Inspiration Monday: Suicide Perch

This is Boo.

 

Boo is my Teacup Panther. She wears a lot of hats: professional muse, flesh-eating feline, and cat litter connoisseur. (Never again, Fresh Step. Never. Again.)

Boo is also stupidly brave. This is Boo sitting atop what Husband and I now call the Suicide Perch.

Suicide Perch

It looks like a great place for Boo to sit until you look over the edge of that banister and realize that there is nothing over there except the tile floor. The hard tile floor that is a loooong way down in kitty miles.

And yet, this is her second favorite place to sit in the house. She doesn't care that one false move would render her a furry pancake with fangs. She just knows that this is where she wants to sit, darn it, and we stupid humans had better get over it. (And while we're at it, we should lay off the coffee and get a massage. Geez, don't humans know how to relax?)

The thing Boo knows and that we can't get our heads around is that to her, the risk is worth it. That spot has some allure for her that brings her more value than the fear of falling can negate. (Let's pretend here that she actually has a fear of falling. In reality, this cat fears nothing. Nothing.)

Lately, it has become even more clearly evident to me that in order to crank out the kind of work I can be proud of, I have to stop being a chicken.

My friends, I am such a chicken.

It has only been lately that I have finally internalized the fact that there is no way around it. If I am ever going to write anything that will resonate with people deep on their insides (which is the best place for people to resonate), I have to put aside the shyness, swallow my pride, and crush the fear.

Basically, I have to take a cue from the cat and find a vein of stupid courage to sit on my own Suicide Perch, spit over the edge, and make some art.

Know what? I'm still a little afraid to shift my weight or look down too long, but it's kinda working.

What does the Suicide Perch mean to you? What's on the other side? What about it has value to outweigh the risk?

If there is something out there you just can't write about, then grab up a pen and do it anyway. Your work will thank you.

What have you got to lose? Cats have nine lives, but writers have as many as it takes to get it right.

Landscape

My novel structure is finally starting to come together and look a little more like...well, a novel. The lay of the land is getting clearer and setting up solid. It's about time I had a few rocks to lean on in this thing, and if I do say so myself, some of them are very pretty rocks.

Here's to the landscape with its wilds and wastes and wonder. There is a lot to see, and for now, I'm enjoying the ride.

Inspiration Monday: Intersection

When I meet a person, real or fictional, the first question I ask myself is what road brought him or her to stand in front of me. Then I wonder which road will call to them when they walk on by.

In some contexts I hope to nudge a person this way or that toward greater good in their lives: safety, support, comfort, compassion, empowerment.

Other times, I just hold my breath while they pass so I don't accidentally veer them off course.

Every person we meet and every choice we make is an intersection. Whether we like it or not, we make a choice to carry on or take a sharp turn to the left. Over, and over, and over again, we speed under the lights. Red, green, rarely enough yellow, we cruise right on through.

Think about what it means, all these crossroads--infinite possibilities, all painted shades of gray: What might have been? What should have been? Is there really such thing as should anyway? Am I lost? Where's the bathroom?

It isn't just the road we choose that changes our path. It is often the intersection itself which alters our course. How many times in your life have you thought, "If I had only known then what I know now, I would have done things differently." What you really mean is, "Why wasn't there a bridge-out sign way back there at the red-light when I had the chance to turn off?"

It's natural to wish that all the easy roads could touch, but unfortunately, that's rarely true. There are wolves waiting at the end of some of them, and hot meals with good company at the end of others. Sometimes we can't get to one without going down the other.

Today, write about an intersection, either literal or figurative. This intersection is a Big Deal. This intersection makes all the difference. Maybe it's a fugitive who hits a red light that never changes. Canada is just down the road and he has almost made it except for this stupid light. He'd run it, except sitting across the way is a cop--a very, very patient cop who revs his engine at the first sign of him running the light. No right on red.

Maybe it's more abstract: a painter who has to make a choice of blue or green for an element of his masterpiece. If he chooses blue, it will herald greatness and he will live in wealth and comfort for the rest of his life. If he chooses green, the piece will become a heartbreaking work of stark reality--and fade away into the obscurity of many heartbreaking works of stark reality. Throw in a blue-green colorblindness monkey wrench.

Toe the white lines in the crosswalks, count the cracks in the sidewalks. Listen in the distance to see what destiny sounds like from different directions. Take as long as you need to at that intersection, but in the end, you have to choose.

Otherwise, you'll never get where you're going. Wherever that may be.

