~ Telling the Truth, Mainly
What is a life lesson you feel everyone can benefit from learning?
“The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you; they are unique manifestations of the human spirit.” ~ Wade Davis
Related: Other individuals are not failed attempts at being you.
*
Quotation from https://www.morefamousquotes.com/quotes/3850022-the-world-in-which-you-were-born-is-just.html
Write about a challenge you faced and overcame.
I’ve faced a number of challenges and overcome (most of) them, or faced up to not overcoming them. But the important ones aren’t fodder for this blog.
A minor challenge that comes to mind:
Two summers after receiving my B.A. with a minor in biology, I returned to college to take an undergraduate course in microbiology. I thought it would be fun.
I had not taken the prerequisite chemistry courses—organic chemistry and biochemistry, if I remember correctly—but nobody at the registration table asked, and I didn’t volunteer the information. I guess they assumed I’d read the requirements in the catalog. I assumed that what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them.
I spent the next five weeks growing, staining, and identifying bacteria.
I also spent five weeks memorizing where and at what angles to hang little H’s and O’s and N’s and other letters from little C’s, over and over and over, so I could draw the metabolic processes of bacterium after bacterium after bacterium on exams.
That was the prerequisite part. My fellow students already knew what those compounds looked like.
But I persisted—lecture and lab during the day, little C’s and H’s and O’s at night.
Things went well. That was back when my brain had space in which to stuff all those letters and the ability to spill them out into the right places on test papers.
When I turned in my final exam, I told the professor (a) I’d enjoyed the class; (b) I hadn’t had the prerequisites; and (c) good-bye.
It was a fascinating course. I’ve never regretted taking it.
But that was a long time ago. I’ve since altered my definition of fun.
***
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
Image of D-glucose by Ben; Yikrazuul, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
What does your ideal day look like?
Scrap the walker, the mask, and everything related to Covid, including Covid
Eat breakfast
Walk a mile or two or three
Drive—not be driven, but drive—downtown
Sit in a bookstore coffeeshop—BookPeople would do—drink coffee with cream and sugar, and write
Leave the bookstore with a stack of books—mine, all mine
Have lunch at a cafe; the Magnolia would do
Go to the mall, buy clothes that fit and shoes that feel good
Drive some more, nowhere in particular, just drive
See Greater Tuna with the original cast at the Paramount Theater
Have dinner at a restaurant; the Magnolia would do—they’re open 24/8
Come home, get a good night’s sleep, and do the same thing tomorrow
IN OTHER WORDS
Do things I haven’t done for the past two years. Add to the list, See family and friends close up, travel more than thirty miles from home, and . . .
***
When I began this post, I didn’t have a specific theater production in mind; I just wanted to sit in a theater with a crowd of unmasked people and not have to worry about being coughed on. And then it happened—an idea!—I really, really want to see Joe Sears and Jaston Williams in Greater Tuna. Again. For the umpteenth time. And then A Tuna Christmas. Again. Also for the umpteenth time. I can’t get enough of those shows.
But Sears and Williams are no longer acting in them. Since they started in 1981, I guess that’s reasonable. Still, I can’t imagine the play without them. Or as a film production. Half the fun is sitting in the audience, watching two men play twenty characters, change costumes and personas in seconds without a hitch.
Anyway, Tuna hijacked the post. So here are some links to Youtube.
What emoji(s) do you like to use?
The question should be, What emoji(s) do you use?
🙂
Rarely. And I make it with the keyboard.
And
I use the above in emails to my husband. I send him grocery requests. He picks up at curbside. I also send requests to print. His computer is connected to the printer.
I don’t know how to make those emojis. I copied them from gmail and pasted here. I also don’t know what all the hearts mean. That blue one might be saying something I don’t want to say.
I could copy and paste from some website. That’s how I get this WordPress template to make an em dash (—) instead of a hyphen (-).* Sad 
. I usually like to be correct, but I don’t always feel like making the effort.
I think WP has a plugin—or something—where I can find emojis, but I haven’t gone hunting for it. I don’t even use the new and improved Block Editor if I can help it.
I suppose I would use emojis more if I cared enough. But I don’t. 
I type Sigh. Or Haha.
Old-fashioned. Or just plain lazy.
On the other hand, here’s an emoji I’d like to use.
*Originally I wrote dash. I meant hyphen. But I fixed it. As I said, I like to be correct. And not embarrassed.
***
What does it mean to live boldly?
