragraph of trite material. It was total schlock and she knew it, but she told herself better to at least get the whole thing down on paper, then rewrite later if she had to. Lydia returned to haunt her dreams anew, mocking her. Her husky voice making snarky comments often intruded into Kate's train of thought when she was trying to write.

Kate had all but forgotten her promise to go out to the club with Araceli and Leo until Araceli reminded her of it.

“We're going pick you up at 9:00 o'clock on Sunday, so be ready, amiga! And don't forget to put on something sexy.” Araceli winked naughtily and did a little shimmy like the one Kate had done when she committed to getting her grove on again. Kate couldn't help but notice the shimmy looked a heck of a lot better on skinny Araceli.

The last thing Kate felt like doing these days was dancing. Lydia was torturing her and she was staying up way too late every night, trying to wrestle her novel into submission. When she did try to sleep, her mind kept racing through the calendar, stressing her out over how little time she had before she would need to actively start looking for somewhere else to live. But on the other hand, Aiden would be with Jeffrey for the weekend and taking a break from it all for a night might do her some good. Dancing would certainly help her burn off some of this stress, and the prospect of a few adult beverages weren't sounding too bad, either.

Kate was ready at 9:00 p.m. on the dot and waiting anxiously, peering out the window every few minutes watching for headlights pulling in. She felt like a fourteen year old, going to the big school dance for the first time. Getting dressed had been difficult. Finding something dressy that she still fit into that didn't make her look like a sparkly sausage had been so demoralizing she had almost called Araceli to cancel three times. Finally, she had settled on black slacks, strappy black heels, and a somewhat slinky (or so she tried to convince herself) yellow silk tunic with a wide black patent leather belt cinching it at the waste. Over it, she wore a simple black blazer with a little delicate jet beading around the neckline and cuffs.

She new she probably looked like she was going to a business meeting more than to a club, but it was the best she could do. She cursed herself for having gained so much weight and tried to make up for the boring clothes by carefully applying her makeup and blowing out her hair. She had managed a decent smoky eye and had tamed her hair into a decent approximation of a sleek, shiny pageboy. She had finished off her look by pulling her hair back on one side with a sparkly silver butterfly barrette, and now she was just waiting, anxiously.

At 9:40 she finally heard a honk and looked out to see Leo's battered red work van lurking beneath the street light. Her spirits sank a bit at the prospect of riding in the back of the van, but she grabbed her black satin evening bag and ran out into the dark with a feeling of excited anticipation bubbling in her stomach. Leo, smiling his usual amiable smile, opened the back of the van so she could climb in and gave her a hand up. She picked her way carefully through rolls of carpeting and padding and stepped over spackle buckets full of tools to find a spot to perch on near the front of the van. She picked a likely looking place on the end of a roll of Berber and balanced on it, bracing herself against the back of the driver's seat with one hand as Leo pulled away from the curb. Ready or not, she was on her way to the club.

If Only I Had a Time Machine

I got out for a walk at lunchtime one day last week. I live in the same town as I did in high school and on my walk I went past our old house.

The house is a cavernous old Victorian duplex. When we moved in it had peeling paint, noisy plumbing, drafty windows and a questionable roof. My parents did quite a bit of work restoring it when we lived there. Sadly, over the past 25 years or so, it has reverted to almost the same dilapidated state we found it in back in the early 80s.

Our former house, as it looks today.

Unlike many of its contemporaries, our house was intentionally built as a duplex, not converted later. Each side has a front and back staircase, but different floor plans. Best of all, there was a secret passageway under the stairs connecting the two apartments. The door looked deceptively like a regular coat closet, but guests would often be surprised when someone would unexpectedly come bursting out of it, or disappear into it and not come out again.

A couple of nights after we moved in, my sister and I were on dish duty in the kitchen after dinner. Our routine was I washed, she dried. When I finished with the last dish and turned off the tap, to our surprise the sound of running water continued. My dad opened the basement door to find a small waterfall. For the next few weeks, we had a basement full of plumbers. There was a great deal of banging, clanging and muffled cursing from beneath the floor as they battled the ancient Goliath of a boiler.