Simple Motivation

Today, like the Grinch on Christmas morning, my heart has grown its deficit two sizes plus two more.

Today, someone whose opinion I greatly respect read my work and said that my writing reminds her of Virginia Woolf.

I don't believe her, but I have the strength of ten Grinches all the same.

The Next Big Thing Blogroll

I would like to thank Ellen Morris Prewitt who graciously asked me to participate in The Next Big Thing Blogroll (or Blog Hop or Blog Tour or Blog Chain or The Next Blog Partridge in a Big Blog Tree) Project. Ellen has become an inspiration to me on a number of levels, not limited to her incredible writing chops, her skillful, sensitive work helping those experiencing homelessness to share their stories, and her unending patience with burgeoning fiction writers who are gnawing at their pages, clumsily cutting their teeth. (Ahem.)

The Next Big Thing Blogroll project is a cool initiative that gives writers a chance to share the passion they feel for their work and readers a chance to place talented new writers on their literary radar. I'm honored to participate.

1. What is the working title of your book? 
Somewhere in Between (or, The Last Porkchop)

2. Where did the idea come from for the book?
When I wrote the first draft of this book, I was working as a bookseller at a large independent bookstore. I started my first shift when I was 22 years old. All I had to my name was a brand-new, seemingly useless, and incredibly expensive psychology degree, $3 in my pocket, and a tiny apartment that the landlord shockingly refused to let me live in for free. By the time I left the bookselling business for The Great Beyond, I was 27 years old with a seemingly useless and incredibly expensive master's degree, $3 in my pocket, and a husband who worked at the same bookstore (and consequently who also had only about $3 in his pocket).

During that span, I made friends I will keep for the rest of my life. I read--oh, I read, like a greedy, swollen tick glutting myself on the sweet (free!) blood of Advance Reader's Copies. I met authors whom I admired and picked their delicious brains. Most importantly, I grew up and began to fit into my own skin like I belonged to it.

When I started this novel, my aim was to take a character whose way of looking at the world was not so different from my own, and to show the complexities of early adulthood against a backdrop which was familiar to me--a bookstore.

During the process, I walked around the bookstore with my ears wide open and a notebook in my back pocket. Every crazy, frustrating, funny, endearing, enraging, outlandish, and wonderful thing I encountered got scribbled into that notebook so that I could rush home after closing (and cleaning the kids' section...*shudder*) to pour it into the novel.

That was the jumping off place. It was fun and cathartic, but from that first draft it was clear that my characters had minds of their own. I began to realize that I was forcing them into shapes that cramped them up and that I was putting words in their mouths which stuck in their teeth. Basically, I wasn't writing the novel I thought I was, and my poor characters were trying to tell me all along.

I'm a different writer now and the novel is a different animal. It has much tighter focus on the protagonist, who is running her life on a treadmill. She's always running away from something she can't escape and toward something she can't quite seem to reach. It is what I had been trying to say all along, but as I was still on my own treadmill at the time, I didn't realize it.

3. What genre does your book come under?
Good question. It is character-based and deeply introspective with themes of self-discovery, romance, and family drama.

So, Western?
Probably.

Or literary fiction. Whichever.

4. Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 
This is a tough one. I've chosen people that somehow strike a chord that reminds me of my characters, even if they don't look exactly like they're written. 

Peter:

Henry Cavill

Ali:

Melissa Benoist

 Daytona:

Matt Lanter

Spongebob:

Spongebob

5. What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 
Uh........ Why isn't this multiple choice? C!

Here goes:  *squints eyes and grimmaces*
Following a devastating broken engagement, twenty-six year old Ali Forde struggles to navigate the terrain of her independence, tripping over every stone in her path: life, love, and the heartbreaking unreality of daydreams.

6. Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?
None yet. I plan to seek agent representation whenever I get through spit-dabbing its poor little face.

7. How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
Oh, you know, a month. Or four years. Who's counting?

I wrote it as a Nanowrimo novel in 2008. By the early days of December I had a 110,000 word first draft that I effectively trashed.

I pocketed only the prettiest bones to flavor the "New Improved Not Really Like the Original at All" version, which has taken me about 4 years and half a bookcase full of notebooks to bring to life.

8. What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
 I'd say, for various and sundry reasons, that anyone who has enjoyed gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson, The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff, and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn would recognize in my work dawning self-understanding, the relentless unskeletoning of closets, and a crooked dark streak that is tempered with good dollop of humor and a unique descriptive style.

