shakespearemom

 Here’s part two of my blog novel, waiting for your response. I tried to get it done by yesterday, but I was swamped with other work. Let me know what you think. If you want to read part one, it is also posted under the “Choose Your Own Novel Adventure” heading. Here goes:

I can still remember the morning it happened. I’d had a bad week. Carl, a thug who’d already been pulled back a grade twice, making him the biggest student at school, had finally noticed me, and just that week he’d given me a black eye, sore ribs, and a broken toe. You might wonder why I didn’t run screaming home to Mom and tell her all about him. She might have called the principal, sicked the nurse on me, and even raised up all the teachers to help. 

But I didn’t need any help. I was a superhero, right? I just kept waiting for my superpowers to kick in. I’d walk home, imagining myself fighting back, with inhuman power, knocking Carl down and fighting back hard enough he never picked on anybody again.

Too bad that’s how it all fell apart. Carl was waiting for me outside Biology, one hand punching the other’s palm, like it was practicing for me. He walked behind me on the sidewalk, scanning for teachers. I know he was doing that, cause I was doing it too. Why did band have to be the only classroom around the back of a building? I should have gone the other way around. It was longer, but more kids went that way.

But he was right behind me, the building’s corner inches away. Too late to change direction now. 

Even so, I tried. I turned on him, willing myself to shove him back with force, to get to safety. I couldn’t move him. I looked up into his face, while his huge arms grabbed my scrawny ones. His cold blue eyes told me I was dead, and in one movement, he’d pushed me into the alley, against the cement block wall. 

“Don’t ever shove me again,” was all he said. 

I didn’t. But a surge went through my veins, like hot steel. I’d never felt it before. It heated my face, pulsed through my brain, and even worked itself into the tips of my fingers. It was enough heat to blind me, but I ran at him anyway, yelling I don’t even remember what.

Honestly, I don’t remember anything else. Just the feeling, the rage, the pain of humiliation pushing back, finally, after so many years. I felt protected, felt strong, felt superhuman, and for the first time since I was six, I felt capable of anything. 

It was only after the heat passed, after I could see again, that I realized what I was truly capable of. It turns out I’d blackened both his eyes, broke two of his ribs, shattered one of his clavicles, and even did some damage to his neck vertebrae, enough that he was still in his brace at my trial. I’d also hit a teacher when she tried to pull me off him, though I only found that out at the trial itself. 

Yes, I’d done enough damage I was tried for it. I was sixteen, old enough to know better, or so they said. And the fact that I didn’t remember any of it didn’t help. That just made me sound psycho. I was found guilty and sentenced to two years at the juvenile detention center, with psychiatric treatment also a requirement. Mom was there to see my sentenced, her face pale and drawn. She was ashamed of me. All this time she’d wanted me be be a hero, and I grew up a villain. She sat right in front of me, too, and I had to turn away. 

And that look of hers killed me the whole time I was in there. I stayed the full sentence, too, for I had another fight with some other kid, when he tried to do the same sort of thing Carl had. I’d lost my mind then, felt the same hot surge, and he didn’t look too good when I was finished with him. Still, after two years, they had to let me out. They gave me a new set of clothes from somewhere, and waited for my parents to pick me up. 

But my parents never came. Even the caseworkers were a little shocked by that. I waited for a few days, reassured that they’d sent my parents mail informing them of my release. They hadn’t heard a reply, but that wasn’t so rare. What was rare is that my parents hadn’t come to get me. Why kind of parents did that? 

But you see, my parents weren’t heroes, either. I told you they weren’t. Seems they’d moved while I was in there. No forwarding address, no friends to tell me where they’d gone. I tried searching for them on the Internet, tried calling relatives, but nobody had seen them. Nobody offered to take me in, either. 

So, there I was, 18, with no high school degree, no job, no friends, no family, no nothing. What was I going to do now?

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Okay, let me know what you think, what you want to happen, what you hate, what you like, etc. I can’t promise to get the installment in on Fridays, so you might have to wait for a Saturday morning (like this morning), but I will get it in, nonetheless. Remember, this is a ROUGH draft, written and posted, without a few days of down time, without a huge revision, etc.

