%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |
a journal |
 This book is intended as a place to blog about my life and things I'm interested in and answers to prompts from various blog prompt sites here on WDC, including "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS"  and "Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise" I'm not sure yet what it'll turn into, but I'm going to have fun figuring it out. |
| Which is better, never leaving or coming back to where you started? This may mean anything and it is up to your interpretation, could be a place, a goal, a person you love, a vocation, or a hobby. I’m not sure. First off, I can’t decide, because both of the choices imply a kind of stasis. Never leaving. Coming back to where I started. Both choices return me to some position that existed in the past that I’m not sure I believe in anymore. I’m more like that song in Pocahontas, where she talks about never crossing the same river twice. If I have never left, or if I return to some previous beginning, the world has changed and I have changed and I’m not the same person that I was when whatever it was started and I will react differently and the world will react differently to me. Now, it’s harder to see that if you never leave. We don’t see the gradual shift when we live in the middle of it. And sometimes that’s a good thing. For example (and this is an odd one, but my brain is fried), I have a knitting project that I started a couple years ago when I started knitting again after learning as a child. So, this particular knitting project involved laceweight yarn and complicated lace patterns that I hadn’t done before, and even though I could do it, I struggled. I put it aside for a while and started other things. I didn’t see the competence that I’ve grown in that hobby until I picked it up again and realized I knew what I was doing and that it went faster now. Coming back made me see the change while staying with the hobby gave me practice so that the change could happen. Both together. Part of my uncertainty, of course, is the fact that I’ve moved around so much. Places aren’t something that stick to me very well. I’ve lived here in this house for nine years. I’ve lived in this city for eighteen. This is the longest that I’ve lived anywhere. By more than double. And I still don’t feel the kind of roots here that I do in the place I was born, where I only lived three months. In a way, the notion of never leaving feels foreign to me. I have to concentrate and work to come up with scenarios that involve staying in place. Change is my constant. So, if I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of never leaving, and I know that there is no where to come back to the same condition that I started from because I don’t believe in stasis (that change as a constant thing), the question becomes very difficult. I guess the answer must be, yes. And no. All of the above. None of the above. Both. At the same time. |
| In his book The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Réverte says, “Even if there is foul play, without the rule there is no game.” What does this quote mean, and how does its meaning reflect in your life? Huh. Well, to begin with, all games need rules. If they don’t have rules, there is no way to cheat. Those rules must be mutually agreed upon by all participants in the game. There is nothing more frustrating than to come to a point where the rules suddenly change and instead of playing the game that you thought you were, you’re suddenly playing something else where the rules are undefined but seem to be designed to make you lose. The most haunting and creepy villains are those who treat things as a game. For example, in the fourth Harry Potter, when Voldemort is resurrected, he doesn’t kill Harry out of hand the way he does Cedric. Instead, he forces Harry into a duel, complete with formal rules like bowing to the opponent. He tries to follow the formula because that will make Harry’s defeat (that doesn’t happen) more clear to his followers. In other words, it’s more about the rules and Harry ends up breaking them (by running away) instead of following the rules and dying which was the endgame. I try not to run my life as if it was a game. However, I’m very aware of rules. Most of them are personal ones. Constraints that I place on my own conduct so that I feel good about the life that I’m living. It’s not a game, it’s a way of being. On the other hand, stories are a kind of game. They need to follow rules so that the world that they describe can be shared between writer and reader. So, I guess, as a story teller, I am a gamer. |
| What are your favorite summer memories? I’m not sure what to think about this one. I have forty-one years worth of summer memories to choose from, and when I try to come up with a list of favorites . . . well, I don’t do well with favorite lists. They always make me think of too many things, because for me, favorite depends on my mood and the time of day and the phase of the moon and how many colors the world is sending my way. In other words, I have too many favorites to make the term useful. And when I try to come up with a comprehensive list, my mind goes completely blank, which makes me think that maybe I don’t have any summer memories at all. But I know that I have. One set of favorites are road trips that I’ve taken with my family. Because we lived across the country from my parent’s families (my mother’s parents were in Ohio and her sister in California; my father’s family was scattered across the mountain west—Colorado, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California . . . at various times. We, on the other hand, lived in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, and Maryland, from the time I was three to eighteen—miles and cultural variations away) we spent time almost every year traveling. Most