Halloweenie and All Nano Eve

Halloween is here, and it's a pretty important day for a few reasons.

For one--let's be honest here--it's an excuse for candy. LOTS.

Even on good years my neighborhood doesn't have very many trick-or-treaters, but we always stock up. Always. This year the weather wasn't great so we didn't have any. At least, I'm pretty sure it was the weather. I don't think there's anything about my house that gives us away as greedy candy-hoarders, even if it is true. I was a little sad not to have some trick-or-treaters come by and be adorable on my doorstep, but then I ate some candy and got over it.

For our dog Bella, Halloween is a most important day. She is the only extrovert in our little family, and every year she sits with wagging tail, just overflowing with excitement to bark at the doorbell and lick the sugar off tiny, costumed hands. This year, they didn't come. She waited and waited, but this year she had to settle for some heavy sighs and consolation petting. At least she got to wear her little wiener-dog Halloween kerchief for a while.

Husband and I cuddled up on the couch next to her to watch our once-a-year Halloween movies, several of which include Tim Curry. At least there was candy.

Probably the most important part of Halloween for me is that Halloween is actually TWO holidays. It is like a holiday in COSTUME.

To a great deal of writerly folks, Halloween is ACTUALLY Nanowrimo Eve.

If you don't know what Nanowrimo is, go here.

I have attempted and completed the Nano challenge every year since 2007. I might have written 50,000 words of various novels in each of those years, but it was not easy. Not at ALL.

Most years, I have some idea of what I'm going to write. It might change along the way--okay, it will PROBABLY change--but I have some kind of clue. This year, I planned to write my first sequel to a previous Nano novel. Unfortunately, my October was so full of busy, I never got a plan together. That's another thing I've learned--you can fly by the seat of your pants through a lot of things, including novels, but not middle books of a three-part series. Those require brain cells and good notes. I have a few of the latter and not nearly enough of the former.

So, once again, I find myself sitting on my couch listening to the "Time Warp" blare from my television, and the only tools I have at my disposal to turn a bunch of words into some kind of art is a notebook and a pen.

It is a very good notebook and an excellent pen. I hope there are a lot of good words hovering around in one or both of them. Come midnight, we shall see.

At least there is candy.

Inspiration Monday: Among the Porch Lights

Recently Husband and I took an unexpected detour through a rural part of the state. It was late at night and I was tired. My eyes were so itchy and heavy, I would have traded a nice chunk of my bank account for a contact lens case and a cool washcloth. When Husband turned off the interstate past that detour sign, all I could think about was how much longer it would take me to get to my nice soft bed where I could rest my poor back.

Since my only options were to go along with it or get out and walk, I stayed in the car and did what I do best: I stared out the window and daydreamed. (Well...technically it was night, but I was awake. You get the idea.)

We drove for miles down a faded two-lane that cut a scar through a patchwork of vast Tennessee fields. There was nothing but friendly, grass-covered blankness as far as the eye could see (a considerable distance, even with tired eyes in the nighttime). Well, except the cows. I could see plenty of those.

I've been a city-dweller for many years now, but I was raised in rural Tennessee, full of hills and grass and fences. The hills used to frustrate my wandering eyes. I used to wonder how far I could really see if they weren't in my way. I wondered how far I could go if they weren't blocking me in.

The grass is always greener, and the mountains are always in the way, but I wish I would have paid more attention to how pretty my side of the mountain was before I got so fired-up to climb it.

Eventually, we drove up on a stretch of houses. It was a good thing; I had begun to wonder if the cows had taken over the town. It amused me to picture them going about their daily business as civic-minded townscows, until I thought about what type of rump steak might be cooling in their little freezers.

The houses we passed were pure country, built like run-on sentences with rooms tacked on when they were needed and painted to match. They had porches. All of them. Real porches, for sitting and keeping an eye out for rebellious cows. They were spread out, each house on its own little piece of earth, but close enough that one could say it was a neighborhood. The porch lights were all on, beckoning us down their street like a string of runway lights. I liked them.

I thought about each of the houses we passed in turn. What would it be like to live in that one with the Coca-Cola sign hung by the front door--would I feel blasphemous for drinking a Pepsi? Would I have a little writing nook in the one with the extra room growing off the side like a blister? After a hard day at work, how would it feel to turn that corner and know that yellow door was my own? Would there be one room that is always cold? Does the refrigerator hum? Where would my cats find to hide from each other? Would there be a smooth floor so I could slide in my socks? It was quiet there and sparse--where would I buy my loaves of bread and reams of paper and dog toys? Would there be trick-or-treaters on Halloween? Does everyone have a cow?

I moved in and out of every one of those houses as we passed them by. I lived a quick lifetime in each one and added those memories to my own. (Extra memories are always a plus for a fiction writer.) I was still tired, but not in quite such a hurry to get to my own house. I already knew what it was like to live there.

Inspiration is all around. Everywhere you go, people are living their different-shaped lives: they are stocking their freezers with rump steak, they are driving home the long way, they are leaving the light on for someone they miss to come home to them.

