Category Archives: Personal

About me and/or for my benefit

A Warning:

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The Number One reason to cultivate good habits is that when you are too tired to do anything else, habits are what you live from and on.

~

I am sick.

I hate being sick. It enhances all my limits and tendencies.

To my relief I see light as well as darkness: I couldn’t spend more than a day utterly doing “nothing.”  My need for order (hey! I have one of those!) has dragged me through my sludge to get significant (though not nearly “enough”) things done each day.

I have taken more time to read (non-fiction– I haven’t had the stamina to enter anyone else’s drama this week), and I feel like a long-neglected part of my mind has been watered and nourished.

But mostly this experience has made me more aware of habits, and how much I want to focus on training them once I have the strength again.

Meeting the Readers

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There’s not a lot (in my writing world) much more exciting to me than meeting and talking with the type of young people who will be reading my book.

I’ve had a few delicious encounters with teenage fantasy fans, and they all go about the same way. In my half-curious, half-outgoing way, I start asking questions about the sort of stuff they read.  I love hearing what draws somebody into a book, because I want to make a book that draws people in.

Last night I talked with a trio of teenage girls and was very disappointed to hear (though not for the first time) that the *cover* is the first thing that makes them pick up a book to learn more.

Disappointed, not because I’m not the same way, but because I know I shouldn’t expect to have any control over what the cover looks like. Kinda drives home my powerlessness.

I also found words coming out of my mouth that weren’t quite fair, like, “I don’t like it when authors seem to be trying to teach you something– like a character does something bad and everything else that happens is to show you how bad it was.”

This is both true and not-true.

I don’t like didactic books that make a story serve the lesson the author wants to teach. I do like stories that leave me feeling like I know more than I did in the beginning.

Generally, because of the kinds of books I read, I’m observing more about interpersonal relationships, or emotional intelligence, than anything “factual,” but those are things I’m not seeing a lot of alternate teachers for, so I’ll take what I can get.

I don’t have to “believe” it all, obviously, but good authors definitely make me think, and frequently see things in a new way. 

THIS I like.

A lot.

But giving them my blog and e-mail (Hi, girls, if you’re reading this.) I was forced to look at this website in a different way, realizing that Untangling Tales probably isn’t going to be able to serve my goals as a writer, simply because there is way. too much stuff going on here.

So I’m playing with the idea of an author/novel site to move my fiction-specific stuff to, and I’ll keep y’all posted.  The domain I want is still available…

For the record I am down to two blogs: this one and the family scrapbook.

Obscurity has its Advantages

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One of which is realistic expectations.

Or, rather, few to none, which works as well.

I’ve gone through cycles of seeking my “brand” or identity, or audience, pouring thought and wistfulness and effort into producing content days at a time.

The closest I’ve gotten to a theme is, “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

Which is overstating it, as quotes will.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats (1795–1821)

For now, I more wish to belive that the unexamined life may perhaps be lived better (than examined), but without the benefit of reproduction. And I believe a scientist would say that any outcome, however perfect, is not useful unless it can be reproduced.

While I do not strive to live as a scientist, I do wish to be of use. And I know my deepest need (for an improved life) is not perfection, but consistency.

But, returning to obscurity (we left it for a moment), I think on what is necessary to leave it: nakedness. Utter exposure, whether voluntary or not, is the cost of coming out of invisibility.

It was Edna St. Vincent Millay, I once read, who said, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

My friend Becky and I have had (e-mail) conversations over this, the choice about how open to be.  She knows her audience. She has a sense of mission in her writing, and finds both power and purpose in choosing to open some very personal parts of herself.

I have none of those motivators. Much of my fragility and “intimacy” is very self-centered; they are things I want to remember on topics that are close to my heart and so are easier for me to write about.

Or maybe just easier to stay connected long enough to finish.

All my life I have heard about “masks” and “getting rid of masks.” The idea of presenting a false front is despised in all circles, even while (as a culture) we feel more disconnected from one another than ever before.

So people talk publicly about stuff that doesn’t make you blush any more, and shocking announcements are defended effectively.

I tried to explain the phenomenon to my mother (who doesn’t need anything explained to her), and she is simply horrified at the practice. “Why would anybody do that?!” she asks.

I proffered a few of my theories (the attempted explanation part), but she didn’t seem to hear any of them. And I can’t say I blame her. I don’t rightly understand it myself.

But I’m a part of it.

Apparently I’m in the early years of Generation-Y, and attribute it to what you will (I’ve read theories about this too), we are a “real” generation, where authenticity is the key word.

I’m a part of it without even knowing it.

