...Hangers

And now, for the thrilling conclusion to the Hookers and Hangers Blogfest....

I'm not going to lie to you --- I'm cheating a little. My hangers are not terribly, um, exciting, so I needed a few extra sentences to, you know, leave you hanging....

1) But there’s only one problem. My college plans aren’t the only thing I’ve lied about. The skeezy stalker guy? I’m lying about him, too.


2) Even in the synthetic blue glow of the television, she still looks pretty. For once, I don’t envy her beauty. She may have the looks, but I have the brains. And I’m smart enough not to fall for the wrong guy.

 

3) I wonder if I’ve really snagged a captive audience after all. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I’m the one who’s captivated. Because, at the moment, all I can do is stand here and wait for Calvin to touch me again.

And, because today is my 32nd birthday, have some cake:

And now I'm off to party like it's 1999....

Hookers...

Today I am participating in the Hookers and Hangers Blogfest, hosted by the lovely ladies at Falling for Fiction. And, before I get to my hookers (smile), let me plug this wonderful blog. Among the many great posts they feature, each Thursday they offer a critique of a sample of writing. So, if you would like a pair of eyes on your writing, surf over to their site for more info on how to submit a sample.

This blogfest is 2 fold: today participants are supposed to post the first line from 3 or more chapters of their WIP, and Wednesday participants will post the last line from 3 or more chapters. These opening lines come from my current contemporary YA novel, Accidentally Me.


I have a stalker.

I spend the better part of my Friday morning in the zoo’s small animal house with Lonestar, the nine-banded armadillo.

A waiting room is the perfect place to be assaulted by your guilt.

As I wait for Calvin in a booth at Starbucks, I can’t help thinking that there’s a certain poetry in ending this relationship where it began.

 The water tower rises from the ground like a gigantic spider.

 The wedding announcement arrives Tuesday without warning.

 I am stalking my stalker.

That's all for now folks! Now I'm off to check me out some more hookers...

My Mind Like A Fallow Field

The past week was one of wind and fire. A stray bullet fired in the wild scorched the earth and draped billowing black clouds over the Salt Lake valley. Everything seems barren; sterile; unyielding. I spend the week preparing for my son's 6th birthday party, which --fittingly--is pirate themed. I hang a banner of skulls and crossbones across my kitchen and rummage through storage for the orange Tupperware container holding our Halloween decorations, retrieving a life-sized cardboard skeleton and tacking it to the wall. Its paper bones rattle in the wind of the incessant, useless ceiling fan.

I am longing for bone-white paper and black ink that runs like marrow, yet I have not written a word in days.

The week is punctuated by the passing of my paternal grandfather. Days before his death, my family gathers in his bedroom at the care center. The walls of the room are adorned with sepia photos of my grandpa as a young man, vibrant color photos of him and his wife, his children --yet he is shrouded in a white blanket on his bed, still except for the breath rattling in his lungs. I press my dry lips to his wrinkled forehead, and bid him goodbye.


The landscape of my mind is barren. I cannot write a word.


On the radio, I listen to an interview with Glen Hansard. He says that it is not necessary to work, work, work all the time. That, sometimes, it is useful to have a fallow period. A time to rest. Reflect. Revive.


This week, despite the sweltering heat, there are signs of life. My children and I inspect a captured spider under a magnifying glass, marveling at its delicacy. We watch the honeybees in the garden collect nectar from the flowers. We check daily on the four hatched triops, a gift from my sister, swimming in a Mason jar filled with water on my son's bookshelf. When it is time for swim lessons, I sit on the bleachers of an indoor pool and, the muggy, chlorine-soaked air notwithstanding, watch in delight as my children become weightless in water.


I am hopeful that this season of heat will not render the field of my mind scorched, but incubated.

The book that (nearly) made me stop writing

Have you ever read a book that was so beautifully written it took your breath away? Well, I have. In fact, after I read this book, I actually could not write for a few days, because my writing efforts seemed so pitiful in comparison. And that book was (drum roll please)...

Have any of you read this yet? If not, I would highly recommend it. Salvage the Bones is the story of an impoverished family from a coastal Mississippi town preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Katrina. What made this story so powerful to me was that, initially, the characters were completely foreign to me - Southern, black, poor - and by the end of the book I saw myself in them.

What books have you read lately that knocked your socks off?

Some Fatherly Advice

The man in the booth at McDonald's is looking at me. He is seventy-something, gray-haired, and crumpling the wrapper of his breakfast sandwich compulsively in his hand. We are facing each other in adjacent booths; he alone, me with my two rambunctious children. My kids and I are sharing a Big Breakfast with Hotcakes. I divy up the goods onto the extra Styrofoam plates I requested, and ignore my son when he asks me if the soda pop he is guzzling is good for him.

"Looks like you've got your hands full," the man says.

I look at the assorted corn-based products in front of me and shrug.

"Cute kids," he says.

"Thanks."

He looks out the window and I return to the task of prodding my children to eat. We are on our way up to Grandma's to spend the day with cousins  from Iowa. I check my watch and then insist that my daughter have another bite of her pancake. I pretend not to notice that the elderly man is looking at me again. I don't really have time for small talk.

"You have about ten thousand more of these trips to McDonald's before your kids are grown."

I smile politely. At the moment, the thought of ten thousand more of these outings is not particularly pleasant.

