Author Archives: Amy Jane

About that other stuff…

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It is interesting how much our (however temporary) present reality can affect our thinking.

I wrote that pair of posts about “Not just staying home” while I was still recovering from my severely twisted ankle, and while I was still basically useless around the house.  (And feeling a higher need to justify non-house activities.)

Today, while I still think it’s good to have a vision beyond my days with children at home, I got to tire myself out in a satisfying return to my “domestic duties.”

Jay came home from his evening meeting at church and saw the work I’d done. “Well, we totally blew that Sabbath,” he said, referencing my accomplishments and his work on his car.

I didn’t have words for it at the time, but now I’d say that my cleaning felt like an act of worship, in a way it maybe never has before. I was so *delighted* at what my recovering body could do.

Despite my clingy boy’s protestations (no guilt here), I cleared and swept the floor of the front part of my little-ish house. That would be the living room, kitchen, and dining area.

Those, along with 2 dishwashers and 4 racks of sink dishes cleaned over the weekend (Jay’s good help) and a cheery new (hand-me-down) floral couch, have transformed my home and me. I am positively Miss Domestic again.

For the moment.

After being physically-incapable of maintaining my home for about a month, I am reeling. Giddy. I am doing my job and getting back to doing it well.

I was telling my husband just last week, “When I feel absolutely refreshed and energized when I come home from a writers’ group or a critique meeting, I feel like that’s an indication it belongs in my life. The question left is, where?”

I felt like that tonight only about homekeeping. Without the hanging, Where?.

And I made two (good) meals from scratch in the same day, in addition to cleaning, and cooking’s been a challenge as long as the cleaning, so this also feels like a victory.

I feel a disproportionate delight when I see these accomplishments that will (in theory) mean nothing tomorrow.

But what I think God’s been teaching me about this homekeeping stuff during my convalescence is that it is meaningful the next day.

By maintaining daily the accumulating areas, I keep stress and additional clean-up times minimal, providing more freedom to do fun and creative things with my kids.

And I (almost) never do creative –read, messy— stuff with my kids when the house is out of order.

The fact that I have had seasons of fun, creative stuff-doing reminds me I can get (and even keep) my house in order. But, as in everything, it is only by the grace of God.

Happy Monday, everyone.

My Last Poem

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The third of three poems I’ve written on-purpose.
(First two here.)

~ ~ ~

This is the vastly improved version. Which might indicate the quality of the original.

I realized (maybe) why I never write poetry: I had a start here with a series of images, and my mom had the kids (’cause I’m sick and she gave me the morning to rest).

With those prerequisites I resurrected the idea and gave it a body in this poem.

Just one poem in a chunk of time all to myself (I might have finished a chapter in that same time). Little wonder I don’t do poems in my real-life.

Poetry definitely appeals to me, though. I am hooked on imagery and economy of language.

What’s Wrong

A hand came.  You may or may not
remember.  Inserting a hellish
needle it inoculated you

Against peace, against trust.
Things you now pretend
not to need, because your system
fights them.  You think
you’ve learned to live
without them, and you call this
strength.

Why is your pain
a precious thing?
It’s as natural as Lake
Iliamna— maybe even as huge—
but it’s as putrid
as old
cream
cheese.

That’s gangrene you’re ignoring
while it can only spread.

You are not so unique; we all know this
agony: a blanketing burn
that makes any touch ungentle.
And as much as I ache
to bring you to the healing hands
you must first agree you need them.

Revision #1 is Over

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Commencing revision #2.

I always wondered how other authors could count the number of revisions they’d made, because I’ve been constantly returning to “Revision #1” in my working moments, not feeling it was worth double-saving with a new number since it was obviously better the new way.

But now I’ve got an idea.

~ ~ ~

This latest talk on cutting (and the reading and thinking I’ve been doing) has brought me to a new outline, greatly streamlining the plot and action.

It’s 20% as long as the last one. Insanely simple. I’m hoping it proves to be more than a skeleton…

Yes, I feel like I’m losing some pet characters and interactions, but I also hope this new organization will be easier on the readers.

There’s too much fun stuff in my first revision to whittle any more at it, so I decided to set it aside in its own little folder (with it’s preface, postlude and 43 chapters), and start with a fresh canvas.

I expect to build the new revision by bringing in just the parts that are on my skinny new outline and see how it holds together with some new ligature.

It seems very exciting just now.