The house as it looked while we lived there.

Now I like to get out for a walk for exercise, but back in high school I dreaded the daily walk to school. It seemed like miles and miles back then, but it was really only about three blocks. Then again, considering the 50 pound backpack full of books I carried, I can see why it seemed longer than it was. Snow and ice slowing me down in winter didn't help, and neither did the angry little white dog that chased me every day, both going and coming back.

The scene of the dreaded walk to school

One of the best things about living in that house was my grandparents lived in the apartment next door. When they decided to move to Cape Cod permanently, they moved in with us on our side and the other side was rented out. While having them next door had been fun, having them in the same house was a critical mass of togetherness that frayed everyone's nerves.

My grandfather would complain long and loudly about the "bloody pipes" making noise when we took showers early in the morning before school. He also made it known that he thought we all spent entirely too much time grooming in the bathroom for our own good. "You're always picking at yourselves, it isn't natural."

Once when my brother singed some popcorn in the microwave (a new contraption we had only recently acquired and weren't too handy at using yet), grandpa insisted we were burning the place down. He marched out to the backyard and refused to come in, claiming that he couldn't breath because we were filling the house with "bloody smoke," although he seemed to have plenty of lung power available for shouting about it.

My parents, siblings and I circa 1985 or so.

Three teenagers and two octogenarians in one house lead to quite a bit of "bloody" this, that and the other thing. Usually it was something we did, but Sometimes Grandpa was the culprit. He loved to talk long walks, and one or more of us grand kids often accompanied him. Once on one of our walks he noticed the WWII tank on the lawn of the American legion. He had my sister up on top of it, looking for a way in. There had recently been an article in the paper saying if you hit a deer with your car, you could keep the meat. For awhile after he had gone out for some mysterious drives at night, but never had any luck. I think he thought the tank would up his chances. Had it not been sealed shut, I have no doubt he would have driven it home.

Another time when we were out walking, Grandpa stopped in at the florist. I thought he was going to buy flowers for Grandma, and so did the sales clerk. Instead, he asked her for several of those little packets of preservative that come enclosed with cut flowers. "I'd like to put a wee bit in my wife's orange juice of a morning." He said, deadpan. "To keep her looking nice and fresh."

Grandpa, looking very much the irascible Irishman

Being a teenager, sometimes the eccentricity factor at my house was set a little too high for my liking. There were times when I just wanted us to be more normal. But other times, when I visited friend's, and saw how bland and beige their home lives seemed by comparison, normal didn't seem quite so attractive anymore.

Walking past our old house last week, I wished I had a time machine so I could go back again for just a few hours. We lived in a lot of different houses when I was growing up, but I'll always have a special place in my heart for that big old drafty, quirky Victorian on Broad Street.

And We're Off!

Yesterday was the start of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a first draft of a 50,000 word novel in only 30 days and this is my first time doing it.

I spent October fussing around, trying to get ready. I spent lots of time reading up about things like the three act structure and outlining techniques. I even wrote several short stories, just to limber up my story telling muscles.

Before I knew it, the calendar said November 1st. Every time I wrote the date at work yesterday, I would get a little thrill, thinking today is the day. As the day wore on, the thrill turned to nerves. At home later I could sense my computer looming in the corner, its blank screen leering at me in a silent challenge.

Finally, at 6:30 I plunked myself down in front of the computer, turned it on, and told myself "You aren't moving out of this seat until you churn out at least 1,600 words." The weird thing is, once I started typing I tossed all my preparation and my carefully outlined story idea right out the window and wrote about something else altogether.

My favorite writer is Diana Wynne Jones. If you don't know her, she was J.K. Rowling before there was a J.K. Rowling (http://www.dianawynnejones.com/noflash.htm). As I opened up my word processing program last night I remembered something she once said in an interview, that she never planned her books, the stories told themselves and her job was just to write them down. At the last minute, I decided that was what I would do, too. I would let go of all the fussiness and simply let my imagination lead the way.

