Poor Me

I am sick. As in ill. Probably just a virus, or a sinus infection, but it’s got me feeling like kitty litter.

So I dragged my sorry self to the Smith’s Express Care. I shouldn’t have. I should have done what logic says and stayed home for several more days in case it is a stupid virus.

Because when I got there, a sweet Physician’s Assitant named Meghan who is about my age talked down to me for half an hour. And what did I do in response? Cry.

When I’m sick, I cry. I lose all self-control (but not my sense of shame about it). So, when she began by saying I should probably not even pay to see her because I probably have a virus and “Viruses can’t be cured by antibiotics, you know,” I was so humiliated at how stupid she thought I was that I burst into tears. So then, of course, she talked even more down to me, “Oh, sweetheart, what’s been going on in your life lately?” And I wanted to scream, “NOTHING!!! MY LIFE’S FANTASTIC! EXCEPT THAT I’M BLOOMIN’ SICK AND YOU’RE TALKING TO ME LIKE I’M TEN!!!!!” But, no, I just cried harder.

It was awful.

How could she know what kind of baggage I have about being seen by health-care professionals? How could she know that I’ve heard the virus/antibiotic lecture hundreds of times (who wouldn’t, raising kids?)? She was just doing her best, bless her heart.

And then, because I was out already, and the kids were whiny because I had promised them they could spend their birthday money at Smiths because I thought it was a super-center with a toy aisle and then it wasn’t, I had to stop at Target for them. And, since I was there, I had to buy two bridal shower presents. I hate shopping for bridal shower presents. Why is it that everything people register for costs twice as much as it should? And hardly any of it under $30? How can you tell someone, “I’d like to go to your shower, but I can’t afford to”? Because it’s so humiliating to sit in that circle and watch the bride-to-be open everyone’s $30 presents and then your little pair of hand towels. The whole thing is so awkward for me. Should I pay more than I can afford because I’m selfish if I don’t? Anyway, on top of the being mad at myself for wasting my money on the virus lecture, it was painful to spend more on presents for people I hardly know.

Selfish me.

Selfish, sick, whiny, disgusting, pitiful me.
.

My homely child

You know how when you’re pregnant you imagine all of the things your child will be? Of course he will be amazingly gifted—probably a musical genius, reading Shakespeare by age 7, a future prophet. And then you have the baby, and he is the most beautiful child that ever existed. But then he gets colic. And he grows up to be smart and maybe even gifted but also tone deaf. Or moody. Or just sort of awkward. Maybe even, gulp, homely. And then you learn to accept him for what he is, and look for all of the happy surprises of what he’ll be, while letting go of the expectations that he is going to stand out blindingly in any particular field.

This is happening to me.

I’m afraid my novel is a homely child.

Oh, I still love it, the way only a mother could love. I’m the first to admit that it has some very charming qualities, and is deserving of love just for being its own self (and for being mine). But I am starting to realize all the things my novel will not be. Before it was this close to being done, I could still imagine that it was going to be as meaningful as To Kill a Mockingbird or Jacob Have I Loved, as romantic as that scene in Eclipse where Jacob is in the sleeping bag with Bella and Edward is watching, as hilarious as The Romantic Obsessions and Humiliations of Annie Sehlmeier (hi, Louise—love that one)—it was going to be all of those novels mixed together.

And now I’m seeing that it’s just going to be its little old self.

I know that some authors, when they finish a book, are absolutely convinced that it is fantastic, amazing, the best thing that’s ever been written. Is the fact that I know mine is probably “pretty good” at best mean that it is doomed? Of course, then I put it away, wait, and pick it up fresh and read it again and think that it actually is pretty darn good. But still, I’m pretty sure this isn’t going to be a blockbuster (like Kristi Stevens’s book will be. Mark my words, folks. You heard it here first).

Maybe at my workshop next month Louise will tell me how to make it a fantastic book. But maybe it will just go on being its own little self. I can’t see it clearly enough to tell. I am, after all, its mother.

(And by the way, I’ve been thinking about why I came to such a complete stop on it before. Part of it was my illness, but part of it, I really think, was due to the workshop. Not that Janette wasn’t a fantastic teacher. It’s just that the critiques were so proscriptive: “Hey, you could have her be suicidal!” “Yeah! And you could have the guy get in trouble for such-and-such!” “Oh, yeah, and it would be even cooler if you had so-and-so do this!” It got to the point where people were writing the book for me, taking over as the book’s mother, so to speak. Some of the ideas were really good, but as soon as someone shared it with me I couldn’t use it because it wasn’t mine. I might have come to those same ideas at some point anyway, on my own, but if someone else suggested it, I automatically couldn’t feel right about using it. I began wanting to please everyone, wanting to take everyone’s suggestions, and lost sight of what the original book wanted to be. I became a passive parent. It took quite a while to recover. I’m really hoping that this won’t happen again at the upcoming workshop. I’m determined not to let it; I’m determined to let this book be itself, and to fight for that. But maybe a good teacher can help me put my finger on why I’m dissatisfied with it. That would be worth it.)

Something to listen to . . .

. . . while you're cleaning off your desktop.

Click here, and then click on my story. This lady has the original "Primary Lady" voice for sure.

Butler's strategy of "Dreaming" a Novel (continued from March)

As promised a long time ago, here’s the final part of my notes from From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction by Robert Olen Butler.

As I mentioned before, Butler advocates a process of “dreaming” your novel, scene by scene. Here’s the process as he describes it:

Phase 1: Start with the characters. Get to know them. Spend a lot of time pondering them, daydreaming about them. Intuit their yearnings. Attach them to a milieu, a circumstance, an external moment, an event to block that yearning.

