shakespearemom

Here’s another writing activity, and it stems from what I’ve seen in most poetry. If you teach literature–and I do–or if you’ve had several literature classes–and I have–you’ll know the tendency in most poetry in our established canon involves several assumptions:

1. Most poetry isn’t funny.

2.  Most poetry is about lofty subjects, involving nature, mythology/religion, love, etc.

3.  Most poetry involves heroic ideal, heroes, and heroic events.

However, in the last century, poetry has become a bit different. Maurice Sendak and others have brought whimsy and humor back into it (although many poems which do not make the traditional canon are also humorous), and other poets have made poetry less heroic in general, more about ordinary people, sometimes even forgettable ones, if not for the poem about them (I think of Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”). 

Now it’s your turn. Think of someone or some situation which seems highly unlikely for a poem to be written about. Write a short “ode” to something that most would never consider worth writing about. Most of all, make it silly. Don’t try to be serious with it unless being serious makes it even sillier (think mock-heroic). 

Here’s mine, two poems about my kids:

Crystal, age 2

Two eyes, innocent

Looking up from limpid pools

Of maple syrup.

Brandon, Age 2

I knew a daredevil named Brandon

Who jumped off with nothing to land on.

He cut up his head

Till I thought he was dead,

He wouldn’t let me lay a hand on.  

I also have an anti-love poem:

Love

You say you cannot love me

But you do

I know you do

Every action you take

Says so

The screams in my phone 

Tell me you are thinking about me

The lipstick smeared 

On my brand new couch 

Shows how much you 

Care what I think.

My clothes piled 

On the front lawn

Make it clear

To the whole world

How deeply I have

Entered your soul.

The whole world can see…

Why don’t you? 

Got any anti-poetry of your own? Share it!

I sort of took this blog idea from another blogger, Rocketscientist, yet the idea also sprang from something I’ve been toying with for some time. You see, if you know me well, you know I’m an Anglophile, meaning I love everything English… the language, English literature, the accent… the accent especially.

And I work on my own British accent all the time. My kids are used to me using it, or an Irish one, or Scottish (my Scottish is probably the worst of the three–makes me sound like a man)… and the accent pops out in other ways, too. I can’t say this is a recent thing, either, since my husband first met me after seeing me in The Importance of Being Earnest, where my accent was good enough that he thought I really did speak like that. 

Just this last week, I discovered that a new member of the choir thought the same. I used it enough during rehearsal (a recent habit of mine) that she thought it was real, and was surprised when standard “American” speech came out of me all of a sudden. 

Okay, this story is getting far too long. The point of it is that I’ve always wondered what it would be like–how people would treat me differently–if I really did have a British accent. My husband suggested I try it the next time I interview for a full-time job. If I started out with an accent, they’d assume it was me, and I could speak like that for the rest of my life (and I would LOVE that). I’d have my own alter ego, a prim British ex-patriot with a sassy sense of humor. I can’t tell you how much the thought of speaking like that for the rest of my life thrills me. I would be a completely different person with that one change, more confident, funnier, etc. I know this because every time I use the accent, I feel different. I say things I wouldn’t say in my normal voice. I would love to try this some day.

But I won’t. I just can’t do it. Would a fake accent be grounds for dismissal? Would I be falsely representing myself? Would I be found out immediately? I don’t know, but the prospect of breaking some unknown rule is enough to keep me from trying. 

That leads me to a question, though. If you could pretend to be someone else, who would you be? What alter ego is inside you, waiting to get out? 

It’s been a while since I gave you a writing exercise… and I’m sure it’s been a while since you’ve played with anything (work, work, work–is that all there is?). So here goes:

This one comes from a game my sister and I played as children, taking nursery rhymes and making entirely new (short) poems out of them. Here are some examples, with the original listed first, and our new version listed next. Now, remember, we were in elementary school when we wrote these, but I’m still surprised by what we came up with:

Original version:

Jack be nimble

Jack be quick

Jack jump over the candlestick

Our version:

Jack be clumsy

Jack be slow

Jack trip over his own big toe.