I can’t tell you how many times someone older than me (and not always very much older) will laugh in an embarrassed way at something I just said and respond, “That’s what I love about you, Amy, you’re so real.”

Which, frankly, confuses me, because what else can a Believer be?

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Staying Happy

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I started writing a different post, about what I would change if I didn’t “owe” anyone, if I were free to be self-centered and do whatever I want to do.

Then I realized, I kinda am.

That is, unlike the people I genuinely pity, I really am living the life I want to. And it’s not easy.

So I didn’t pick an easy life.
Moving on.

This brilliant (unpublished) post enumerated the three directions I feel pulled in, and I said–

What? My world’s falling apart over three things?

Now, granted, my world was not falling apart (just my focus), and there are a LOT more than three things on my mind right now (each category has numerous subsections), but to see clear sections has settled me down, and I’m back to believing I have a reasonable number of things to manage.

Broken Ribs Are Broken Ribs

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I like watching pilots.

My parents like to laugh when I say this, since my husband recently earned his license.

I like watching T.V. show pilots, because the good ones, next to songs, are the most compact form of good storytelling I know.

And with my journalism background, compact is meant as compliment.

~

In the pilot show of Burn Notice (the only episode I’ve seen) our Smart, Tough Protagonist finds himself seriously beat up in the first ten-minutes.

Later when the episode fall-man takes a swing at our STP and has his split second of triumph, the image freezes and STP narrates matter-of-factly: It doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken rib is a broken rib. It doesn’t matter who you are or how you got it, it’s going to hurt.

Fall man thinks his punch was particularly effective, because he’s experienced enough to recognize real pain. What he doesn’t know is that STP’s already outlasted tougher punks than this guy.  And can prove it.

Other favorite line from the show: People with happy families don’t become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops – you don’t trust anyone, you’re used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.

The point is that injury = injury. It’s part of being a member of the human race and, honestly, doesn’t define who you are any more than a bloody nose (though it might be argued broken ribs and bloody noses are indicative of a particular identity).

~

Sinners sin, and fragile people get broken.

And there is the rub: even most of us who admit we’re sinners would rather avoid the nitty-gritty of it (fair enough), and all of us feel a bit affronted to be called fragile.

“I’ve taken care of myself til now!”

My whole life I’ve wondered about the horror of tears; why they are so desperately fought.

Why are tears so dreadful? So shameful?

Some thoughts:

  • They confess need.
  • They show weakness
  • The mourner’s core has identified a reason to spill a limited resource.
  • Observers now know too much, and/or too deeply.  Where there is often no desire or right to know.
  • The crier is on display, subjected to public interpretation.

Tears come from so deep it feels like a betrayal to have anyone either ignore or interpret them.

And if I barely know where they come from, so the effort of wondering how others see them is too great a burden.

The reality is, I break.

I bleed.

And somehow this is the natural order of things. This is part of creation and our finitude as humans.

It doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken heart is a broken heart.

So my latest theory is of tears being as natural as bleeding. As legitimate a sign of wrong-ness, and as natural a thing to tend. Evidence of a wound that needs cleaned and protected.

Yes, I guess that means I’ve been the odd sort that was waiting for some kind of “permission.”

Words are a part of my identity. Even when I get them wrong.

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I self-identified as a novelist today– for kinda the first time, and it was totally natural.

I’ve bemoaned before that I’m a compulsive explainer, seeing it as a character defect: why do I have to explain/justify my existence/choices?

Well, it turns out I’m just assuming others are as shallow as me.  That is,  I’ve been shown I revise my opinion of someone based on increased information, and by giving more information I’m hoping to project a more accurate image of myself.

If they still don’t like me, I don’t care, but I can’t stand someone being mad at what they think I am/have done.

So I ran into this woman I haven’t spoken with in years, and we did a quick catch-up on kids, ages and church.  And I corrected her “Oh yeah, I know where that is,” before I even asked her what she thought she knew.

You see, no one in our town knows what church I go to unless they have personally visited it.  It’s that invisible.

I was right, but that’s small consolation if it destroys a relationship so I jumped into damage-control, blaming it, very naturally on being a writer. (For the record, she was totally cool with being corrected.  Not offended at all.)

What entertained me so much was my explanation (this is part of why I write: it’s insanely easy for me to entertain myself).

It went something like this:

Sorry, I’m not really trying to be rude, but after years of thinking in terms of conveyed information versus received information I’m constantly thinking on multiple levels of communication. Miscommunication is a useful literary device, but nothing to tolerate in real life.

Not that I always have a choice, but we can set our own standards, right?

~

I am calling my 2010 NaNoWriMo effort Shaddow.