If I actually do manage to end the month with 50,000 words on paper, there will be plenty of polishing and editing needed to give me my busywork fix. But for this month, it is all and only about getting the story down on paper. I'm committed only to going wherever it takes me and writing simply for the joy of uncovering a story, the way an archeologist uncovers ruins, one small piece at a time.

 

Below is an excerpt from the chapter I drafted last night. Your feedback in the comments is both welcome and encouraged.

 

KATE GETS ON WITH IT

 

Chapter One

In Which Kate Has Writers Block

Kate nibbled a finger nail as she stared at the pristine whiteness of a blank Word document, flickering on her computer screen. She was supposed to be thinking of a plot, coming up with exciting romantic conflicts for her heroine, Lydia Thorne. Instead, her mind kept wandering to the laundry. The laundromat was only open until 8:00 and it was 7:20 or so now. If she didn't get there soon, they would bag up her laundry, dry or not, and put it in the Good Will box out in the parking lot. She knew this because the sign on the wall by the door said so. From what other patrons told her, they meant it, too.

Kate shook herself and forced the laundry out of her mind, trying to get back to Lydia. “Come on Lydia” she mumbled aloud. “Do something already, you stupid cow!” She knew it was silly, but she could almost sense the character lurking, just out of sight in the back of her mind, snickering at making Kate look bad. It would be just like Lydia to do that, and Kate ought to know – she had created her, after all.

If anyone had told her, a year and a half ago, that she, Kate Worthington, would have written a successful romance novel she would have laughed at them. Yet, that was exactly what she had done. She wrote it on her lap top, sitting up in bed tapping away on her lap top on the nights when Jeffrey was away on business trips, usually a glass of wine on the night stand beside her. She knew when she married Jeffrey that he traveled a lot for his job, he had been very up front about that. She missed him, of course, but his job allowed them to enjoy a lifestyle that more than made up for it. They had a lovely big house, were able to send their son to a good school, and took fabulous vacations twice a year. Wasn't that worth a few lonely nights? Ok, more than a few . . . four out of seven days a week she was on her own, not that she was counting. The truth was, she was lonely. Very lonely. Writing her romance novel had been a way to get through it by escaping to a romantic little world she had created for herself.

Looking back, writing the damn book had been almost too easy, really. All it took was a little wine, a nice fire in the gas fireplace in her luxurious master bedroom, with the big cushy king sized bed, a little longing for her hubby and some imagination, and the words just spilled out all by themselves. Her friend Missy, whose husband was in publishing, read it and had gushed about it so much to her husband that he sent a copy of it to an agent he knew. It had surprised Kate as much as anyone else when she suddenly ended up with a book deal.

Seeing her book in print for the first time had been a major thrill. She and Jeffrey had thrown a little book launch party, invited their friends from the neighborhood. She had basked in the glow of everyone's attention, not realizing yet how much work she would have to do to promote the book. Soon thereafter, her agent had her out doing book signings, attending conventions and book store openings. It had been overwhelming at first, but soon she had come to enjoy it. She hadn't been so busy, or so mentally engaged, since college. She soon found herself obsessively seeking out opportunities to go promote her book. The time she spent answering fan mail, blogging and doing appearances hardly seemed like work at all, she had enjoyed it so much.

But somebody else hadn't enjoyed it much, and that somebody was Jeffrey. Oh sure, he was Ok with it at first, when it was just a hobby. He even liked introducing her to people as his wife, the author in the beginning. But pretty soon her busy schedule began to conflict with his, and she started to expect him to help out more with their son and in running the household. Little cracks began to appear in their marriage, and grew into bigger cracks as continuous fights erupted over silly things. The marriage had collapsed more suddenly than she had ever thought possible. It was as if it had just imploded, unable to handle the strain of two busy professionals in one family. Damn the fragile male ego, she thought to herself. If only Jeffrey had been able to man up and deal with her having a career, too, they could have made things work.