Aren't you curious? Don't you wonder? What do you see under the welcoming glow of a friendly porch light?

Just watch out for those cows. I'm telling you.

Things I Learned on Blog Hiatus

1. Three animals are better than two. The animals do not necessarily agree.

2. Early episodes of The Simpsons never get old.

3. Gnocchi are delicious. This was news to me.

4. My friends are amazing and incredibly supportive. I already knew that, but it bears mentioning.

5. I lose my keys an average of four times per week.

6. I still love the Narnia books.

7. I also still love Stephen King books.

8. SweeTarts are addictive. Even the orange ones.

9. I am biased against orange candy.

10. A lapsed musician is still a musician. My copy of Arban's and I had a reunion party with the whole trumpet family.

John, Paul, George, and Ringo. (Not really)

11. I love to write. Anything. Always.

12. My body has staked a claim on 2pm as nap-time. There are no exceptions, whether I get to nap or not.

13. The number 13 is not particularly unlucky.

14. Cat hair sticks to everything. Every. Thing.

15. Fortune cookies from Panda Express never lie.

16. I am starting to like pink. The ghost of my teenage-self is very upset by this.

I prefer to think of it as "light mauve."

17. When I am nervous, I forget how to spell (among other things).

18. Watching my husband shop for clothes is adorable. He hates it, and that just makes it more adorable.

19. I still don't understand football.

20. According to my eye doctor, I have beautiful corneas. Well, thank you. I try.

21. I still have my lucky pencil. I got it nearly ten years ago when my college band director went around the jazz band docking grades for anyone who didn't have one. I found it on the floor just before my turn and it has lived in my Bb trumpet case ever since.

Excalibur.

22. I had to add one more because I cannot in good conscience leave a list with an odd number.

When Darkness Falls

My job takes me to some dark places. I see and hear things that stick with me long after the close of the day. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are tender moments that humble me straight down to my marrow, and hard decisions that chew my mind to bits but which always soften my heart. I'm grateful for the unique opportunities I have to meet people where they are and receive their impact on my life as I do my best to enrich the lives of those around me.

Sometimes I get reminders that what I do is not safe. As comfortable as I am, as easygoing as my personality is wont to be, I work on the front lines of an impoverished city with damaged, vulnerable, and severely ill people who inhabit dark places where it isn't safe for anyone. Not for them. Not for me, even if we are both armed to the teeth with the best intentions.

There are many kinds of fear, and most of them are messages trying to tell us something about ourselves and our relationship with the world around us. There is fear of the unknown vs. fear of the known, fear of failure vs. fear of success, fear for safety vs. fear of being too darn fearful. It doesn't matter what flavor it is, what matters is that we all have it, and it can serve a purpose (as long as you're not afraid to look it in the eye). 

My work is not safe, and I am not safe in doing it. I am okay with that. I am grateful for days that remind me of this and give me the opportunity to decide anew that I am okay with that, and that I am honored for the opportunity. No matter what comes in each of my days, no matter what goals I cross off my bucket list, no matter what kind of fear I may walk through, my deepest hope is that I will be able to keep marching through the darkness, keep staring down the fear, and stand up straight and strong when I'm called to.

When darkness comes calling, I hope I will always answer:

Let there be light.

Inspiration Monday: Connect the Dots

Oh, blog. I've missed you. I've been slacking, I know. It's life. It gets in the way: oil changes, doctors' visits, cat food shopping, Post-It note writing, lightbulb changing, hair cuts, and world changing. It can wear a person down.

Though I'm the first to admit that I get caught up in the everyday, lately I realize that it is the spaces between things that our life stories take shape. It's in the detours, the side streets, the unexpected dead ends that we find our surprises, think on our toes, and test our worth. If everything always went as planned, we'd never have anything to talk about. It would be a boring, soft-heeled world full of boring, soft-heeled people with no stories to tell and no lessons to learn.

Take a look at these two photos. They seem a world apart, but use your imagination. Think up a way that a person would visit them both in the same day. What does the road between look like? Which one are they coming from and which one are they going to? How will each place change the way the person thinks about the other? Will they return?

Connect the dots. You might be surprised how many pictures you can make with just a few, and it's really the only way to make sense of a world of endless shapes.

It Is the Way It Is

We, people, walk around every day in a world where we assume everyone around us functions the same way we do.

We, people, assume that everyone around us knows right from wrong. Not just any right from any wrong, but my right from my wrong.

We, people, assume that those around us know what is real and what is not. We also assume that something not real to me means that something isn't real to someone else--or that whatever the not-real thing is, it is not scary, annoying, frustrating, familiar, or lovely.

We, people, assume we are safe. We assume we are civilized. We assume that safety and civility are not up for interpretation. Safety and civility are like right and wrong, real and not real.

I know a person who sees the way I park my car without checking around the corner to see if anyone is lurking there. He tells me the truth. "You are not safe," he says, this man who lives outside with no doors to lock and endless corners for looking around.

