The deadline looms. I must post NOW.
I’ll be back later to write something of substance.
This is called observing the letter of the law.
Month: November 2010
Day 13: Kangaroos and blessings
Someone sent me a kangaroo.
It may have been the person who sent the squirrel yesterday.
All I know is that, when I looked at my Wall this morning, I saw three notes that said I’m sending squirrel requests. I also learned that I’m sending bless my online friends requests.
Five minutes ago I discovered–the Wall again–that I’m now sending kangaroo requests.
For the record, I am not sending kangaroo requests or kangaroos themselves.
When I read that someone had sent me a kangaroo, I clicked to see who it was (not that I expected to find out, considering yesterday’s experience with the squirrel).
I didn’t select any names.
I didn’t check out Giftie Credits.
I didn’t click Send or any of its synonyms.
I simply attempted to satisfy my native curiosity.
For this one indulgence, I find myself libeled.
On the other hand, after I clicked, I saw the kangaroo. That’s more than I can say about the squirrel.
For the record, however, I’m sending neither squirrels nor kangaroos. I hope that doesn’t disappoint anyone.
I’m happy, however, to send blessings. I am at this moment directing harmonious vibrations to all my friends.
But look for them to arrive in the traditional, low-tech manner. If I try sending them via Facebook, someone’s sure to receive a kangaroo instead.
******
“Kangaroos and Blessings” appeared on Whiskertips in 2009. Again, finding myself no mood to compose anything new, I’m recycling.
Day 12: Ten more minutes
Harry Pearce is in trouble.
Big trouble.
And I’m sitting here, heart rate elevated, breath coming fast, as worried as if Harry were real.
Several months ago I discovered MI5. It’s running on the local PBS station. Programs from an early series air on Thursday nights at 9:00. Programs from a more recent series air on Friday nights at 10:00 and rerun Sundays at midnight.
I’m hooked. I watch them all.
The scripts are well-written, suspenseful, fast. They assume a modicum of intelligence on the part of the viewer.
And they’re unpredictable.
The writers kill their stars.
I’ve seen several go. One was dispatched just now.
I knew it was going to happen. A couple of months ago I read some plot summaries online.
I almost never read ahead, but in this case I’m glad I did. I was able to prepare myself. Knowing made things easier.
The thing is, I didn’t read far enough. I didn’t know Harry would be threatened.
If the writers did away with all the others, there’s no reason they should flinch at disposing of Harry.
So I don’t know what will happen.
And I care what happens.
Ten more minutes…
Day 11: Veterans Day
In Memory of Our Fathers
Melvin Davis, U. S. Navy
Bill Waller, U. S. Army
And of All Who Have Served
Day 10: Squirrels and seduction
Someone sent me a squirrel.
If I wanted to know who sent it, Facebook said, I had to send squirrels to sixteen other people.
I have more than sixteen FB friends, but I wasn’t sure they wanted squirrels. In fact, I was afraid they might be offended or, worse yet, think I was trying to attract undue attention. Or, worse than that, think I wanted them to send me a squirrel by return click.
I didn’t want to be unfriended over an unwelcome rodent.
But I wanted to know who sent the squirrel, so I tried to outwit the system. I clicked on three names–teenagers I thought might like being singled out for the honor–and sent them squirrels. Then I clicked on the link promising to identify my benefactor.
The resulting page complained that I hadn’t followed instructions. “Sixteen people” means sixteen people. I was thirteen short. Until I sent squirrels to those thirteen, my squirrel-giver would remain anonymous.
A footnote, however, contained an out. If I didn’t want to bestow squirrels on the majority of my friends list, but still wanted to know whence mine came, I could do so by acquiring Giftie Credits.
Curious, I pursued this option.
Curiosity waned when I discovered that Giftie Credits come with a price.
I could get 160 Giftie Credits for ten dollars.
Or I could perform certain actions:
- subscribing to a DVD service would bring me 317 Giftie Credits;
- participating in a trial of green tea would bring 455 Giftie Credits;
- ordering a trial something-or-other designed to allay my fear of wearing a bikini next summer would net 380 Giftie Credits.