Oh, and it does get brighter, for those who find the whole thing depressing. At least, I’m intending for it to get brighter. Then again, I have no set plans for it. What do you want?

I finished revising my second novel this morning and, with just a slight twist in my stomach, I sent it off to five readers. Yes, it was hard, even though I really like the novel. And, yes, it’s likely they won’t find it quite as perfect as I do. But it’s time, for the novel has reached a special place inside me: the place where I can see none of its faults, or if I can, I have no idea how to fix them.

But it’s important to keep some facts in mind when sending stuff out to readers, so here are my personal rules (and, yes, feel free to share rules of your own, or disagree with some of them–or all of them):

1.  Don’t send it off to readers who don’t like reading what you like reading. If their favorite novel is one you detest, or, in my case, if they think Harry Potter is overrated (I personally adore the books, and while my writing style and plots are far different, I still have to assume some affinity exists between what I read and what I write), they will likely not enjoy your novel nearly as much as someone with your tastes would. 

2.  Don’t send it to friends who are afraid to tell you what they truly think. If someone loves to read, but they can’t even criticize someone else’s bad novel in front of you, they aren’t the right kind of reader. You don’t need mean people to read your stuff (after all, you likely don’t want to quit writing entirely), but you want people to be honest about their reactions, about how they respond to certain characters, events, chapters, plot developments, etc. If they fear too much that they will hurt your feelings, they won’t do the necessary job. 

3.  Don’t send it to people whom you know are far too busy to read it. Make sure it’s okay if they say they don’t have time. Remember that reading an entire novel is often a hard task, especially for someone who is busy.

4.  Don’t send it to people you don’t know, at least not all together. Remember, in the age of electronic transmission, it’s extremely easy for someone to pretend an electronic file is theirs. I keep older versions of all my stuff, and I send it periodically to myself through e-mail or snail mail so that if I ever have to prove it’s mine, I can. The last thing you want after spending months–or years–on a book is to have someone swipe it out from right under your nose.

I will probably blog on what to do once readers get back to you… but I will do that tomorrow. I have someone else’s novel to read right now. 

Happy writing!

Ever feel pulled in 82 different directions? Ever wonder what it’s like to just work a 9-5 job, come home in the evenings, have a quiet dinner, and watch television for several hours before you go to bed? Lots of people do it. Many of them don’t cook either. They just take turns with their spouse to decide what restaurant they’re buying take-out from that evening. Must be nice to actually be “off work” in the evenings and on weekends.

My world right now is filled with too many tasks to count. But since I have a little space to fill here, I’ll try to count them out anyway. Here are the “have-tos”:

1. Crystal, who needs feeding, needs a lunch to take to school, needs to get on the bus on time, needs to be picked up at the bus on time, needs a piano lesson once a week, and needs help doing homework (lots of help), cleaning her room (mostly needs reminding for this one), and practicing her piano (that one’s pretty easy).

2.  Brandon needs feeding, boo-boo kissing (lots of boo-boos), snacks, more feeding, reminding about going to the potty, a reading lesson every day (if possible), exercise, behavior curbing (when he goes too far, which is several times an hour), and more feeding. Did I tell you he ate a lot?

3.  Richard needs validating, needs a kiss and some words of encouragement in the morning, needs to watch his television shows so he can veg, needs dinner (he pretty much takes care of the rest), needs clean clothes (running out of undies drives him crazy, and for good reason), needs to talk about work and politics, with feedback, needs to be near me in the evenings, so he doesn’t get too lonely, and needs the house to be pretty clean, so he doesn’t freak out and start cleaning at midnight, unable to sleep because the house is too sloppy.

4.  Chayton (a child I care for weekdays) needs reminding to go to the potty, needs food and snacks (he likes eating as much as Brandon), needs toys, needs to be reminded not to suck on his fingers (which he does anyway), needs interaction both with me and Brandon, needs curbing (see Brandon’s notes above), and needs carting to and from preschool (along with Brandon).