(And, no, no one else has to think so. :P )

Revising = Reimagining

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Maybe every writer should work on poetry once a year– to remind themselves that cutting, even a significant percentage of words and meaningful images that don’t quite fit, will result in a stronger work.

I know for me the exercise was a challenge, but it was an excellent parable.

Once I was free to remove elements that didn’t fit (the original assignment forced me to insert a metaphor that didn’t fit the rest of the images) the whole piece became stronger.

~

With my WIP (work-in-progress) I am currently trying to identify similar segments. Those that exist because (when I wrote them) I thought I needed them and now, especially compared to the strongest pieces, don’t quite fit.

Watching the poem improve was an effective parable, and very motivating, but it’s made me unsure about my current vision/expectation for my novel.

Right now it’s like herding sheep.

That is to say, with the right training I should be able to do it with patience and the expectation that everything will eventually end up where it should go. But not actually having that training (getting it on-the-job) I am feeling an increasing urge to reduce the size of my “flock.”

I don’t think I need to eliminate characters, necessarily, but I’m trying to decide if I need to have less of them doing interesting and significant things.

Fantasy lends itself to sprawling, panoramic, masses-affecting action. Maybe that’s why so many are insanely fat or grow into series.

My immediate desire for simplicity seems less natural/easy to achieve.

So now, instead of writing more from my latest outline, I’m going through what I’ve written (much of it at NaNo speed) and trying to decide what the purpose of each segment is; whether it advances the plot, whether the novel’s better with this action on- or off-stage, etc.

It’s more tedious work, but I trust it will both tighten the end-product and reduce the amount of un-used writing I end up with.

My Poems

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Jen F.’s post about the “Secret Handshake” of art (I love that phrase) has inspired me to be brave and throw out a couple of my poems to the world.

Honestly, it didn’t make me think of either of these, but the third poem I wrote in this class (the one I did think of) needs revising before I will bring it into the light– though now that I’m thinking of it again, it probably will.

I was forced to write four poems (of different styles/content) as a part of a creative-writing class I took while pregnant with Melody. I will not protest to anyone that I am a poet, but the images of these (and the third if I can revise it) worked in this format like they never would have in my normal language of story or essay.

One of them apparently did come out as an essay, despite my best intentions to meet the teacher’s expectation of a “Prose poem” (go figure), but these were more acceptable to him and I’ll preface them with my teacher’s comments.

No great reason for this other than it seems to legitimize them somehow.

~

From his response to my 47-page portfolio of the semester’s stronger work (he himself is a poet, so I hope it doesn’t minimize the prose too much that he liked the poems best):

Two of my favorite pieces in the collection happen to be the poems.

They stand up awfully well, I think, with “My First Love” quite nicely capturing spiritual joy— which typically leads to poems that are terribly corny.

Yours isn’t, and the genuine delight apparent in the language and imagery take us, whatever we believe, to a fine place.

“Thoughts While Cleaning…” is considerably more somber, of course, but the arrangement of details is quite smart, and the nature of those details brings us close to the horrors of what happened— even as the way those details are viewed is meant to find distance from those same horrors.

~

 

My First Love

I always thought of the quiet breeze
as God playing with my hair,
and the soft raindrops were his kisses.

I’d turn my face into the wind
and feel
my hair curl behind me.

The warm breath
fit my face
perfectly,
like a strapless dress
that magically stays on.

Then,
as the rain began to fall,
I’d turn my face up to taste it.
Gentle touches over my throat
and lips.

I would begin to dance–
in my young way–
spinning about and lifting
my arms to welcome the divine
caress.

 

~ ~ ~

 

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If you caught that last post in your feed-reader

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I realized that (however unlikely) it is possible that the subject of that post may read about the project and miss the full-impact of it being a surprise. So I’ll just wait until after the day mentioned (don’t you love how vague I am?) to de-privatize it.

Curious yet?

Anyway, I’m still open to input if you saw the questions. Mainly:

  1. Is there a good way to avoid talking about myself (or keep from looking self-absorbed if I must)?
  2. Can you think of a good way to organize the speech?

That is, I’m inclined to tell it like a story or a blog-post, with one idea leading into the next. But I’m wondering if, since it is a stand-up presentation (5-minute speech) I need to follow a more conventional tell-em,tell-em, told-em format with discrete points.

~ ~ ~

And how do you like the new signature? It was a freebie from here, (HT Happy Home).

What My Mom Did Right

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Great title, right?