The rhythm is the same… even the subject is similar, yet the poem has a completely different meaning (I think it’s more meaningful than the original).

Here’s another original, though not really a nursery rhyme:

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear

Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair

Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?

Our version:

Fatty Watty was a toad

Fatty Watty got smashed on the road

Fatty Watty wasn’t fat after that. He was flat.

This time we played more with the concept, modifying the meter to suit what we wanted to say.

So, what versions might you come up with? You can probably remember some of your own silly kids’ rhymes, but in case you can’t, here are some examples to toy with. Feel free to choose one of these or one you remember, but in your posting, put the original in if it’s not one of these. Or let us try to guess what the original was… that would be cool, too.

Some to try:

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn

The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn

Where is the boy who looks after the sheep?

He’s under the haystack, fast asleep.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With silver bells and cockle shells

And pretty maids all in a row.

London Bridge is falling down

Falling down, falling down,

London Bridge is falling down,

My fair lady.

Three blind mice.

See how they run.

They all ran after the farmer’s wife

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife

Have you ever seen such a thing in your life

As three blind mice?

If you don’t like these, try something else. But keep it short, concise, and brainless… and have fun!

Despite what you may believe, I am not perfect.

Yes, I know what you may be thinking: “It can’t be! I thought she was! What’s going on here?!?”

But even I, the center of the universe, have issues. For one thing–and perhaps this stems from my extreme Piscean tendencies–I am scatterbrained to the extreme. I have difficulty focusing for five minutes on a game of Mahjongg. I respond to medications as if I had ADD, for stuff that is supposed to make me sleep keeps me wide awake, and perhaps there is a reason for that. I can’t seem to focus on anything for any real length of time. When I teach, I tend to shift gears several times over in a single class session–not for my students, but for myself, so that I don’t get bored. Yet I still lose focus easily. As one of my novel readers figured out, I can also forget whole characters as a novel goes on (eeeek!).

I also tend to write really crappy first drafts (I could call them worse, but I don’t want this blog to get even a PG rating)… unlike so many authors who seem to have near perfection the first go around. Would it save me a great deal of time if my drafts were great? Yup. But they aren’t, and ignoring that fact would not be to my benefit, for my first drafts would never get me anywhere as a writer. Besides, if I didn’t learn to revise my stuff, I wouldn’t improve much as a writer, either.

I have a long list of other weaknesses, but this is not a whining blog (not today, anyway), and the list would take too long. Besides, I’m sure, as you read through my own self-effacement, you are thinking of the weaknesses in your own writing (at least, I hope you are… I don’t want to be alone in this)… 

Now switch gears for a moment. Instead of looking at the “hole in your doughnut,” so to speak, look at the doughnut itself. What do you do well? One of my strengths is dialogue. I manage to create all sorts of suggested meaning in a single conversation… and that’s a skill I’m really building on. Each novel and play gets better at it. My dialogue reveals a great deal about the characters without exposition, without spelling out much at all. 

I’m also great at revision, for two reasons: 1) I don’t take myself too seriously. Nothing is so precious that it can’t be tossed in the trash. In fact, when I revise, I pull out whole scenes that don’t fit, putting them into another document so that I don’t feel as if I’m deleting them. Once the revision is over, I toss the document… and never regret doing it, either. 2) I am brilliant at ripping stuff apart. I pick and pick and pick at things, pulling out the stray strings, restitching the action… and it’s the same with everything I do, from cleaning to sewing to piano. If there is one thing I ain’t, it’s lazy. I won’t quit on something until I think it’s where I want it to be, or I can’t think of what to do to fix it (if the latter, I send it off to readers or sit on it, sometimes for years, until I’m ready to tackle it again). 

Now, when I write, I can easily get discouraged when something I write stinks… OR I can play to my strengths, and use those strengths to keep me working on something until it’s better. 