5.  My church needs me to write checks, pay bills, make deposits of donated moneys, pay employees, keep track of finances, fill out tax forms and all sorts of other money-related things, format, print out, copy, and fold the weekly bulletins for church services, and practice, practice, practice piano for all that I play on Sunday. They also need me in the choir, since one of the other sopranos is at the piano accompanying the choir, and thus cannot sing in it.

6.  My class needs set-up (so that they remain on task throughout the two-hour session two nights a week), needs babysitting set up for each one (I have to leave at least an hour before Richard can get home from work), needs LOTS of grading, needs constant checking of e-mails, etc. This is a high-demand class, one with a lot of practice, a lot of revising, a lot of quizzes, readings, etc. Today I will likely spend 5-7 hours prepping for tonight’s class. 

7.  The house usually needs cleaning, sweeping, vacuuming, dish washing, laundry (I do this once a week–all day), neatening, maintenance (new light bulbs, filters, etc.), and more cleaning. With two to four kids here all the time, it gets pretty messy, and I must be vigilant so that it never quite gets to be a pigsty. 

And all these needs aren’t for me, they are for everyone else. I do need to keep on the boys about going potty so that I don’t get another pooped-in pair of pants like last week (I promise not to give further details, since I’m sure you don’t want them), but it’s not my problem I’m dealing with. It’s theirs. These people and things need me, need stuff from me, whether it’s neatening, scrubbing, talking, assistance, or validation. 

But what do I need? I wish I knew. I just know I am not getting it. Maybe I need what everybody around me needs–help, validation, interaction. More than anything, I think I need to relax! Then I won’t have to whine in my blog just to get myself going again.

(One note: Be sure to get in your responses to last Friday’s posting…I want to work on that Wednesday and Thursday! It isn’t a need, but it would help.) 

I woke up feeling hopeful this morning. That might sound extraordinary to you, but it’s actually not an uncommon occurrence for me. Don’t ask me to be hopeful in the evenings, though. I am too much of a morning person to make any logical sense late at night (too tired). 

Anyway, I woke up with this strange feeling that Destiny was on its way to reach me, that I was moving towards my long-term goals more rapidly than I knew, and Destiny had noticed, and swerved around to meet me head-on. Naturally, my imagination created a vortex of sorts, filled with space-aged lights guiding me along, and when I met with Destiny, it was a whirlwind of embracing, excitement, and blinding white light.

Great feeling, you might say skeptically, even irritably. And believe me, even through my optimism, that ugly voice inside my head is still ranting that all I’ve had is rejection, that it won’t EVER happen, that I’m just a dreamer who’ll never reach my dreams because I am living the delusion that I’m more talented than I really am. And on a late night, after all I’ve done that day is clean up toys, scrub toilets, wipe bottoms, and run errands, I have an easy time believing that kind of fatalism.

But my happy voice is far stronger, thank God, and my temperament too cheery in general to accept that kind of despair. So I keep hoping, keep writing, and keep moving towards Destiny. I am, after all, a writer. And I am moving towards my Destiny as surely as I am breathing. I have more errands to run this morning, more obligations, but all afternoon I will be working on my writing, inching towards my goals–or, better yet, flying to them.

Where are you flying? What destiny awaits you?

Ever sit back and notice how beautiful the English language is? Forget what all the words mean, just for a moment, and relish their magnificence. Even the word “magnificence” is, well, magnificent? 

Let me tell you my favorite words. This exercise actually reminds me of an old movie with Leslie Caron in it: The Glass Slipper. A very entertaining version of the classic Cinderella tale, but with a few twists. If you like musicals, or old movies, or Cinderella, you’ll like it. (Heck, you might like it even if you don’t like any of those things.) In the film, the fairy godmother meets Cinderella at a pond, and Cinderella says she came to say goodbye, and the fairy godmother says, “I don’t particularly like that word, goodbye,” and proceeds to tell her other words she does like, such as “windowsill” and “pickle relish.” So here are my favorites, not in any particular order.