My Mom is a Smasher

My mom is a Smasher. Lest you get the wrong idea and think this means she needs anger management, let me clarify that a Smasher is someone who has published an e-book using Smashwords.com. She currently has three books available via Smashwords, Point and Shoot and Deep Blue Murder, both Edie Malone mysteries, as well as another mystery called Dangerous Inheritance.

As you can imagine, I am extremely proud of her and so is the rest of the family. My son was so excited about the first book he said he can't wait to get a tattoo of the cover on his arm. That wasn't exactly the reaction she was hoping for, I don't think, but coming from a teenage boy that is high praise indeed.

My mom's romance with the mystery genre is legendary in our family. When we were growing up she could often be found absently stirring a pot on the stove with one hand, while reading a mystery held in the other. My dad sometimes joked he was afraid she might get distracted from the recipe she was making and accidentally add in some hemlock or other poison out of her murder mystery.

My mom gets her love of murder mysteries from her own mother, who was also an avid reader and a particular fan of mysteries. But I think she gets her storytelling gene from my Grandfather, who was a natural born storyteller. A gregarious Irishman with a sly sense of humor and the gift of the gab, he often regaled us grand kids with stories of the many exploits he and his 11 siblings got up to in Belfast just after the turn of the last century. He also made up ghost stories to tell us, which he knew were our favorites.

Grandpa had a lot of imagination, which he applied liberally to more than just his storytelling. When a wrong number called, he would pretend he was the intended recipient of the call and ad lib his way through a long conversation. He rented U-hauls, cancelled orders for sewing machines, re-directed pizzas and even convinced a young lady to break up with her boyfriend, telling her she was better off without him anyway because he was unreliable and she deserved better. He also had an unfortunate penchant for trying to marry my sister or I off to random people on the street, usually launching into a long list of our made-up attributes and a fictitious dowry. He especially liked trying to marry us off to cops, although he did once try to pawn one of us off on an organ grinder at a street fair in exchange for a monkey.

I'm digressing - my grandfather's exploits could be a whole blog unto themselves - but suffice it to say that as I read my mom's books I see elements of my grandparents and other relatives coming alive in her characters.

I'm traveling for work most of the week, but I have packed my Nook so at least I know I'll get to enjoy a good read. If you want to join me clicking on the caption under the cover of Deep Blue Murder will take you to her page on Smashwords, or just visit Smashwords.com and type in "Shirley E. Watson."

Visit Smashwords.com to download this or any other of my mom's mysteries

The Kaleidoscope Keeps Turning

Over the past month I have thrown myself into writing in a big way. I wrangle the blog several times a week and I try to spend some time every day writing creatively. I've written a few short stories and have completed the outline for a novel. A friend and I will also be collaborating together on another novel for NaNoWriMo, which is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month. The goal there is to write a novel of no fewer than 50,000 words in thirty days. I don't know if we will pull it off, but it sure will be fun to try.

Back in high school we had our marble note books and a number two pencil and that was it, we were writers. Today, in the era of technological everything, I've still got my trusty-dusty pen and paper, but I also need to worry about a blog, business cards, a website, and a Facebook page (which, sadly, only 3 people like so far). This collection of stuff is called a "platform," which is apparently necessary if you ever expect to get published. Or so I've been told, anyway.

Organizing all this stuff has kept me very busy, but I try not to let it distract me from spending time doing the most important thing, writing. I'm starting to see potential story ideas everywhere I look. The possibilities are like kaleidoscope images, constantly shifting and changing as all the pieces of where I've been and what I've done in life tumble around together in my subconscious. The more time I spend writing, the more comfortable I become with it. I'm finding it is like riding a bike or roller skating, you never really forget how to do it, even though it might take some time to get good at it again.