So, I’ve shown some of mine… what are your strengths? How do you play to them?

Ever notice how boring most of your life is? I should say “my life,” since all I have to go on is my own experience. I suppose I’m just hoping I’m not alone in this.

You see, although I sometimes get a rush from some cool opportunity I receive, like the Amazon.com contest or other such things, for the most part my life runs on a sort of boring flatline… week after week of the same boring things to do: dishes, meals, vacuuming, sweeping, cleaning bathrooms once a week (hopefully!), carting kids everywhere, bookkeeping at the church, and the list drones on. 

I have a list very like this one today, but it’s not really making me jump up and get to work. Perhaps that is why I’m writing this blog instead of starting in on the dishes. For the most part, I get up in the morning because I have kids to get ready, breakfast to make, babysitting to do (the kids I sit come around 7:30 a.m.), things to clean, etc. 

But I do, on occasion, have real reasons to get up in the morning. I have plays that call to me, scenes that my mind works through while I am sleeping, dreams that lead to short stories, poems, or subplots… I have goals to get to, dreams of what I want to become, of what I want to do with my life. I know “doing dishes” isn’t what I plan to have carved into my tombstone. I want to make a difference. 

I know I’ve written about this before, but perhaps this is my attempt to get myself going this morning–to do something real this week instead of just keeping my house clean. I have the morning off, sort of, since all the kids will be in school until nearly noon. Do I go to church and figure out quarterly taxes? Do I clean the toilets? Do I do dishes? Fold laundry? Sweep?

Or do I set all that aside and feed my soul a bit, revising a play or two, fixing a huge problem one of my readers discovered in the novel I turned in at Amazon.com? Do I tend to my soul today, or clean my kitchen?

By now I know the answer… do you? What will you choose today?

I don’t usually rant (okay, I don’t always rant), but my husband and I have found another show we really enjoy on television: “Kings.” And, just as with so many shows before, our chosen show isn’t going to make it. It’s already been moved to Saturdays, which is pretty much the kiss of death, after only four episodes, and in a few more it will be cut entirely.

I say it’s happened before. I happened to my sister and me when we were younger (remember “Wizards and Warriors,” sis?). It happened two seasons ago with an absolutely fabulous show called Journeyman, which lasted about eight weeks before dying. It happened to me last season with Crusoe, and I knew it would with that particular show. At least that meant I enjoyed every juicy minute of it before it went off. 

But this show has barely started. And my husband and I watch it riveted, forgetting to eat what’s on the tray in front of us, forgetting to work on anything (and I never watch television without something in my hand to do)… yet its ratings started out crappy and have slowly dwindled to nothing. 

I shouldn’t be bitter. Yet I scan the television listing every evening for something to watch, and except for Monday night, when my favorite show and my husband’s run up against each other, I get nothing. I don’t tend to gravitate towards shows about raising children (or raising them poorly), for my kids don’t scream and kick me and pee in the front yard. I am not deserted on a desert island, especially by choice. Yet shows like “Big Brother” can go on for seasons when they offer nothing, while shows I actually like don’t last a season.

Perhaps I’m out of touch. Perhaps great acting, riveting character study, and sweeping epic drama aren’t what sells. That certainly seems to be the case with “Kings.” My husband loves it for its political drama, I for its unique cross between a Shakespearean history play and epic biblical theatre. This, I’ve thought over the past few weeks, is what drama is supposed to be like.

Darn. I feel like that guy on the “Journeyman” website, who wrote in to plead: “Please, please bring back this show!” My husband wrote it, too, just to let off steam. But it won’t work. No one is listening to the hundreds of people who love a show. If millions don’t tune in, the show is gone.

If only I were Oprah, and with a little mention could get millions of people to tune in and save it. 

Maybe Sci-fi will pick it up. Then again, if they do, they’ll probably bring in aliens and make the whole thing cheesy. Too many of their shows end up looking like Power Rangers for my liking.