often we went to my mother’s parent’s house in Ohio, but at least once every four years, we went to a family reunion which always managed to be out west. They actually happened every other year, but we couldn’t afford to go every year. So, part of my childhood summers (and a couple of winters) involved road trips across the states. We usually camped along the way, pitching tents and using sleeping bags. Mama wasn’t fond of roughing it, so at least one year, we fitted the back of our van (six kids means twelve seater van, eventually) with a bed that we would nap in as we traveled. I would read or play games with my siblings or do puzzles. Dad always read aloud to Mama in the front—the books varied. A lot of Georgette Heyer and Dick Francis. They still read aloud to each other. Sometimes we’d sing together. That was always fun. I went to camp every year from twelve to eighteen. That was fun—but muddy of course. And hot. I can make fire (even without a car battery and steel wool) and do rudimentary first aid, which has come in handy several times in my life. I went on hikes. I always did reading in the summers. When I was old enough, I got jobs. I worked the switch board half days at the summer school. I took health the other half, mostly because Dad thought that summer school was a great thing (not understanding that where we lived it was all remedial—he’d had great experiences in his summer school as a boy) and because it was a required course that I didn’t terribly want to have to take for an entire semester during the school year. I volunteered another summer at a school for developmentally disabled children that was within walking distance of our townhouse. That was difficult, although the children were so very special. It made me certain that this wasn’t something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Ten years ago, I spent a week in July and August in the hospital. When I came out, I lost most the rest of the summer because I was adjusting to my new life with type one diabetes. I love to swim. Not that I’m very good at it. I love going to water parks, although the really long sliding rides are not my favorite. I like the splash but not the feeling of going down the hill. I like summer weddings. One year I went to three—two of my sisters and my boyfriend’s brother. That was fun to be part of. But I think that my favorite thing to do is usually the thing that I’m having fun with at the moment. And that changes with the day and my mood. And the season and the percentage of heat and humidity in question and the phase of the moon . . . among other things. |
| What do you think about the fan memorabilia, and have you ever or would you, in the future, pay good money for such an item? Have any of your fictional characters been involved in some way with fan memorabilia? I have to admit that in my possessions I have a elfstone pendant like the one from Lord of the Rings. My sister has a leaf broach. I also have a miniature bow like Susan’s from Narnia, and assorted items that had their origins in Harry Potter. I recently knit a shawl whose design was based on Kelsingra, the dragon city from Robin Hobb’s books. So, I have no problem with memorabilia. I buy it, I make it. However, when I write, my characters tend to have different obsessions than I do. I don’t think I’ve ever written someone who specifically was a fan of something. I could see it happening in the future, but my problem is that fan references tend to date a book. The obsessions that we have now fade into other obsessions as time passes. For what it’s worth, my sister is a rabid fan girl for Firefly. That’s how she met her first husband—they were on a fan fic site. The way that turned out makes me less inclined to base major life moments on fandoms, no matter what they are. And I’m certainly glad that my life and happiness doesn’t depend on any sport’s team. |
| What are your feelings for the Memorial Day, and if you were made to serve in a branch of the military, which one would you choose? Memorial Day as a holiday has always made me sad. It’s right and proper to honor those who fight for the freedoms that people enjoy in the United States, but it’s sad to think of the many who have lost their lives for the people that I love. My great-grandfather (my father’s father’s father) was a WWI veteran who made it over there just to turn around and come back the next day because the war was over. My grandfather (my father’s father) was a WWII veteran. On the day before the war ended in the Pacific, he was the radio man in a bomber that was shot down. There were thirteen men in the aircraft, including the crew and some others. Only five made it, including my grandfather, whose knees were so busted up by the crash that it affected the rest of his life. My father wasn’t acceptable to the military for health reasons. My brother-in-law serves, in one of the military bands. Sometimes, when he is deployed, he’s in danger, but more often he is called on to act as a representative of what is good and talented in the armed forces. I am grateful for all of their service, and for those who don’t make it home again. I don’t think the military would have me for health reasons. My eyesight is awful (as in, without my glasses, I can’t see the words on my computer screen) and I have type one diabetes. I’m insulin dependent. I couldn’t serve anywhere without refrigeration capability. I’ve heard of people with diabetes who wanted to serve who were not allowed because of the insulin dependence. But military service was never something I wanted—I’m not good with taking orders from someone I’m not convinced knows more than me, and that’s something that soldiers need. None of the branches really appeal. |