Because I get DVDs from Netflix, don’t care that much for green tea, and don’t own a bikini, I declined those offers.
The “FREE Slim Seduction Trial”–408 GCs–sounded interesting but didn’t seem practical, so I passed that up as well.
Instead, I slid the pointer up to the toolbar and flew to my very own Facebook Home page, where commerce does not dwell.
When I joined Facebook, I intended to keep up with family, friends, and my old paralegal school. I wanted to make professional contacts. I thought I might get in touch with former students and co-workers. I expected to read about piano recitals, graduations, and book signings.
I didn’t expect the squirrel.
And I still don’t know who sent it.
In fact, I haven’t even seen the little devil. I’m sure he, or she, is as cute as a bug, probably a lot like Perri on the cover of the Disney LP I had when I was eight. But I don’t know where he is or where he came from.
Not knowing isn’t acceptable. I want answers. I don’t like to be left hanging.
I shall try to be patient. Perhaps in time the craving will dissipate.
But if it doesn’t–if the desire to know becomes unbearable–I might be forced to check out the Slim Seduction Trial.
With 408 Giftie Credits, I could send a lot of squirrels.
*****
“Squirrels and Seduction” appeared in Whiskertips in 2009. An updated, revised, and corrected version appears here at the request of my most ardent fan, who does not want to write a post from scratch tonight.
*****
Image by Dave-F, used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license, via flickr.com.
Day 9: Emoting
Austin Mystery Writers met tonight.
I was prepared. I bought frozen stuffed peppers Sunday evening and at 4:40 this afternoon turned the oven on to 350. David took it from there.
Frozen stuffed peppers is our Tuesday night default. David is the default preparer of frozen dinners and cleaner-upper of kitchen. For all this I am grateful.
I wasn’t prepared for the blog, of course. That slipped up on me. I’ve given myself thirty minutes to write and post.
The AMW meeting was productive. CP and I exchanged manuscripts–sounds a lot like fourth grade: “Exchange papers with the person across the aisle and we’ll check our answers”–and read and discussed them.
We spent most of the time talking about what wasn’t on the page: real plots and false plots, what our characters want, how to increase suspense, plot points and midpoints.
For at least the tenth time, we hashed out my structural dilemma.
Originally, I had a perfectly good plot. Then I decided to make a major change. I’m now dealing with fallout.
Periodically I say, “I can’t make this version work.”
CP shows me how I can make this version work.
I repeat, “No, I just can’t make it work.”
CP says, “Okay, then, go back to the way it was. Kill Mr. X.”
And I say, “But I don’t want to kill Mr. X. I want to kill Mrs. Y.”
That’s a classic strategy: I argue that I can‘t until my partner agrees with me. Then I argue that I can.
My mother and I spent most of the 1984-85 school year engaged in that conversation. I was working at a university as an assistant instructor while writing my thesis. I was to receive my M.A. in August and then return a couple of weeks later as a full-time lecturer.
The catch was that by early July my thesis had to be approved, typed, signed, copied, and submitted for binding.
No thesis = no M.A. = no lectureship = no income.
Hence the weekly discussion:
K (wailing): I’ll never finish my thesis in time to graduate.
M (in the soothing tone that was both patronizing and irksome): Oh, you’ll get it finished.
K (louder wailing): No, I won’t. And if I don’t finish, I won’t have a job next year.
M (dropping the soothing tone and sounding frighteningly reasonable): Well, if you don’t think you can finish the thesis, maybe you should start looking for another high school job.
K (hysterical, offended wailing): You don’t think I can finish it! I’m going to finish it! I have to finish it!
Somewhere along the line, I think about March, my mother stopped bothering with words and began substituting, “Um-hmmmm.” Having heard predictions of academic doom since my freshman year (“I failed my biology test. No, really, I failed this one.”), she said her lines mostly to appease me. She knew I had to vent.
I suspect CP, like my mother, has figured out her role in the drama.
Image of Elisabet Ney’s Lady Macbeth by cliff1066, used under terms of Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.