Serendipity. I actually knew a student who named his daughter this, but most people don’t have a clue what it means. But if they just listened to it, they’d know. It’s a happy, joyous sort of word, filled with hopefulness and spirit.

Posthumous. Could you think of a prettier word for after death? It makes a dead person sound regal and stately, as if they were important, even if they weren’t. I hope, when I die, to have something happen “posthumously.” 

Weird. Could a word sound more like what it means than that? Okay, perhaps some other words could, like eerie, creepy, goofy, silly, or LOUD.

Fantabulous. Okay, so it’s not a real word, but it’s fantastic and fabulous put together. And words joined together save so much energy when one is gushing. Other words like this include babelicious, craptastic and uglirific. My kids’ favorite is mooilions (a.k.a. “lots of cows”).

So, what are your favorite words? I hold a soft spot for darker words, like vulnerable and weakening, anything emotionally laden, anything with a dark side. What words move you? 

I told you this was starting today, that every Friday I would write further on a novel, encouraging your feedback and suggestions as the story went along. As promised, here’s the first installment. I tried to keep it short:

 *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Chapter One

I shouldn’t have pretended to be Superman all those years. Or Batman, or Spiderman, or even the Green Lantern. Of course, Mom hadn’t ever seemed to mind. I could still remember the first pair of superhero pajamas she bought me, the Superman pajamas with the velcro-attached red cape. 

Not that I wouldn’t have made a superhero out of any pajamas. The first two I invented were Strong Green and Strong Lellow (I couldn’t pronounce yellow when I was three). Then I became Car Man, Dinosaur Man, or any kind of superhero I could find on the front of my shirt. Dad thought I was crazy, Mom thought I was cute. I thought I was superhuman.

But that was a long time ago. All that pretending was nothing but a waste. I can’t fly. I can’t even run fast. I can’t call animals, or see through lead, or stop a racing train. I can’t even keep from being beaten up after school. 

It used to be a lot worse, I guess. I used to get my lunch money stolen every day. Someone ripped off my backpack three times in sixth grade, and the look on Mom’s face each time was–well, it was more proof how much I wasn’t a superhero. 

Now, at least, I didn’t have to worry about that. My backpack was too cruddy to be worth stealing. No lunch money. Not even a quarter for popcorn Fridays.  

And no Mom to look like that when something got stolen. No Dad, either. 

I could tell you some tragic story about what happened to them. I could say he died trying to save her from our burning house, after he’d pulled me out to safety. I could tell you they were on a spy mission, and were caught by the enemy, who tortured them to death. I could tell you they kept their secrets despite the torture. I could tell you they were heroes.

But they were no more heroes than I am. 

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

So, let me know what you think should happen next. I already have some ideas, but I welcome your suggestions. What do you want to happen to his parents? What do you want to happen next? Think of it as a web “Choose-Your-Own-Adventure” sort of thing, the sky’s the limit, and I decide the actual page we turn to. You can also suggest his name.

Put on your creative caps (most of you keep them on full time, anyway) and tell me what you want. I’ll let you make suggestions all the way through Wednesday or so, but then I’ll need a day to get the next installment together for Friday. If nothing else, check out the Friday selection each week to see what happens.

After spending several days afraid to open my second novel up (afraid of what I’d find, since I hadn’t revisited it since JULY), I finally worked up the courage and began revising. 

Okay, so I intended to revise. Only now I’m starting chapter ten, and I’ve hardly changed a word. Instead, I stayed up late, way past bedtime, because I couldn’t put it down. 

Really. And I can count on one hand the number of books that have made me stay up that late reading. On less than five fingers, really. And I wrote all this, yet I found myself stuck to the computer screen, anxious to see what happened next (even though I knew what happened next). The characters are so compelling, especially the narrator, a 14-year-old girl who hates to talk, but has plenty to say. 

So now I don’t know what to do. I wrote all sorts of previous blogs about how my first drafts stink and yet how much I look forward to revising the heck out of them…yet I have no urge to revise this at all. I probably changed a dozen words or phrases so far, and only one scene still bothers me, mainly because its too sensual, to unusual. And yet I’m drawn to it, still, enough that I am not ready to change it. 