To live boldly
means
to serve
brownies,
ice cream sundaes,
and
cheese and fruit
instead of
wedding cake.
***
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
5 Things I’m Grateful For Today
My husband
Being alive six years after the doctor said the maximum would probably be three
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
***
This post was written on the 10th, but I went to bed at 7:00 p.m. and, although I remembered, I didn’t have the gumption to get up before midnight to post. So I’m predating and pretending. As I wrote in an earlier post, perfection is overrated. As someone else said, Don’t sweat the small stuff.
Pre-dating didn’t work. Small stuff.
*
What do you like most about your writing?
I like that some of my work makes people laugh.
I like writing dialogue. I hear characters talking while I write. Sometimes I hear them talking when I’m trying to go to sleep; I don’t like that.
I like building plots, getting the structure right. There’s a line from a high school literary magazine I read a million years ago when I was teaching–I don’t remember the author’s name: “Poetry is geometry exploded.” It’s also an algebraic equation. When I get a turn in the middle, and the two halves balanced, the solution found, I’m happy.
I like writing parodies. Here’s a link to a verse based on Leigh Hunt’s “Jenny Kissed Me.”
I like blogging because I can go back and fix errors in both grammar and judgment, and I can write whatever I want and not care what people think. (Yeah, right.)
I like best when I have written. And revised. And revised. And written. And edited. And proofed. And finally given up and let it go.
What makes you laugh?
Many things. Books, films, stories, people, memories.
Today, nothing.
Who is someone who inspires you?
Many people inspire me for many reasons, but the one who comes to mind right now is Tony Hillerman.
When I began writing mystery and suspense fiction, I thought I had to know the whole story before I started. It’s like what they teach in English class–first you outline, then you write.*
Good mystery plots are tight. They’re puzzles; everything has to fit. Clues have to be planted in the right places. Events have to happen at the right time and in the right order. Red herrings have to be put in specific places. Advance plotting makes sense.
I admire Ruth Rendell, whose novels are, as far as I’m concerned, perfectly plotted. At the end, the puzzle has been solved. Then, in the last chapter, sometimes on the last page, she slides one more bolt into place. How could she do that without knowing everything from the beginning?
There are a zillion books on how to write, so I read several whose authors stated that plots have to be carefully thought out. One author said every scene must be sketched out in advance on a note card, and always in sequence–never jump ahead.
I was working on a novel. At the time, I knew only the first five or six scenes, and I believed note cards would help me progress. So I bought note cards–and more note cards–and sketched out the same scenes, over and over. Sounds stupid and it was.
I pretended to be writing a novel but my brain was empty. I met with my critique group every week but submitted nothing, and wondered when they were going to kick me out. The other members tolerated me because, first, they were nice people, and, I think, they liked my comments on their manuscripts. I can offer decent criticism. I drank a lot of coffee and enjoyed their company and read some great writing.
Then I came across an essay by Tony Hillerman describing his writing process. He would start a book with a vague idea of where he was going but no set plot. Once, he said, a dog appeared–he didn’t know why, but he wrote the dog into his draft; later, the dog played an important part in the story. He gave a number of similar examples. At the outset, Hillerman said, he didn’t know exactly where he was going, but he got there in the end.
In fact, he said the only book he plotted out in detail before writing turned out to be the worst book he ever published.
That essay gave me hope. I usually begin with a character and a line and a vague idea of what happens next–but not necessarily what happens after that. I’ve published short stories, and every one began that way.
I’m not a plotter. I’m a pantser. I write by the seat of my pants.
My novel is still in partial draft form (Hillerman’s essay didn’t inspire me to get down to business and finish the thing). But I have written a lot more than five or six scenes and have even jumped ahead and drafted the ending. I’ve figured out what characters will do, and when–maybe–but they sometimes surprise me. Their ideas are often better than mine, so I let them lead. I’ve relaxed. Mysteries do have to be tightly plotted, but not from page #1 of draft #1.
E. L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime, said “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go …It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
I don’t know whether Doctorow was talking about pantsing, but his definition of writing as exploration fits with Hillerman’s description of his process.
So. That’s how I learned I’m a pantser.
I learned something else, too: When authors say, “This is the only way you can write fiction”–what they’re really saying is, “This is the only way I can write fiction.”
We all have to find our own way.
***
*If they’re still teaching to outline in detail first, they shouldn’t be. If you can outline an essay, you’ve already written it in your head. Sometimes students’ heads are empty, and they have to start writing to find out what they know about the topic. Then, when they have some ideas on paper, they can organize them. In the words of E. M. Forster, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?”