Darn.

As an added bonus to all the good news yesterday, I realized I still hadn’t created a blog for the award Rocket Scientist gave me:  The Honest Scrap Award. 

And since the main requirement is that I tell ten true things about myself, and, in addition, I simply love to talk about myself (just ask my students), here are ten things:

1.  I am a vegetarian pacifist. I don’t eat animals, and I do my best not to kill anything (except spiders inside my house). 

2.  If meat tasted like bread, I would never have become a vegetarian.

3.  The quickest way to my heart is to give me a back rub. 

4.  I dislike cooking, yet I cook every meal, every day, with perhaps one weekly exception.

5.  I dislike cleaning, but I hate a messy house more. So I clean. And clean. And clean.

6.  I am one of 500 quarterfinalists for the 2009 Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest! Hurray!

7.  I am a stay-at-home mom who really isn’t suited to take care of little children (that’s why I teach college). Ignoring that tendency, I also watch an additional child in my home (and he’s very cute, even if he isn’t 18 yet).

8.  My ideal magic item from the Harry Potter series is Hermione Granger’s Time-turner. Oh, if only it worked, I’d use it every day. I never have enough time, and I resent having to waste a third of the day sleeping. 

9.  I am positively beastly when I don’t get enough sleep.

10.  I love magic. I love anything involving some sort of departure from reality, from ghost stories to psychics, Tarot cards to Harry Potter, spirituality to fairies. The easiest way to bore me is with reality. 

There it is. Now I’m bored, since all of that was true. I’m going to throw myself into a book to get my equilibrium back! 

Well, surprise, surprise! A reader of my last blog discovered that three chapters of my novel Mariah’s Ark can be downloaded at Amazon.com for free… it seems I’ve made it to the Quarterfinals of the contest, one of 500 entries out of most likely 10,000 turned in (they only accepted the first 10,000). That puts me in the top 5%, doesn’t it? (I’m not very good at math… that’s why I write instead).

I knew I’d been reviewed by experts (that discovery was in my last blog), but I had no idea anyone else could read the first chapters. I also had no idea that meant I’d made it to the next level. Three people have reviewed the book so far, too, so I must have made it to a second level, or I don’t think the chapters would even be available. (Sorry, but I’m still so surprised, I’m not sure if I’ll discover I’ve made a mistake tomorrow).

So, if you’d like to know what I’m tooting my horn about, check out the page right HERE. You can download the chapters for free, and even leave a review of them. If nothing else, I’d like your feedback. I haven’t had enough people read the book yet, so every bit helps. And I’d really like to know what all of you think, too, since you are my loyal readers…

You’d think I’d be quicker at all of this. I must be jaded by all my lack of response over the years (except for the lovely photocopied form letters rejecting my submissions). I think the next level happens on April 15, so you have time to read and respond, but the sooner the better! You can create a review on Amazon.com yourself, so I know what you think.

Thanks to all who read part of “Mariah’s Ark”! I’m so excited!

So, two things happened on one day. Would you like the good news or the bad news? 

I’ll start with the bad: 

I’d applied for a college teaching job here in Seattle, at the college where I currently work. And I received this response: 

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for applying for this position at ________. The hiring committee has finished its initial screening. We regret to inform you that you were not selected for an interview. The job application process can be time consuming and we appreciate you taking time to apply for this position. We wish you well in your future endeavors, and hope that you will consider applying for other positions at __________. 

Yup, not even an interview. Not even a reference check. 

I could be resentful. I’m not. I could be pissed. Not even sort of. God was kind to me, for I was prevented from working for a place that didn’t want me and wouldn’t appreciate me. Besides, I also received this in my e-mail inbox, on the same day. It’s one of two reviews of my second novel, which I posted on the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest website. The contest set up two “experts” to read it, and one said:

“Mariah’s Ark” is juvenile fiction targeting commonly shared teen problems: inferiority, low self-esteem concerns, sibling rivalry, and school performance. 