OK, it is time to check "update blog" off the 'ol to-do list. Now, I am off to finish a first draft of the first chapter of my novel. Look for it here on the blog sometime this weekend.

Tools of the Trade

My Writing Space

High School Time Capsule

In my junior year of high school I took a much beloved creative writing class, taught by one of my favorite teachers of all time, Lissa Richardson.

For our final project we had to compile a body of our work from the semester in a creative way that expressed who we were. I chose to put mine in a small suitcase, with the theme of traveling the world and writing about the things I experienced. I got an A+ on the assignment and I've kept that little suitcase full of hand-written stories, poems and exercises ever since. It has gone with me through marriage, divorce, and multiple moves. I suppose holding onto it was a way of holding onto my high school dreams and aspirations.

Little did I know at the time, within three years of graduating I would be married and my life would go in an entirely different, largely unanticipated direction.  I'll tell you, the early twenties are a most dangerous age. You think you know a heck of a lot more about yourself and life than you actually do, and sometimes it takes decades to overcome the consequences of the choices made in those early years.

In my case, during my senior year of high school I ended up having not one, but four gym classes, due to a stupid technicality. The school refused to recognize my standing doctor's note, issued Freshman year excusing me from regular gym class. They made me re-do three years of gym by spending three additional periods each day walking the track. While having half of my day filled up with gym meant I was in the best shape of my life, it also meant there was no room in my schedule for very much else. Gone was the Gifted and Talented Art Program I had been invited to participate in and the much anticipated AP English and Writing classes I had qualified for were also off the table.

Since it seemed nobody would let me have the dreams I wanted, in typical stubborn but oblivious teenager fashion, I simply decided to move on to a new dream: restaurant management. In some ways, looking back, that clearly wasn't the right choice. But in other ways, I wouldn't be who I am now, in some very important respects, had I not taken that path. Ultimately, I have no regrets.

Today as I open my personal time capsule and look through it, I feel a bit like I did back then, when I first left high school and the future was mine to create. I've done my duty; I raised my child and lived my values by building a lasting legacy of community service through the non-profit I co-founded. And now here I am, finally free to put my own dreams first for a change. The horizon is wide open, the possibilities limitless, with the added bonus of middle age: No teenage angst or insecurities to hold me back.

What were your high school dreams? Did you achieve them, or did life take you on a different journey? Let me know in the comments below.

My high school time capsule.

 A Poem From the Suitcase:

Ennee, meenee, minee, moe

To Cape Cod we soon will go.

With box and bag we will set forth,

and merrily we will travel north.

8 people in a 3 room house we will squeeze, 

any moment of privacy we will gladly seize.

To be by yourself there is very rare,

up there you are always one of a pair.

In a herd to the beach we will flock,

our car the parking lot will block.

Soggy, salty sandwiches we will eat

and feel the sand warm beneath our feet.

At night when the air is clear and cool

we'll listen to concerts, open to any fool.

Then home to bed we will gladly trot

and wonder if at home it is awfully hot.

The Matchbook

Writer's Digest has a section on their website called the daily writing prompt. The prompt for this story was to write a story of 500 words or less beginning with the words "My mother always told me not to play with fire" and ending with "and that's how I ended up in the middle of nowhere, naked." How do you think I did? 

“My mother always told me not to play with fire” Bertie thought when he spotted the matches on the sidewalk, but he bent to retrieve the matchbook anyway.

It looked like a regular old book of matches, with a red cardboard cover, but as he picked it up an electric shock shot up his arm. Bertie jerked back, almost dropping it. He whirled around, expecting some jokester to appear, laughing and wanting to retrieve his trick match book from the hapless victim. But the street was empty, save for a woman with a baby stroller rounding the corner at the end of the block. Bertie turned his attention back to the book of matches still clutched in his fist.

Gingerly, with the tip of one finger, he flipped it open, expecting to see the cunning mechanism hidden within that had zapped him. Bertie's eyebrows shot up in surprise as he found himself looking at simply a row of stubby cardboard matches, like those in any other matchbook.