I know a person who looks at the people walking up and down the streets in business suits, in designer jeans, in any old thing that is clean and pressed. My friend smiles and tips his head, he tries to meet their eyes. Nobody looks back, not the business suit, not the designer jeans, not a single clean, pressed person. "I thought we were civilized people around here," he says, shaking his head, all by himself.

We, people, are living different-shaped lives on uncharted planets. If your planet looks like mine, cheers. We can compare our sameness and sit comfortable in our rights and our wrongs, our reals and not-reals, and opine the loss of the safety and civility our planets once knew.

If your planet doesn't look like mine, I want to meet your eyes. I want you to tell me what you see so that I can learn something I don't already know, maybe question something I thought I knew.

Live and let live, because we, people, do not know what the person next to us is going through.

Live and let live, because we, people, can't know what the person next to us is going through.

Live and let live, because we.

People.

Book Review: The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski

The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski

Brief Synopsis: A mysterious storyteller regales a group of orphans and some adult birthday party-goers with the tale of an invisible sword that always finds its mark, but which reveals no wound until the victim reaches his or her fiftieth year of life. The back of the book gets to the point better than I can.

Published: Trick question! This book was first published in 2005 as a VERY limited edition of 1,000 copies. It was then published commercially in 2012.

Format Read: Hardcover

Comparison: It is rare that I can compare anyone to the inimitable Walter Moers at all, much less cross-genre, but if there was such a thing as a horror version of The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear, Mark Z. Danielewski would be the guy to write it. Both Danielewski and Moers have declared war on the plain page, attacking it from angles and avenues that must make their typesetters put extra bottles of Tums in their desks. Moers is darkly funny, while Danielewski is just dark, but they both employ a kind of artful whimsy that makes me gape at each new storytelling device like the kid from A Christmas Story staring down his Red Ryder bee-bee gun: "Whoa!" followed by a mind-clearing headshake and a solid nod of respect for these new kind of authors, these word-artists. Of course, in calling them a new breed, I've got to give a nod to a notable progenitor: e.e. cummings. His poetry pushed the envelope in a number of ways, but his unconventional use of word placement on the page to add dimension to his work changed the game.

Review: The next time you're sitting around and trying to decide if you should rewatch the last episode of Game of Thrones or flip through that last issue of Entertainment Weekly you forgot to cancel, just don't. Go to a bookstore (indies rule!) and get this book. You will be able to read it in the same amount of time as it takes your food to arrive at a nice restaurant, and it is so much better for you.

Before I dive into the story, I have to point out the beauty of the book itself. This book, maybe more than any other I can readily think of, makes use of its very form as a way to suck you into the narrative world. It manipulates the third dimension, of which you, reader, are a part, and does not allow you to be a passive consumer. Of course, you won't know that until you read the book, but it's still a darn nice package. The dust jacket is pricked with pinholes, a nod to the photographic stitched illustrations in the book and the "protagonist" (if there is one, besides the sword), Chintana the seamstress. Beneath the dust jacket, the book itself carries the theme with tangled blobs of red stitching enfolding it.

The total package, including the glossy pages and unusual illustrations, is as much art book as novella, and will have you staring at it with new eyes once you've read the final pages. If you want to know how blobs of thread pictured on a bookcover can be a spoiler, you need to experience Danielewski.

The book is narrated by five rotating narrators, identified only by different colored quotation marks. The story itself is told as if it is a children's tale, a simple hero's journey that grows in tension and terror with every page turn.

I studied the text at first, trying to discern which speaker might be which. I didn't want to miss anything hidden between the lines, and there's no DOUBT Mr. Danielewski hid stuff between these lines. Before long, I lost the point of the story by thinking too hard about it and trying to diagram the narrative like it was rocket science.

It isn't. Just read the book. Don't worry about the quotation marks, don't worry about anything. Just read the book and it will do its job.

And it is quite a job.

I love books like this. I love them. This book had me using every one of my five senses to experience a story with less actual words in it than some Facebook posts, and it impacted me. It made me PROUD of the author. He exercised such planning and restraint, creativity that seemed to simultaneously run wild and hold its margins to create a complete, concise story to sock you in your gut. It gives me prickles in my darkest creative parts, the places that need waking up sometimes to provide shadow and highlight to my work and ideas.

I love it.

In the end, this book is not for everyone. I had trouble even writing a decent synopsis for it because I don't know where to start. It's hard to review because I don't know how to describe it. Is it a short story? Novella? Poem? Art-piece? Who is the main character, really? Who is who in those blasted colored quotation marks?

I'm okay still having those questions left in me after having read the whole book. A lot of people aren't. I haven't read tons of other reviews on this book, but I know it was divisive among Danielewski's fans. Personally, I didn't feel gypped or dissatisfied, I felt challenged. Then I felt silly for feeling challenged by something so straightforward and simple at its core.

Then I just shut up and enjoyed it.

You enjoy it, too.