I know I’ll find more to fix as I go along (I’m about 1/3 of the way through), but after that I’m sending it off to some volunteer readers. And then I’ll find out whether the book is really that good, or I’m just delusional.

Tomorrow is Short Story Friday. I’ll post a short chapter, and you let me know what you want to see happen next. I’ll give you through the weekend to respond to that one before I start on the next chapter.

See you tomorrow!

I am not the typical viewer of Jeopardy. My sister and mother spent quite a bit of time watching it when I was growing up, mainly because they could answer nearly all of the questions. One fabulous day in tenth grade, however, Jeopardy was the perfect show for me. It was a very long time ago, a very long time, but the half-hour episode was so perfect that I will likely never forget it until I succumb to dementia. 

I sure hope that’s a long time from now.

Anyway, the key to my success on the show would have to be what categories were chosen. Give me some GEOGRAPHY, and I’ll never put my hand on the buzzer. In fact, I only recall about ten of the state capitals off hand. I have to look up the rest (and, yes, I know that’s pathetic). Give me modern American History, Politics, Physics, etc., and I’ll have a score of 0 at the end of the show. Alex Trebek might actually call me out for never punching the button, but if I did, I’d only have a negative amount (Really. I’m not joking. I’m really that bad at it).

But that doesn’t mean I’m hopeless. On that glorious day in tenth grade, Jeopardy was built for me. The first round gave me categories of Fairy Tales, The Bible, and The Novel, and George Bernard Shaw. The Double Jeopardy round gave me Greek Mythology, Shakespeare, and British Writers (No joke! Really!). And the final Jeopardy question was on Hamlet–Hamlet!: “This word finishes a quote by Hamlet: ‘Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him __________.” No doubt they were expecting people to flub and say “well” instead of “Horatio,” but I’d read Hamlet several times by then. I answered the question, and because the category had been Shakespeare, I’d bet everything. I think I earned $38,000 in a single day! (That is, I would have earned it if I’d actually been on the show.)

Naturally, acing a Jeopardy episode hasn’t happened since, but I hold onto the moment for two reasons. One is to keep myself humble. Any time I start to get too fancy, start to think I’m too brilliant for this world, a good half-hour dose of Jeopardy sets me straight. Yet my experience also reminds me that, even if I don’t exude brilliance in everything, I still have strength in the areas I love. And those areas still give me joy (even if I didn’t actually go on the show and make the $38,000). 

I took the nerd test my sister sent, and you’ll see where I ended up. Most of the readings are low to average… but literature is right up there. And that’s enough for me.

So, if you went on Jeopardy, what categories would you want to see? They may say a great deal about you. 

Imagine, if you will, a story about a young boy. He lives in the city, walks to school through a dangerous neighborhood, fears everything around him, from drug dealers to bullies to gang members, and lives a life where everyone is too busy or too tired to give him anything.

So he creates an imaginary friend to help him get by. At first the imaginary friend just guides him through the tough walk to school. He might sometimes use the friend to keep the bullies at bay, saying his friend is his “uncle Stan” and making it clear that Stan’s coming right around the corner. Then Stan starts coming to school with him, or entering his home when he does, just to keep him safe at home…and the action builds from there (I won’t tell you what I think will happen–you’ll have to read the book someday).

Personally, that’s enough of a book for me. I could really get something out of a story like that, watching a little boy grow up and learn to deal with the fears around him, gain strength, etc. But for so many writers, that isn’t enough. 

Now imagine this: The same stuff as above applies, only the boy’s actual uncle and aunt live with them, and fight constantly. And we get a bunch of background about his mom and dad, and they fight constantly. And we get to know every mean teacher he has at his school, the name and description of every single person who inflicts pain on him, from one day to the next. Imagine the back of the book has a list of characters and descriptions so that we can keep them all straight, and the list is as long as it is in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Suddenly the story isn’t about the boy anymore, it’s about the horrible place where he lives. The boy gets lost in all the action, all the turmoil, all the bad people. The story isn’t the story anymore. Yet if I ask the author what the story is about, in one sentence, he says, “It’s about a little boy and his imaginary friend.”