| Have you ever won a contest and found out the prize was something totally different then what was advertised? Write about your experience with real life contests. I don’t think I’ve ever had a contest where I was surprised by the prize. I never count on winning. I’ve won writing contests—once for money and once for publication, and a few other times just for the winning. I try to only enter reputable contests, so I’ve never had a case where I found the prize to be less than advertised, and occasionally, it’s been more. The ones I remember have mostly been writing contests through school. I won one of each—fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. The poetry prize was through AWP, and that was money, which was nice. I entered a poem that I had written here, workshopped in class, and then rewritten so that I liked it, and luckily someone else did, too. The thing about that prize is that every time it is offered, a different judge is used, so a poem that didn’t win one semester had a chance the next, if it pleased a new judge more. The CNF piece I entered into the concentration awards—which was basically the end of the year awards that were offered through the English department. I was a fiction student, so I basically entered because I could, and I was surprised at the win. That semester, every single award was given to a non-genre student. I entered one of my short-shorts (it needed to be less than 2000 words, so that’s not as short as all that) into a contest where publication was the award. That semester, two of us won, and we were published in sequential editions of the publication. It’s my only real publication credit. Besides writing, I tend not to enter into contests. Competition really makes me feel ill. |
| Prompt: Do you find your work in real life, past or present, has affected your writing, positively or negatively, and do you use events from your work in your fiction or poetry? A lot of my writing, both fiction and poetry, reflects my real life, including my work environment. I write about being a student and an instructor. I write about cubicles and working in the toy store. I write about frustration and working with difficult people and about children—a lot of my early work experience was babysitting and then nanny. I’m not sure I can separate my work experience from the rest of my life. I think that work has to be something considered in writing fiction, especially when considering characters. One of the problems of category romance novels is that the main characters tend to have only nominal jobs that manage not to interfere with the real business of falling in love. It’s unrealistic and frustrating. One of my professors when I was getting my MFA centered a course (it was a forms course) on work in fiction. We read novels and short stories in which work played a prominent role—a mason building a bridge, a porter on a train, a farmer—and studied how the work experience shaped the work, making the characters clearer and sometimes driving the plot. It was eye opening (I was introduced to one of my favorite short story writers in that course) and fascinating and now I feel the lack when a main character doesn’t have something in his or her life that focuses it. That’s what career does. It shapes the way a person thinks and gives them something that they’re doing all day so that their life is interesting. |
| Make a list of everything that inspires you-from books to web sites, paintings, movies or anything else you can think of. Okkay. This is more difficult a task than it sounds like because everything has inspiration potential. I read a book and a phrase jumps out at me and leads my mind into another story. I see words that make me want to write a poem. I see a sunset. I see a sky full of clouds that look as though they are painted except if someone painted them, they wouldn’t look real because they’re so perfect. I smell dinner. I talk to my mother. I remember stories from my childhood or from my mother’s childhood or from my grandparents and great grandparents. Someone dies. Someone lives. Everything inspires me. The world is made up of inspiration and most of my creative time is spent winnowing away into the story that I want to tell, trying to fit glimmers and glints that I’ve found along the way into the mix. |
| Prompt: “What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.” Walt Whitman Do you sometimes look in other people’s eyes and imagine who they may be and what they may have done with their lives? Also, do you think this is what most poets and writers do? I do watch eyes. You can tell a lot about a person by how they meet your eyes. In fact, with my siblings, I’ve always told them that they think very loudly—I know them so well that I can tell from their look and their body language and our shared experience what they would say if they could. When I people watch, I think I spend more time considering body language than I do the eyes. For one thing, meeting a stranger’s eye across a crowded room or a bus stop or a party is actually difficult. People think you’re strange when you do that, and you get the “why are you staring at me” thing. I’ve had to explain to people before (only slightly lying) that I wasn’t looking at them. I was looking through them at something else that existed solely in my head. And it was true (more than slightly) because sometimes I was imagining what their lives might be like, but I wasn’t seeing them. I was seeing a character I was creating in my head. What’s more interesting are snatches of conversation. Body language. Sitting behind a couple in a theatre and watching their hands—his thumb running over the back of her hand over and over. As though he was reminding her that he was there. Or reminding himself that she was real. Unconscious leaning. The smile that brightens someone’s face when her husband comes into the room. Unconscious shrinking away Secret exchanges. The things that we do because that other person holds a place for us that no one else does. That’s more important for me to write than a meeting of eyes. I think that all poets and writers should spend time watching people. Thinking about eyes as windows and mirrors. Trying to figure out why people work so that their words ring truer. And yes, part of that is the eye. But it’s not the only thing. Nor even the most important thing. |