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Day 8: Connecting
My high school English teacher read the Day 7 post, the one in which I wrote that she told students we had important and relevant things to say.
That is the problem with blogging. At some point, you make a remark, a perfectly innocent remark, and the person you remarked about happens across it and reads it and calls you on it. Especially if you link the post to Facebook, and that person is one of your friends.
Anyway, said English teacher (who taught me in grades 8, 10, 11, and 12, so you see what we were both up against) asked whether she really said relevant and important, or whether she said, “Hush up and write.”
I admit it. “Hush up and write” was more her style.
And I really went overboard with relevant. I don’t think anyone I knew said relevant. It was one of those television words, ubiquitous and meaningless. The curriculum wasn’t relevant. School wasn’t relevant.
Relevant isn’t complete in itself. It needs something more. Relevant to what? And in whose opinion?
The 60s didn’t get to my part of Texas until late. And being as contrary then as I am now, I rebelled against the rebellion.
According to my husband, people should never send e-mails they wouldn’t want Ted Koppel to read on the air. David is correct. That goes for Facebook and blogs and all media, I’m sure.
Although I agree with his policy, however, I don’t follow it. Anyone who has read this blog knows that.
My one hope is that any potential employer who googles me and reads my work understands self-deprecating humor.
In other words, I’m neither as dumb nor as ditsy as I portray myself. Fiction is fiction and fact is fact, and in between there is irony.
If hired, I will be on time, work through breaks and lunch and do overtime, meet deadlines, take a personal interest in my work, and play well with others. I will spell correctly and use the serial comma. And I will not write about you on my blog.
I’ve been thinking about starting every post with that paragraph. Especially the post about my hereditary tendency to burn toast.
Although I write about my flaws, or pseudo-flaws, I am a private person. I want to choose what I tell and when and to whom. I don’t appreciate Facebook’s rabid desire to help me extend my social circle. I really really don’t appreciate Facebook’s sharing my information and not telling me, or making it difficult for me to lock down information I don’t want to share with people I don’t know.
There are days when I would like to close the account completely–as if that were possible, given FB’s determination not to delete it–but I’m in too deep. Closing out of FB would be like disconnecting both the telephone and the television. I don’t use either appliance very often, but giving them up would put me completely out of the loop.
No more pictures of Kenna wearing her little pink hat and grinning.
No more surprise messages from students I haven’t seen in years.
I’ve had the good fortune to “connect” with two women I first knew when they students. They were back-to-back winners of the Writers’ League of Texas Manuscript Contest, Young Adult Division. One has signed a book contract with a publisher. The other recently signed with an agent.
When their books come out, I’ll be jumping up and down.
I hope the high school from which they graduated will honor them by inviting them back to speak to current students. I hope the elementary and middle schools do the same.
I hope the school district makes a BIG DEAL of their accomplishments.
Let me say that again.
I hope the school district makes a BIG DEAL of their accomplishments.
Not for the writers’ sake, but for the sake of children who need to see that telling stories is important, that publishing a book is an event to be celebrated, that kids who once sat in those same classrooms grew up to be writers.
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Day 7: Nothing to say
T-minus 6.
When I was in school, and my English teacher assigned an essay, the default complaint was, “But I don’t have anything to say.”
The teacher would say, “Yes, you do. You have a lot to say.” This being the late 1960s, she probably used the words important and relevant.
In my case, she was wrong. I didn’t have anything to say.
I was past forty when I finally found something to say. A lot to say. Not important, not relevant, but a lot.
Today, however, I don’t have anything to say.
Period.
Day 6: Just do it.
11:35 p.m.
T-minus 25
This has been a long day. I’ll get to the point.
Here are some blogs you should check out.
1. Kate Shrewsday.
2. Being Me–Beliefs, Blessings and Blunders.
3. SE Witschorke, Middle Grade and Young Adult Author.
Running late again. Details later. For now, yours not to question why, yours but to take good advice when it’s offered.
Day 5: Why I am not a journalist.
In one of my favorite scenes from the Mary Tyler Moore Show, news writer Murray Slaughter bets assistant producer Mary Richards that she can’t write a news story. Mary says she can.