I’ve been asked to craft a 5-minute speech to deliver at my mom’s church on Mother’s Day. I don’t know yet if I’m doing it, because I don’t know if I have 5-minutes worth of material.

That sounds bad, sorry.

There’s good reason for me to give this speech. There’s probably lots to say, but at this moment, before I’ve struck a structure, I do not have the differentiation to know how much of this is from her, how much is from the them (both my parents) and how much I’ve extrapolated and combined from all the observing and reading I’ve done in the last 15 years.

I’m so literal-minded those distinctions actually matter to me.

And, also, how can I talk about what my mom did right without, basically, elevating myself?

I’m only a good bearmaker if my bears turn out well, right?
How else should I express my mom did well, than that I turned out okay?

I feel like it would be easier to talk about what a good job, say, my Mother-in-Law did, removing me one degree from the discussion.

This also reduces by some percentage the chance I will become a blubbering mess in front of a congregation that’s only seen me once before (I’ve noticed crying is my stress-response).

I should e-mail my old ToastMasters club and find out if someone there can help me with the project.

In theory I like it a great deal. In practice… We’ll see.

The 1,001 Nights– a Tuesday Tale

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This is my telling of the frame story of the Arabian Nights. It is lifted from my novel (you’d expect there to be storytelling in a storyteller’s novel, right?).
I’ve always loved this story, sometimes more than the other stories it brackets. So here you go.

This story tells of a king gone mad, suspecting all women of being evil.

As he desired the pleasures of marriage without its trials and demands, he married each evening and the next morning caused his bride to be executed.

He killed her, so he reasoned in his twisted mind, before she could destroy or betray him.

It was this tormented soul’s Grand Vizier who had the unhappy task of collecting a new bride each day, knowing he was sending her to her death. And this torture was made all the more painful as he had two beautiful daughters of his own. He felt his terror for them intensify with each morning’s execution.

~

First the daughters of the slaves were taken. When they were gone, the Grand Vizier was forced to collect next from the serving class, then the merchants.

The king’s madness did not abate. If things continued thus, no maiden would remain in the entire city. Families were attempting to flee the country in their efforts to protect their daughters.

Finally Scheherazade, the Vizier’s elder daughter, could stand it no longer.

She battered her father with words: an endless stream of reason from a woman whose mind was set before she had reasons.

Scheherazade wore him down, and with a breaking heart he presented her to his lord and master.

That the vizier would offer his own daughter brought the king enough out of his self-centered madness that the girl was able to attempt her desperate plan.

Scheherazade begged leave to have her young sister spend the night.

Shortly before dawn, as they had arranged between them, the younger sister woke the new queen to ask for a last story in the presence of the great King, her husband.

The elder daughter began a story that twisted and tangled in and out with so many others that the king spared her life that day, then the next, and the next; always promising to execute her the next morning, when the story was finished.

But of course it never was—or when it was, another story just as tantalizing was left at a critical moment that would again allow the young queen a day of amnesty.

Thus the words of a woman held off her master’s madness and her own death for one-thousand-and-one nights, and in the end, they were both free.

Yuck!

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I spilled some 409 refilling a bottle and mopped the spill with a towel under my stocking foot.

Five minutes later I could swear I had the taste in my mouth.

I get the how and all, but it’s still kinda creepy.

My Latest Challenge

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Yes, my silence since the last post means that I’ve been working on my novel.

I’ve had limited writing-hours and have been focusing on what I’ve thought most-important at the time (meeting the kids last week helped with that).

As much as my dropping stats pull at me, I don’t want to feel obligated to post just to post, so I won’t pretend this blog is *important* to anybody but me.

Speaking of personal stuff, now that it’s past I can tell about my latest “trial and tribulation:”

I twisted my ankle severely on the 18th of March.

I know the date because I had 3 hours of errands to run with my kids that morning, and one of them was to pick up Enchanted on its DVD release date.

Well, we did the three hours of errands and got the movie— all after I jumped off the porch and landed my full weight on the side of my foot— but I must have been building up pain for when I got home.

I got the kids down for nap though I was hobbling by that point.

Afterwards I was under ice with my foot up for the rest of the night, but I don’t think it stopped hurting before 10 or 11.

It was interesting to watch the coping mechanisms pile up.

  • Jay came home early from work and went in late for several days.
  • I learned to quit caring about what the house looked like.
  • We saw Enchanted three. times. before it went back. It was a one-day rental.
  • I bought a higher percentage of fast food while Jay was gone on his (5-day!) snow machining trip.

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