In theatre, we (the playwrights) are encouraged to keep our casts very low, as low as possible (some theatres ask for a maximum of four acting roles). We are also encouraged to keep the sets down to a minimum, ideally using no more than two or three scene locations (one is ideal, but often not practical). Certainly, the main reasons behind these guidelines are budgetary. More scenes require more scenery, along with expensive scene-changing techniques. More actors mean more pay (if the actors are paid), and also mean more costumes. Smaller casts and fewer sets mean less money is required for a production.

Obviously, the only monetary result of a complicated plot filled with a million characters in a novel is that the novel takes more pages. But I think the theatrical concept bears considering when you are writing. After years of school, obviously Harry Potter will have a lot of friends, a lot of professors, and a lot of villains in it. Each cast will build upon the last. And a few extra not-so-important characters here and there can make a book more interesting. But think of it in terms of character development. If one has fifty characters to keep track of, can you offer those characters enough development to make them real to the reader, to make them meaningful? 

Look at your own writing. Are all those people really necessary? What does each add? Be tough with your writing, and just as you are willing to toss out clothing in your closet that you don’t use, just as you put stuff in a garage sale because you know, deep down, it doesn’t suit you or has no use, cut out the excess in your writing, too. If you can’t delete it, cut it onto another document (think of it as putting your clothes into a box and storing them in the attic, instead of donating them immediately). Then, if you finish the draft, or work further on it, and realize you don’t need that stuff you took out, that character you banished from the action, you can delete it later. 

Or you can save it, and pat yourself on the back that you were able to hone down your writing to its most simple, most meaningful form, without the distractions of too much overly detailed meaningless goop.

Your novel will be the better for it. 

Now that I am working hard on a few new projects (novel #3’s draft is DONE! Hallelujah!), I’ve been thinking a little about what I most need in a book–as a reader, not as a writer (although the concepts often work for me while writing, too). Naturally, I have a list. I could put it here, but, for one, my list wouldn’t match with yours…and it especially wouldn’t match with one of my most avid reader’s lists… (and you know who you are).

So I won’t do that. Instead, I want to focus on one particular element in literature I love: Vulnerability.

I love strong characters. Nothing makes me gag faster than a doormat, and it’s one reason why I changed the main character of my third novel. The first character was nothing more than a whiny pee-on, and I hated her for her weakness, for her inability to act on her own or stand without someone supporting her. I do not gravitate to weak, indecisive, lame characters who don’t know what they want or make any effort to get what they want.

At the same time, I love it–no, I adore it–when a strong character, a character who actively seeks what he or she wants, who thinks, who chooses, who really shows persistence, honor, fidelity, etc., finds circumstances too difficult, faces some impossible obstacle, or loses his or her strength because of an event or idea. I love seeing people brought to their lowest point, where they must choose to allow themselves and their ideas to perish or make that one last stand (whether they fail at what they attempt, or succeed in the end is immaterial).

That is why Harry Potter is so appealing to me. He is brought to places where he can only sink lower if he dies, yet he somehow fights back and survives. This same idea is why my favorite movie scene of all time is in Spiderman II, when Spiderman stops the train with every ounce of his strength, but passes out from the exertion, and the people on the train pull his unconscious body inside, and one man exclaims, “He’s the same age as my son.”

It’s why I love watching my children sleeping–almost anybody sleeping–and why grieving at a funeral gives me strength, for it shows me the compassion and strength we all have inside of us, the ability we somehow hold to rise above terrifying events, horrific grief, and situations beyond our strength.

Show me the strength of your characters, yes, but let them falter, let them be human, make them deal with a life that is just one step too hard for them to handle on their own. I will love them for it, for I will recognize both their strength and weakness as part of myself.

So, what is the one overriding element you want to see in what your read?  I’d love to know.