Phase 2: The dreaming. Dreamstorm potential scenes for these characters with these yearnings. Float all over—beginning, middle, end. Don’t try to stay in order at all. Have a notebook in hand and make a list (6-10 words each) of potential scenes. “Don’t hesitate to put something down, as long asit’s coming with a sensual hook.” Every scene you list must have come with some—it can be very faint/fragmentary—sensual hook.” RESIST THE TEMPTATION TO WRITE OUT THE SCENE AT THIS POINT. ONLY identify. Example: “John ponders his digging trowel.”

It’s fine if one scene leads to another. Write that down and follow to the next one. But NEVER pus it; never try to find what goes next.

For 6-12 weeks, do nothing else. Do NOT try to dramatize, structure or manipulate scens. Don’t try to reconcile contradictory scenes. Don’t ever think about continuity. “Embrace the seeming randomness.”

Finally, you will run down and feel done (150-300 scenes).

Phase 3: Organizing.

Put each identifying phrase (each scene) in the middle of a 3x5 card.
Next day: go into dream state. Flip through cards imagining scenes. You’re looking for the first scene of your book. When you find it, put it on the top left of table surface. Continue. You might get eight in a row. Bind them.
Next day: flip through first eight. Then continue.
When/if you come to a gap, dream up some scenes to go in there.
A lot of scenes you have dreamed won’t make it into your novel.
You can do research for sense details, images, etc. Write them on cards as you get them, to be inserted into sequence later.

Phase 4: Writing.

Start with first card. Go into dream state. Visualize the scene. Write it. You might see/dream something different than you thought of before. You might need to go back to remaining cards and rearrange them.

Another way is ordering only 8 cards at a time (Phase 3), then writing them, then ordering the next 8.

***
In short stories, the dreamstorming is different because there are fewer scenes. Each working part (your card) might be a scene, an image, a detail, a beat of dialogue.

***
About reading:

What should be said at the beginning of any literature course: “What we’re going to do this semester is a purely secondary and artificial thing. We are going to do that in order to tune up the instrument inside you which thrums. We’re going to add some new strings in the upper and lower registers. We’re going to tune up all the strings, so that after you’ve taken the course, when you encounter a work of art, you will thrum to it more harmoniously and completely.”

What my children will remember about me

Today I was presented with a little booklet my second-grader made for me. It is very informative about how he perceives my parenting. Sigh. The joy of mother's day gifts.

Page title: This is How I Describe My Mother
Son's writing: "My mom is tall and usually wears a t-shirt and jeans. Sometimes she wears a skirt and a shirt. On Sundays, she wears a dress. She has dark brown hair and hazel (usualy [sic] brown) eyes. She wears things from Deseret Industries."

Page title: Things She Does Well
Son's writing: She makes me angry because she puts hard jobs for me to do on Saturdays. She cleanse the house well because she has me do long jobs on Saturday (the job last week was clean 4 bathrooms.) [editor's note: kids voted to have no chores all week and mega-chores on Saturday. This was the first week of trial.] She makes me happy well because she takes me to fun places. She wraps presents well too.

Page title: Things She Likes
Son's writing: My mom likes to tickle me. She likes to make mew ork. She likes to get work done. She likes indigo, purple and blue mixed together, because it is her favorite color. She likes my three brothers. She likes our cat, Pippin, and she likes me.

Things She Dislikes:
My mom doesn't like candy exc ept some kinds of chocolate. She doesn't like it very much when we build forts because she usually has a meeting in the room that we built the fort in. Sometimes the meeting is the day after we built the fort.

My Mother Helps Me
My mom helps me with my homework and sometimes even my job! She helps me to know how to do my job faster, and she helps me to find a good snack. She helps me to win games sometimes too.

Things My Mother Does With Me [notice the great variety here]
My mom plays SORRY with me, and she plays chocolate chip SORRY with me and she plays chocolate chip-popcorn SORRY with me too. She does Soaring Eagle and my homeowrk with me. She does a lot of things with me.

Things My Mother Cooks
She bakes cookies and she cooks pumpkin pie. She cooks muffins too. She cooks vegetables, bean burritos and spaghettin too. She cooks a lot of things I don'g like, like ravioli and beef stew. I don't like ravioli or beef stew.

Things She Does for Birthdays
She makes cake sor cupcakes for the treat. She gives us presents like Lego sets, wii games, magnetix and other toys like lightsabers. She likes to give us surprise hidden presents.
Things She Always Says
My mom always says, "Clean your room," even when I didn't mess it up, like once Peter got out some papers, and threw them on the ground, then I had to clean them up. She says, "Clean up the fort" right after we make one. [editor's note: the last fort stayed up for ten days]

Humorous Things about My Mother
My moms wears a lot of stuff from Deseret Industries. (D.I.) They look good on her. She gives things to my cousins right before I want to play with that thing.

Final page: I love you, Mom! (pre-printed form)

What should I do next?

"The Lord knows both what He will need you to do and what you will need to know. He is kind and He is all-knowing. So you can with confidence expect that He has prepared opportunities for you to learn in preparation for the service you will give. You will not recognize those opportunities perfectly. . . . But when you put the spiritual things first in your life, you will be blessed to feel directed toward certain learning, and you will be motivated to work harder." --Henry B. Eyring, quoted in the April Ensign, p. 24.

One thing I learned from my poetry workshop is that I really love this kind of learning and this kind of work. I'm getting more and more sure that I do want to go for the MFA, and that I do want to do it in poetry as opposed to fiction. I think I am a poet at heart, though I enjoy writing the fiction as well.

The question is: is that where God would have me be for the next few years? Can I justify the financial investment? Is the fact that it brings me joy and makes me feel energized a sign that the Spirit is saying "go ahead"?