"I have one son," the man says. "He's nearly fifty now, if you can believe it. Lives in Murray, near St. Mark's hospital."

I smile, this time not so politely, and look pointedly at my watch.

"I remember the day he started grade school. We walked down the street to the school together. He held onto my hand the whole way. I remember it just like it was yesterday." He looks out the window again, and I follow the direction of his gaze, half-expecting to see the memory he's just shared replayed before us, on grainy black and white film. "Just like yesterday, if you can believe it. The time just goes so fast."

"Sometimes," I say, "a day spent with little kids feels eternal."

"Enjoy it while it lasts," he says. "You only have ten thousand more of these trips to McDonald's, and then..."

My children beam at me, their faces shiny with sticky syrup, and I suppress the urge to cry. Without consulting my watch, I smile a genuine smile at the man across from me and say, "Tell me more about your son."

Writing as Ritual

A few years ago (five, to be exact), I discovered the joy of writing (not to be confused with the joy of cooking. Or sex.) I guess I really should say I rediscovered the joy of writing. I wrote as a child, earnestly - poems, plays, short stories. I loved the sheer possibility of pen and paper. I wanted to grow up to be a writer. But then, as I entered adulthood, I stopped writing creatively. I guess I let myself believe it was something I couldn't do. A pursuit reserved for children and the gifted and talented.

But then I moved away from home and started a blog to keep in touch with my family. For the first time since I was a little girl, I was writing again. For fun. And pretty soon, I became addicted to the process. I started filtering through the detritus of my daily routine for those precious gems of something interesting. And then I started writing more than blog posts. I started writing stories. I finished one story. Then another. And then, the inevitable happened. I began to be tormented. I became plagued with the strange schizophrenia that afflicts writers -- where you simultaneously believe what you have written is complete garbage and the most wonderful thing in the world.  

I'm working on a revision of my third attempt at a novel. I have decided that, once it is polished, I will start the query process. It is difficult to do something that will almost certainly end in failure. It is difficult to balance optimism with realism. It is difficult to allow yourself to be judged - knowing full well that that judgment may entail a crushing blow to your ego.

I am currently reading Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. There is a passage in the book that particularly resonated with me:

"I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do -- the actual act of writing-- turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward."

I know, I know. We've all heard the platitude about valuing the journey over the destination dozens of times. But when it comes to writing, I think it's true. I think about the way that writing has sustained me over the past few years. About the way it's allowed me to wake up with a sense of purpose. About the way it's allowed me to escape the routine of daily living. About the way it's allowed me to examine the world with new eyes. The past few years, writing has become one of the rituals that defines me. 

I'm not going to lie to you -- I would be over the moon if I ever become a published author. But, slowly but surely, I'm starting to agree with Ms. Lamott. The reward of writing really just might be enough.


***By the way, today the lovely ladies at Falling For Fiction are critiquing my query letter.(I know, I know, I'm not done with my revisions and I'm already thinking about the query.)  Hop on over and leave me your feedback, too.***

Go Fish...

Last Wednesday morning, my husband announces that Edwin, our pet Beta Fish, has gone missing.
"What do you mean missing?" I say.
"I mean, he's not in the fish bowl."
"What do you mean he's not in the fish bowl?"
"I mean, he's not in the fish bowl."
I raise a skeptical eyebrow. My husband is a notoriously bad finder of things. Unless Edwin has magically sprouted legs or wings, he is in that fish bowl.
I rush into my son's bedroom, family in tow, eager to prove my husband wrong. My eyes search the one-gallon tank atop the bookcase, a one-gallon tank that has suddenly become an ocean.
An empty ocean.
Edwin is missing, indeed.
My children's eyes are wide with worry.
"Maybe he went on an adventure," I say, falling back on the blanket explanation I use when other of my children's things are lost. And then, I turn to my husband. "I just cleaned the fish bowl."
"Well that's what happened," my husband says. "You must not have put the fish back in the bowl then."
This time, the eyebrow I raise is arched with anger.
"Maybe it was the kids," I say. This, of course, is a more plausible explanation. After all, just the afternoon before, the house was filled with neighbors and nieces and nephews, six total, all of whom were largely unsupervised while I sequestered myself in the kitchen and fixed dinner.
When questioned, my children claim ignorance, but still my husband's eyes stray to the carpet. Then, he pulls the bookcase away from the wall and, ever so slightly, gasps. I don't dare to look. He goes to the bathroom and comes back with a paper towel and, on all fours, fishes for the fish. There is something undignified about the whole affair. My daughter squeals, thinking we are engaged in a game of hide-and-seek. When my husband stands with the paper towel concealing the fish's limp form, my son is at the brink of tears.
I think that, as sappy as it may be, we should hold some sort of memorial service; that some consoling word or two should be said before the fish is disposed of. But there isn't time. A horn honks in the driveway. My son's carpool is here. My son swipes at his eyes and I arm him with his Transformers backpack. The horn honks again, the car's idling engine rumbling in the driveway, and I think how life is persistent, tireless, and yet...
"Mom," my son asks as I usher him to the door, "do people last longer than fish?"
His eyes are red-rimmed and injured looking. I can't bear to look at those eyes. And so, instead, I wrap him in my arms, covering his sudden and instant fragility.