Each chapter is well-written, albeit in a colloquial country form, with deliberate use of bad grammar to make the Oklahoma farm setting realistic. The story is cohesive and flows smoothly. Mariah is the youngest of three sisters, suffering low self-esteem, thinking of herself as “nothing” and that no one else expects “nothing” from her. She hates to speak, and opts instead to ignore people or shrug her shoulders. The problem developed after an embarrassing episode when, in trying to outshine her older braggadocio sister, she misused a word. Constantly compared in school to her older sisters, Mariah rebels against her teachers’ expectations and shuns her classmates. 

The family is not involved in Mariah’s problems. Her parents share a secret, not revealed in the excerpt. Neither is the meaning of the title. The secret involves the barn where her father has been pre-occupied day and night since before her birth. No one is allowed inside the barn, but it is clear he is building something and both parents are afraid that the religious community will object to it. Her sisters, Sarah and Rachel, one married, the other a boy chaser, vie with one another for superiority, mostly ignoring Mariah. 

The author is a gifted writer. For example: 

Grasshoppers, butterflies, beetles, and other helpless  

creatures fell in, and even from where I was  

sitting, I could see them begin their death  

march, around and around the inside wall of  

the jars, slower and slower, as the fumes  

got to them. 

The story is captivating. What is the secret? How does it impact Mariah and the family? Does Mariah overcome her problems? Many teens will enjoy this gem.

Ah, to have one’s writing called “captivating.” You see, it just doesn’t get much better than that. 

So, I don’t get one job I applied for. Who cares? I’m printing off the two reviews of my book, since both were very good, and I’m going to paste them up on the walls of my writing room (when I get it) along with all my rejection letters. 

My writing room is going to look fantastic. 

Dear Readers:

I know you lead hard, busy lives. I know some of you are working two jobs, have kids, are seeking a degree, have illnesses in the family to deal with, have dishes to do, bring work home, and are otherwise feeling overwhelmed.

But, you see, that’s just it. You need a break from all of that, a way to rise above all that tedium for just a few minutes, to let your right brain free, if only for a moment, so that you can show the world the genius you are keeping so tightly reined in for days on end.

Yet all the tedious activities are winning out. You look at a writing exercise, and think, Well, I’d love to do that, but it would take about ten minutes to complete, and I could take a shower in that time, or fold a load of laundry, or unload the dishwasher, or call two clients, or give my kid a bath…and on and on. So you don’t respond. You don’t take the ten minutes to do something you truly love because you let it fall to the bottom of your list.

And meanwhile, your own novel bides its time on your laptop, waiting for you for weeks on end, without a change. And that novel wakes you up at night, calling to you like an overstuffed eclair, and though you cannot find the strength to resist the eclair (after all, who could?), you find the strength to turn over, face the wall, and put yourself back to sleep. After all, you say, if I don’t get enough sleep, I won’t get as much work done tomorrow.

January 1st is always the time for New Year’s resolutions… yet April 1st is better. Couldn’t you resolve to play–to be the fool–at least once a day for the rest of the year? I’m sure most of you have already given up on your New Year’s resolution (I haven’t, but I tend to stick to things), so let’s make a new one. Resolve to put at the TOP of your list one foolish, playful thing each and every day. Don’t allow yourself to do the dishes until you’ve done it. Suck all your obligations up, and force yourself to do something no one else would value.

Color with crayons (it is really quite therapeutic). Put on some tango music and pull your significant other out on the dance floor, especially if you don’t have the first clue how to tango. Pull out that novel and write on it–even if you only get a paragraph written in those ten minutes. Take a completely useless walk. Go to a coffee shop with a magazine tucked under your arm, and don’t leave until you’ve gone through the whole thing. Take time out to round yourself a bit more, to venture off into the unknown.

And next time you read a blog, and it gives you something creative to do, don’t say you don’t have the time. Just write already! Do it for me. More than that, do it for you. You’ll be glad you did.