Just then, a story comes in, something big, a scoop. It must be written up and rushed to anchorman Ted Baxter, who in just a matter of seconds will utter his sign-off: “Good night, and good news.”
Murray, smiling, bows to Mary.
Mary rolls a sheet of paper into her typewriter. She types about half a sentence. Then she stops. She spaces down and starts another sentence. She stops. She spaces down and starts over again. She stops. She spaces down… Everyone in the newsroom is standing around her desk, watching…She spaces down…
Finally, at the last minute, Murray loads his typewriter, and, fingers flying, types the story, rips the paper from the machine, and hands it to producer Lou Grant, who runs for the anchor desk.
And that’s why I’m not a journalist. I’m not Murray. I’m Mary.
That, and because I knew that if I took a journalism course, I would have to talk to people: call them on the phone, request interviews, ask them questions. I had no intention of talking to people I didn’t know.
And then someone would expect me to write a lot and faster than I was capable of, or thought I was capable of.
I look back and wonder how I got to that point. Not the distaste for talking to people I didn’t know–I’ve always had that–but the difficulty with writing.
I grew up loving to write. By the time I was seven, I was writing long letters to great-aunts and aunts and cousins. Once when I was home from school, enjoying ill health, my mother let me use my father’s fountain pen. Once I used a pencil with a point so dull I doubt the recipients could read the for smears on the pages.
The summer I was eight, I spent the month of June in Central Texas with an aunt and uncle while my mother stayed in Dallas with my grandmother, who was ill. My father, who remained in Del Rio working, visited one weekend and brought me a present: a ream of legal-sized paper.
On a scale of one to ten, most children would have rated a ream of paper at minus 3. I gave it a twelve. I wrote my own newspaper. Most articles covered weddings between various cats and dogs of my acquaintance. I had a talent for describing bridesmaids’ dresses worn by Blackie and Bootsie and Kitty and Pat Boone (my fox terrier). It was a devastating little parody of a small-town newspaper.
And then somewhere along the line, I did what my thesis adviser told me, twenty years later, not to do: I got tangled up in words. Writing was no longer fun. Confidentially, I think it had something to do with school and outlines.
It was years before someone said, “You can’t write an outline until you know what you’re going to say, and you can’t know what you’re going to say until you’ve written something.”
Write it and then fix it. And lighten up.
Sometimes I do lighten up. When I write the blog, I lighten up. I’m fluent. Words pour out. Unless I’m trying to be serious and sincere and profound. I cannot try to matter. I’m not a profound writer. I think profound, but I write shallow, and there’s nothing I can do about that.
And I would never put myself into the little journalism box. That’s pressure. And I still don’t want to talk to people I don’t know. I’d rather make up the facts myself.
I don’t like talking to reporters, either. I always tell them to be sure to make me sound intelligent. One young lady told me she didn’t have to fix anything because I talk in complete sentences. I told her that was an accident.
Now. It’s past my midnight deadline. I think I’ll still be okay for NaBloPoMo because it runs on Pacific Daylight Time (for another forty-eight hours).
But that is not, at this moment, of paramount concern. My dedication to adhering to rigid contest guidelines has lessened.
I’m lightening up.
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Day 4
Questions of the day:
When will I learn that writing is a slow process? That revision is a slow process? That no matter how much I enjoy what I’m doing–and, contrary to normal hyperbolic squawking, I do enjoy it, especially revision–I will not turn out page after page after page in a two-hour session?
That when I finish one scene, I have to go on to the next? That no matter how much I admire what I have just completed, I can’t stop to celebrate by stopping for the day?
That 1800 words is a lot, but measured against the NaNo 50,000, or indeed the 80,000 I really need, it’s a drop in the proverbial bucket? And less than that in the proverbial ocean?
No; this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
Those lines just popped into my head. They show the situation is worse than I thought. There isn’t just one proverbial ocean, there are multitudinous seas. And tossing my 1800 words from the shore would be like immersing a bottle of food coloring. Not even the sharks would notice.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin – his control
Stops with the shore.