Further note: I taught English and for the first years told students to outline before writing their essays. It had never worked for me, but that’s what I’d been taught, so I passed the word along. Participation in a seminar following guidelines of the Bay Area Writing Project gave me a new perspective, and I gave students a break–write first, outline later.
***
Image by Gentle07 from Pixabay
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Something I wish I knew how to do
I’d like to be fluent in Spanish: read, write, converse.
If I’d applied myself in college–found someone to speak with–I could be. I could read and write it and had a good accent. One of my professors suggested a major.
But I didn’t develop an ear for the spoken language and had visions of failing every upper-level course I took.
I didn’t believe in myself.
Confidence–a severe lack of–made the difference.
What was your favorite toy as a child?
All of them, but the one that stands out is the hula hoop.
My mother brought one home from a shopping trip in Austin. A surprise. I worked until I got it operating correctly.
I never managed to keep several hoops going at once, or to twirl the small hoops, a surprise gift from my father, with my arms while twirling the large one around my waist.
I don’t know what happened to the hula hoop. Maybe it was lost in a move a couple of years later, maybe stolen from the back porch. I missed it, but by then the fad was past.
When I was in my fifties, I bought another one, lighter weight, which made it harder to control, and loud–a formerly perfect toy re-designed to be annoying.
And I couldn’t make it work, in part because of the light weight, in part because I wasn’t willing to put in the time and effort. It kept falling down, and I got tired of picking it up.
But I failed mainly because I no longer have the straight-up-and-down body of a seven-year-old. Hula hooping is difficult when the user is lumpy.
If I’d never stopped using one, however, all those lumps would now be in the right places.
When was the last time you left your comfort zone?
I last left my comfort zone yesterday when I started writing my post for Ink-Stained Wretches, in which I argue that Benjamin Capps’ The Heirs of Franklin Woodstock is not only literary fiction but also a mystery novel.
Argue is too strong a word, but I’m too tired to think of a better one.
I published it just minutes ago, less than an hour past due. I’m late with this, too, but I’m going to pre-date it.
Anyway, that’s when I left my comfort zone. Writing about literature is always difficult for me.
I have an M.A. in English.
What is a road trip you would like to take?
I want to sit on a bale of hay in the bed of a 1950 Chevy pickup–
Scratch that–
I want to stand on the running board of an old Chevy pickup, which I never got to do because I was just a little kid and only the teenagers were trusted to hang on–
And ride so deep into a mesquite-filled, prickly-pear-dotted Texas York Creek pasture that only the Whiteface Herefords can find their way out.
*
Image courtesy of morguefile.com
Advice to My Teenage Self
Take voice lessons. Don’t stop. Figure out how to pay for them.
Ride a horse as often as you can. When you can’t a horse, ride a bicycle. Swim.
Write down the stories you hear from old people. That includes your parents, even if they’re not old. Better yet, as soon as you can, get a recorder and tape them. You think you’ll never forget, but you will.
Ask questions. Don’t assume you know everything. Fill in the gaps.
Keep a diary. Tell the truth. Hide the diary.
You can write fiction without knowing the end of the story before you start writing. Just start writing.
Refuse to weigh in P.E. The scale says you weigh ten pounds more than the rest of the girls, but you’re the same size they are. You’re not fat. In thirty years you’ll look at old photographs and see that you looked like a shapely pencil. You and your mother will end up in the superintendent’s office and you’ll end up weighing in P.E. anyway, but you’ll have been right.
Dieting doesn’t make things better. It makes you gain weight.
You’re not messy, sloppy, disorganized, or any of their synonyms. You’re ADHD who hyperfocuses on scholarship but can’t find her shoes or anything else except her books and homework, and you don’t see the mess until it’s pointed out to you. You “lack executive function.” Unfortunately, ADHD won’t exist until later, so you can’t explain, and nobody knows.
People like you. Don’t withdraw because you decide they don’t.
Things change. You will change. Life gets both better and worse. You can’t control everything. Don’t try.
Perfection is overrated.
Tell people you love them. Show it.
Be happy.
Don’t waste time watching Bonanza. It’s a dumb show.
***
I started Bloganuary just in time to get my January 1 post up. Since I made no formal resolutions–why bother?–this will serve. I hope to make all thirty-one days. But if I don’t–perfection is overrated.
Kathy Waller 