9. Who or what inspired you to write this book? 
I gave the mushy answer in question #2, so now I'll tell the truth.

I was lazy.

I was doing Nanowrimo. I worked in a bookstore. I wrote down things that happened to me at work, then I went home and typed them as if they happened to another person.

Somewhere along the line, the characters started gnashing their little teeth and trying to tell their real story. Eventually, I listened.

I am no longer lazy.

10. What else about your book might pique the reader's interest?
One of the emerging hallmarks of my style is that all of my fiction contains at least one fantastical element--except for this one. That said, I've been straining at the bit to make it feel like it does, mostly through the protagonist's (read: my) potent and peculiar imagination. Anyone who likes a novel that is not afraid to take both feet off the ground for a second will find something for them here.

Because of the setting and background of the protagonist, I would say that this is also a novel for dreamy book lovers and anyone who is familiar with the words "quarterlife" and "crisis." They will see themselves in Ali.

Also: Spongebob does not actually appear in the text. Now there is no reason NOT to read it.

Passing the Torch

If you're still reading this, you are a brave soul indeed, and I thank you for your patience. Next Wednesday, 3/13/13 (Whoa...triskaidekaphobics beware!), two of my writing partners and closest friends will be sharing some insights into their work. Be sure to check them out!

Laura Faircloth
Laura is a modern-day Wonder Woman. I've known her since college, and ever since then she has been astounding me with her enterprising spirit, drive, creativity, and talent. She's a career woman, a great wife and mom, and she has an incredible natural affinity for storytelling, especially stories with a romantic twist. She has quite a few wonderful projects stored away in boxes and bags, so I'm eager to see which one she will pull out to share with us.

Stacey Gamble
I've mentioned Stacey on the blog before as one of the most creatively talented people walking the earth. Of course that means she's a writer as well, and an amazing one at that. Stacey has a knack for pacing and plot that I would cut off an appendage to borrow. She is a fantasy lover, and her work benefits from her ability to think outside not only the box, but the planet. She's a meticulous, ambitious creator and has amassed a solid body of work. I'm looking forward to finding out which one we will get a peek at.

Tools of the Trade: Rattletrap (the) Typewriter

For as much as I go on about my love of fountain pens and exotic inks, it may surprise you to know that I do, in fact, know how to type. I'm actually pretty good at it. *looks at nails smugly* My computer and I spend a lot of time together, especially my buddy the backspace key (who knows the truth that I'm not nearly so good at typing as I think I am), trying to decipher all those scribbly words in all my scribbly notebooks.

When I need a good refresher in typing precision and my anachronistic streak just won't leave me alone, I turn to my good buddy Rattletrap.

Rattletrap is a 1930's Royal Portable typewriter purchased from a dark, dusty corner in a pawnshop where it was overshadowed by half a clarinet and a stuffed cobra battling a mongoose. Once I got my husband to pull it away from the cobra (I don't do snakes, remember?), I opened the decrepit case and glowed with the kind of instant love I usually reserve for kittens and used books. Rattletrap was destined to be mine, I knew it down to my typewriter-less bones.

When I carted the typewriter up to the counter, the shop owner fed me a story about how it had been in the possession of a ninety-year-old woman who had it sitting peaceably on a table in her hall--the typewriter equivalent of, "She only drove it on Sundays." True or not, I forked over a twenty dollar bill and sauntered out with my new toy under my arm. I did not even notice the stuffed snake on my way out.

I named the typewriter Rattletrap because the keystrokes have such a pleasant kachank sound, which in quick succession smoosh together to sound like a fun, peppy maraca rattle. The "trap" part comes in by the fact that by the time I have this bad boy out of the case, I know that I'm going to be sitting in front of it for a while. It literally sticks me to my chair because it's simply too cool and quirky to walk away from. Anyone who writes knows how important the "stick to chair" part of the process is.

I also call it Rattletrap because--let's face it--it's a ramshackle typewriter from the 1930s that I bought from a pawn shop that sells dead snakes. Even in such only-driven-on-Sundays-by-a-sweet-little-old-lady pristine condition, this ain't no highbrow machine. This is an object that was made to work hard until its keys wear out. (Which, thankfully, they are a long way from doing.)