I thought of that, too. My grandfather, I’m told, sang scales to a truncated first line: Roll on thou deep blue ocean–roll! It doesn’t work in iambic pentameter, though. Accents go on Roll and roll.
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin’-fishes play,
An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ‘crost the Bay!
And that slipped in with the others. I sing this one because, as soon as I think of it, it sticks in my head. I would sing more, but this is all I know.
I’ve been wondering what to do after I leave this coffee shop. Now I know. I’ll sing. Driving home. Cooking dinner. From time to time throughout the evening, when I least expect it, I’ll burst into song. David won’t say anything. He appears to have gotten used to it.
I haven’t been stuck on “Mandalay” for quite a while. My default is
Never smile at a crocodile
No, you can’t get friendly with a crocodile
Don’t be taken in by his welcome grin
He’s imagining how well you’d fit within his skin
So there are advantages to having Kipling on the brain. I know only half a verse of the crocodile, and failing to reach a natural ending, an “Amen” of sorts, leads to immediate and unfortunate repetition. Sort of like what happens with Little Bunny Foo Foo. I taught Little Bunny Foo Foo to my cousin’s kids when I was in high school. I don’t think their mother has ever forgiven me. I may teach it to her grandchildren.
The clock on the computer tells me it’s past time to start home. I didn’t finish what I started out to do, but, having emptied my brain of over five hundred unnecessary words, I’m much lighter in spirit.
Day 3
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. ~ Henry David Thoreau, Walden
I start this post at 9:10 a.m. I shall finish and publish within the hour.
Note I do not say which hour. Starting early means only that I have longer to dither.
I’m good at dithering. In the three hours I’ve been awake, I’ve managed to read two e-mails and several hundred quotations from Word of the Day. After reading about hyperbolic, I clicked the little button that says Quote of the Day. Then I clicked the little button that says Random Quote. Then I clicked the Random Quote button several hundred times more. It wasn’t procrastination so much as hypnosis.
No, I give myself too little credit. I was looking for the secret to life. I’ve always believed that finding just the right book would solve all my problems. I would read it and thenceforward live serenely and productively and know where my car keys were at all times.
Recently, to streamline things a bit, I’ve downsized the search from a book to a quotation.
But I’ll have to look beyond Random Quotes. It produced a lot of Emerson, Thoreau, Pope, Philip Larkin, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, and H. L. Mencken, but only two Emily Dickinsons and one Eleanor Roosevelt. In fact, the one woman who kept cropping up was Anne Sexton. A person looking for the secret to life should steer clear of Anne Sexton. Especially before breakfast.
And as far as Henry David Thoreau is concerned, I haven’t been able to feel complete confidence in him since I learned that while he was out in the woods simplifying and being self-reliant, an aunt back in Concord was washing and ironing his shirts.
I respect Thoreau. He sheltered runaway slaves. He spent the night in jail rather than pay taxes to a government that endorsed slavery. He would have stayed in jail longer had not relatives gone behind his back and paid the fine. His Civil Disobedience has influenced the course of history. I respect him for that major contribution. Walden, however, might read a bit differently if the author had been required to spend time down at the pond pounding berry stains out of his shirts with a rock.
And maybe he did. I’ll admit I’ve never seen the factoid about the shirts in print. But the English professor who tossed out that detail was a formidable scholar, and all his other pronouncements have proved correct, so I have no reason to doubt him on this.
Really, though, I sometimes wish he had left it unsaid. Because when I read or hear about Thoreau’s grand experiment, I automatically think, But some woman washed his shirts.
Which is cynical of me, and not at all nice. Oh well. I am working on that. And I have been reading Anne Sexton.
The ATM at the bank right in the middle of Concord, Massachusetts, is named The Simplifier. Just thought I’d throw that in.
Now see what’s happened? I started out to write a quick post about writing quickly, and I ended up ranting about Henry David Thoreau’s laundry. And it’s already thirteen minutes past my deadline.
I’ll try again tomorrow.
12:10. An interruption. Some revision. Three hours over the deadline.
I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
590
Day 2
A wonderful thing has occurred. CP said she would proofread the infamous newsletter.