| Let's talk about the women in your life: after all, it is Mother's Day weekend. I am surrounded by women—which isn’t a bad thing. I also have men who are important to me, but I am the oldest of six—and my only brother has five sisters. There are other women in my life, of course, but my family holds a special place for me. My mother is a special woman. She relies on me in a way that was difficult when I was younger. I remember when I was twelve, she had a miscarriage. They had only told us (five of the six were born at the time) a few days before, and I remember her crying on the couch and holding her hand because there wasn’t anything I could say or do to make her feel better. She has a sense of humor, but she doesn’t laugh out loud. We always made a game of trying to make her laugh. Madeline is the best at it. I was only two years and ten days old when Joyce was born. Because of that, I don’t have any real memories of before her. We were inseparable as children. When we were four and two (about the time Rachel was born) we used to play a game that involved going up to the attic and telling stories to each other. That was something we did throughout our childhood. It was hard on me when she left to get married. She met her first husband on the internet on a Firefly fan fic site and married three days after meeting him in person, at which point they went off together to live twelve hours away. After they divorced, she married another man who only has taken her two hours out of town, which is much more convenient. They came to visit yesterday, and it was so nice to see her. We slip almost immediately into the patterns we made together as children. She has two grown step-children and a step-grandchild with another on the way, which just trips up my head, thinking that my Joy is a grandma. Rachel was always the type of person who took space. I mean that literally. You’d be sitting on the couch, and all of a sudden, she’d sit beside you and insinuate her feet under your butt, and then ten minutes later, you’d be on the floor and she’d have sole possession. She’s almost four years younger than me. She’s a musician—plays the piano beautifully. BS in Math and MFA in Collaborative Piano. She got her masters in the years after she got married, which meant when her oldest was young, I spent a lot of time watching her. She’s such a sweet person, but sharp and self protective to the point that you don’t want to get on her bad side because you’ll never get out. I don’t compete with her. It’s not worth it. She has five children (the oldest is a girl, the rest are boys)—four living. Her third baby died at five days. It was difficult on all of us. When her fourth was about eighteen months old (he’s about to turn five) she caught a sinus infection and lost the sight in her left eye. But nothing stops her. She’s a wonderful mother. Homeschools. I stayed with them for about three months total, helping with the kids while that happened, so we got to know each other as adults. I like her husband. I couldn’t live with him long term, but he’s good for her. My brother gave me a sister—the only one I have that’s not blood. Lynda is good for him, and I love her for that. We got to know each other before she started dating him, and were friends while she went to school for her Masters—Eguptologu. She’s the type of girl who takes care of things—when she was in school, her place was full of little breakable things that all had sentimental value to her that she could tell stories about. Together they have six and a half children—four boys , two girls, and another on the way due around the end of August or early September, We haven’t seen them in person since their oldest was a baby because they went to live with her parents, chasing a job. She’s such a strong person, but I’m not sure I could live with her even in the short term. She’s very careful. Madeline was born when I was nine (I’m forty-one now). She’s a joy and always has been. Of course, sometimes she’s a bit of a terror, but that’s what happens when you have a child with more energy than sense. She was a musician through high school—clarinet and bass clarinet—and then studied music education in college. In some ways, she’s more of a musician than anyone in the family except her husband. He studied jazz piano and then got his masters in composition and now has a job with the air force band in Germany. Which means, we don’t see Maddie and her three very often (one girl, two boys). She always was into things—so much so that if something was lost in the house, she was the one who would know exactly where it was. She can make anyone happy. Her husband knows how lucky he is—at least I hope he does. Last, Rose was born just after I turned sixteen. She has always been the baby of the family, but now that I’ve learned more about who she is as an adult, I’m impressed by her. She is an artist. Painter. She suffered from dyslexia as a child and didn’t learn to read until she was eleven, but as an adult, she got her BA in English (with a minor in art) and loves to write stories. It’s so much fun to talk stories with her. She suffered anxiety as a child and still has some stress in social situations, but she’s so much better than she was. She is stubborn. I’m so glad for the women in my life. I could go on and talk about nieces and cousins and grandmothers and aunts and teachers and friends—in person and on line. . . but I am just thankful that I have them. And I hope I am as much a strength to them as they are to me. |
 Log in to Leave Feedback |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