Muttering a curse word under his breath, he very nearly threw the matchbook back down on the sidewalk again in disgust. But then he thought once more of his mother's voice, telling him not to play with matches. Stubbornly, he gritted his teeth and struck a match out of spite.

“Whooompf!” A sudden wave of flame washed over him. Good Lord, he'd sent himself up in flames playing with matches, just as his mother had always said he would! Frightened and slightly dumbfounded, he staggered sideways, then put out his free hand to steady himself against a telephone pole. As he did he happened to glance down at himself. Gone were his usual jeans and AC/DC tee-shirt. Instead, he was dressed in shiny red leather breaches, heeled boots, a puffy white shirt under a black cape and was that really a sword?

Bertie looked in wonder at the matchbook in his hand. Without stopping to think, he tore out another match and struck it. “Whompf!” Another draft of flame enveloped him, and this time he was wearing the uniform of a major league base ball player. Bertie laughed aloud before striking another match, then another, and another. He was a cave man, dressed in animal skins, then a World War II aviator, complete with goggles, followed by a Spanish Matador. The rest of the matches followed in quick succession, each one leaving him in an outfit stranger than the last, until, abruptly, there was only one match left in the pack.

Bertie shrugged aside the weight of his ermine stole as he contemplated the final match. A sudden spark of electricity raced along his fingers as it had when he'd picked it up. He grinned slyly and struck the last match.

Hours later, at the police station, he tried to explain to his mother on the phone. “ . . . you see, it wasn't my fault. It was the matches, and that's how I ended up naked, in the middle of nowhere.”

The Telegram

Writer's Digest has a section on their website called the Daily Writing Prompt. This story was in response to a prompt directing that the story be 500 words or less about a letter from a long-lost relative whose message says "Come to Boston, riches await." I wrote it from the point of view of a young teen who follows his father and brother north to find work. Comments are welcome.

 A short Story

I was twelve when my brother, Victorino left to go north to work. Our father had come home for his first visit in five years. When he left he took fifteen year old Victornio back with him to the tomato fields of California. They left early, before dawn, so there would be no awkward goodbyes. When I woke up and realized they were gone, I wanted to cry. But at 12, I was too big for tears. Instead, I took my father's rifle and hiked up into the mountains and spent my frustrations on the rabbits and birds.

If Victorino had not gone north, I knew I would have had to leave school to work, too, but knowing didn't make me feel any better about being left behind. As it was, even with both of them sending money home, it was never enough. My mother stayed up nights embroidering table clothes to sell at market for extra money. My task was to tend the goats, and sell their meat and the cheese my mother and sisters made from the milk.

Every week when I accompanied my mother to the caseta, so she could receive her weekly phone call and money transfer from my father, my father would tell me to work very hard in school. I always said yes, I would do it, but all I could think about was going north, too. Sometimes, when my father and brother didn't have much work, they couldn't afford to send money home. During those awful times we always told them we were fine, of course, but there were many days when we couldn't eat complete meals. Instead, we would eat just tortillas with nopales and salsa to hold ourselves over, but it tore my heart to see my littlest sister, crying because she was hungry.

I saw the fancy houses, built of concrete, some with more than one story, that some families had erected in our village. They had more relatives working in the north, so they could afford it. I looked at our adobe two room house, with the bamboo lean-to for the cooking fire, and began to think ill of it. Someday, when I was grown, I dreamed I would go north, too, like Victorino and my father, and I would give my mother a house like our neighbors had.

Then, a week before my fifteenth birthday, when I accompanied my mother to the caseta there was a telegram for me from Victorino. There was too much competition for work in California, so he and my father had traveled to another place, even further away. “Come to Boston” the telegram read. “Riches await, carnal. I'll wire you the money for the coyote next week.”

I put the telegram in my pocket and looked at my mother, in the little phone booth, talking to my father. It would hurt her when I left, but I knew I would go. Early, before dawn, so there would be no painful goodbyes.