I accepted her offer before she could retract it. She looked at the draft yesterday. This morning she pointed out errors and I corrected them.
I did my own proofing for the first three issues. That was risky.
I’ve always been compulsive about grammar and mechanics. When I discovered one of the Nancy Drew mysteries my grandmother gave me for my eighth birthday was short a set of quotation marks comma, I immediately reported it to my mother. I can spot a recieve at 5,000 yards. David and I amuse ourselves when driving by pointing out misplaced apostrophes on Dairy Queen signs.
But my own work is another thing, especially after I’ve been shuffling the same words around hour after hour. The characters begin to run together. Hence the risk. I proofed those first three issues within an inch of their lives and mine.
CP’s help makes that intensive effort unnecessary. In fact, as I admitted to her earlier today, I was downright slipshod with this issue. I read and reread and made some changes, but finally I said to myself, “Phooey. Somebody else can deal with this.” And she did.
And now the task is completed, the newsletter is online, and all I have to worry about proofing is this post. I’m already wondering whether I should do anything to the Nancy Drew up there. Italics? Not quotation marks. Bold? A small heading font?
It’s easy, especially for an OCD like me, to obsess about mechanics and forget what’s really important. A recieve now and then, or a misplaced comma, doesn’t constitute sin. Comma “rules” are changing even as I write. Those are small things. It’s meaning that counts.
But small things matter, too. A recieve at the wrong time and place may suggest the writer is careless or inept. Absence of a serial comma can alter the meaning of a contract.
…the kingdom was lost. And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
So, as much as I’d like to throw commas to the wind, I shall continue to run spell- and grammar check (but not believe all it says) and watch for omitted words and remember that as a paid-up member of P.O.E.M. (the Professional Organization of English Majors), I have a duty to preserve the written language to the best of my ability.
Having written this serious and incredibly pedestrian paean to punctuation, I will share my favorite spelling rule:
I before E except after C, and E before N in chicken.
I learned that from the Andy Griffith Show when I was about ten. Later, I tried to share it with my high school students, but they looked at me funny. So I finally gave up.
Which is also what I’m doing now. Giving up. No more commas, no more apostrophes, no more poultry. I’m going to post this before midnight and then proceed to get my days and nights untangled.
By the way, you can disregard most everything above the apostrophe. I strive for correctness, but the serial comma is the only punctuation mark I’d consider going to battle over. And, having discovered a late-blooming case of dyslexia–which I’m told has always been here, but who knew?–I’m much more tolerant of creative spelling than I used to be. And the O on this keyboard is wonky and I’m too tired to care.
S any errors you find in this pst are fair gaim. Feel free to point them out in a smment. Because I’m nt profing anything tnight.
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Day 1
NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, MiniWriMo
Day 1 – 1228 words
That’s about 400 words short of today’s goal. I might write more before midnight.
I might go to bed asap.
I’m posting when I should be working on the novel (or sleeping) because last night, in an excess of enthusiasm, I yielded to impulse and registered for NaBloPoMo: National Blog Posting Month. The goal is to post every day. I’ve tried it a couple of times and always bailed out before the end of the month. But this is the first time I’ve participated in November, which is the official month. Bloggers who post every day between now and November 30 are eligible for a prize.
I don’t know what the prize is, nor do I care. It isn’t about the prize. It never is. When I take a cardiac stress test, I stay on the treadmill longer than I have to. With the doctor saying, “You can stop now if you want to,” and my legs turning to rubber, I keep right on walking.
It also isn’t about good sense.
NaBloPoMo has a website, and I could post there as well as here. If I wanted to stay awake long enough to do it.
This morning I dropped in on Facebook and How Many Pages Did You Write Today? was passing the word about the MiniWriMo. It works on the same principle as NaNoWriMo, but instead of shooting for 50,000 words this month, its participants shoot for 250 words a day–one page. That I thought I could do.
So that’s what’s going on.
I’ll as many words I can (at least 250) for the novel, and I’ll post here, every day in November.
Tomorrow’s topic: I have no idea.
304
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M. K. Waller 