Rattletrap got a shave and a haircut (or some trumpet valve oil and a new ribbon thanks to Staples' wonderful selection of cash register ribbons), and has been working like a champ. The novelty of it stimulates my brain, getting the stories warmed up to trot out for a walk across the keys, but the added benefit is that it slows down my typing and makes me really concentrate on what I'm trying to say. It messes with the automatic muscle memory I usually use to type and that's a good thing. One of the reasons that pens are good for writers is that you can't write faster than you think like you do with a computer. With a typewriter, you get the same neatly typed text, but it slows you down to a rate comparable to that of handwriting. Throw in some decent OCR software (I use OCRTools for Mac), and you're well on your way. Another cool thing is that typewriters, like pens, are pressure sensitive. If I'm really hammering away at an intense scene, the words on the page reflect the physical tension I expelled when writing it. It doesn't matter much in the final product, but it's a cool meta-writing effect to consider when reflecting on your own work.

It's also worth noting that typewriters don't do a lot of the distracting things that computers do, like, I don't know, GET ON THE INTERNET. This alone makes writing productivity increase a whopping 100%!*

Rattletrap inspired a short story with the utterly creative and original working-title of "The Typewriter" which I will hopefully finish in the near future.

Just as soon as I check my email and finish this game of solitaire...

*Percentage based on the fact that I do 0% work on my writing while email, message boards, blogs, Hulu/Netflix, Amazon, or any other website ever created is available to me.

Inspiration Monday: Life Inside the Banyan Tree

Thomas Alva Edison's famous banyan, Ft. Myers, FL

This is a banyan tree. Banyan trees are fascinating. They are fascinating because I'm 99.7% certain that my brain is actually a tiny banyan tree straining in my skull.

A banyan tree begins its life as a parasitic vine-like plant that uses a combination of charming pick-up lines and sneaky little seeds to dig itself into the cracks and crevices of a naive host tree.

My brain was once a naive host tree, but somewhere along the line, through huge amounts of fiction reading and an overabundance of precocious creative energy, I picked up a pen. Those little book-seeds have gotten into my cracks and crevices. The banyan brain is born.

Once the host tree is well covered in baby banyan, there is not much it can do but sit there and watch it go. It is an overachiever, completely unsatisfied to just be a tree on top of another tree. It must encompass all it surveys.

The Edison banyan tree was the first on U.S. soil.

It grows up and out, twisting, turning, and showing off. It practices growing branches, out and out and out. They keep growing just to see how far they can go. The branches grow so far and fast that the tree loses sight of the ends of them. They are growing on their own without supervision. These branches are wild things in and of themselves. They sag under their own weight. They are heavy, too heavy for any tree, even our overachieving banyan.

Likewise, too often my stories grow too distant and heavy for my overachieving, well-meaning brain.

These branches, mighty though they be, must have support to stand. The brave banyan rushes to work raining down snaky vine-roots that curve and curl their way to the ground where they push themselves under the dirt and slurp up all its nutrients. They grow thick and solid, assuring the branches success on their journey.

The tree carries on this way, this direction and that, throwing down these auxiliary trunks wherever it needs. This is why the banyan is sometimes called a "walking tree." 

The story threads that zoom off from my banyan brain in directions unbidden can only live if they have something to hold them up and connect them to the ground. This is where I find myself struggling sometimes. It's easy to think up scenarios, but having scenarios that can suck nutrients straight from the ground (reality) and use them to grow strong and prop up the idea can be a little harder to come by. I continue to try. I'm raining down little trunk-vines every which way hoping that some of them take root. I keep walking.

If the banyan is given the room to grow, it will encompass acres of land. It becomes more than a tree, it is a Tree, a forest of Tree, an entire woodland that is made of one sprawling, interconnected, single Tree.

If the idea is given room to thrive, it becomes more than an idea, it is Story, pages of Story, an entire tome of Story that is made of one sprawling, interconnected, single Idea.

So, fellow creatives, what do you see when you sit under the banyan tree? Can you lose yourself in it, dropping breadcrumbs so you remember how to pull yourself out? Maybe you tag every branch and measure it as it grows, trimming any willful sprout that dares to stick out an unwanted tendril.

Maybe your tree is not a banyan at all, but a steadfast oak, or a hard-worn and ever-verdant pine. Write about your tree, maybe even draw it. Close your eyes and smell the sap, listen to the leaves rustling up new thoughts. What kind of fruit does it bear--and is it sweet or sour?

Personally, I'm finding that I like to sit in the middle of my idea-banyan and marvel at it, full of awe and nerves at the sheer magnitude of the human imagination. It reminds me that the struggle is worth it, because the struggle is what it takes to get those roots on the ground and to keep on walking over all the earth.