Yeah, with 2ds.  It’s a nod to when I was starting the first version of this book (Shadow Swan) and was trying to track down the novel Shadow Spinner and could not figure out why the book never showed on any search.

Yeah, because I spelled shadow phonetically. That’s a short-a, folks.

Sort of like the counter intuitive desert/dessert weirdness.  I love English.  I really do.

Notwithstanding the one semester I started German and a guy studying Spanish asked in horror, “Why would you do that? It’s, like, the one language in the world uglier than English!”

In the end I’ve simply returned to English, and find it beautiful.  Not the least because I understand it, and it submits to me.

~

Along those lines, it’s fun to say I’ve built a bit of a reputation in my church.

This was a rough week for me.  I came to church thinking about genuineness, and how what some people disparage as “masks” might more accurately be communicated as an effort to encourage other people or focus less on oneself.

I knew I was going to be asked how I was, and that I wouldn’t lie, but I hated thinking of the exchanges that would be likely to follow.  So mostly I positioned myself where the flow-pattern kept people moving faster than to expect a detailed answer.

One of the neatest things about these people is that they only rarely ask empty how-are-yous.  In that place I stood I got lots of acknowledging smiles and nods, but nobody pretended to inquire after what couldn’t be answered in the space of 18-inches.

By the end of the sermon I’d forgotten my initial goal, and got cornered in the kitchen while making my double hot chocolate.

One of the best smilers in our congregation walked in as I was stirring cocoa and asked a genuine, How are you today, Amy?

I felt my throat close and my chin wobble before I got out my one word.

“Wonky.”

And that resulted in a spirit- and esteem-soothing glowfest from the two other women about how I always have the perfect words to say exactly the right thing.  And the sweet smiler asked, “Can wonkies appreciate hugs?” and I gratefully accepted the other best form of love and care she could have offered at that moment.

Musical Profiles

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I’ve been benefiting lately from the extra perspectives that outsiders can provide to my story.

One of the more painful realizations was that I don’t love all my characters equally.  Or maybe that I don’t know them enough.

Now, I’m not the sort of writer who feels the need to have a year-by-year scrapbook for every major character, but I do think I need to know more about them than anyone else– including themselves.

~ ~ ~

Rather than “interviewing” my characters (so far) my method has been to collect an emotional profile.

I’ve given advice before that recording details of a significant event isn’t as useful as doing anything you can to root the emotions connected to the event.

My reasoning is that a writer’s skill will only increase, and if all you have is notes of a happening you will always be limited by what you’ve written down.

If, by contrast (or in addition), you can access a deep emotional core, you can use that as building material.

With this as a sort of guiding principle, rather than interview my major characters about childhood nicknames and how that made them feel, I’ve collected songs.

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I think music should make sense.

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The main reason I expect my music to make sense is because it has so many times helped me make sense of my world.

As a result there are times I get really disappointed (or maybe just annoyed) by those songs that don’t *match*.

For example, sometimes I trip over a song where content and emphasis don’t line up, or one that’s come to represent something that is actually not present in the song.

And then there are the poorly-done fantasies of the the music world, where I would have been willing to suspend disbelief for a good “story” (sound) but the internal logic is inconsistent.

Here’s what I mean.

I Will Always Love You is played at weddings, even though it’s about a relationship ending.

If I should stay
I would only be in your way

good-bye, please don’t cry
Cause we both know that I’m not
What you need

I Need a Hero presents as an anthem about a dearth of (or desire for) good men, but if you’re listening to the lyrics  it’s really about the impatience and demands of a woman.

I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the end of the night
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
And he’s gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I’m holding out for a hero ’til the morning light

A good clue was when I started flipping the lyrics around and realized there was no clean way to put this in a male POV— a song about what a good man is waiting for/wishing to find— without changing the character of the singer (Which I sort of did, and may share later).

Then there’s I Stand by Idina Menzel. An earnest, heartfelt song about, well, high ideals, I guess. I haven’t quite figured it out.

When you ask me, who I am:
What is my vision? And do I have a plan?
Where is my strength? Have I nothing to say?
I hear the words in my head, but I push them away.

I stand for the power to change,
I live for the perfect day.
I love till it hurts like crazy,
I hope for a hero to save me.
I stand for the strange and lonely,
I believe there’s a better place.
I don’t know if the sky is heaven,
But I pray anyway.

This isn’t nearly as iconic as the first two, but I include it because it’s a perfect example of something that affects me emotionally while offending my reason. (I use offense in a very mild way here.)

It is basically the theme song for my main character in the Lindorm Novel, which ties my feeling about the song and the character perhaps too closely together (I couldn’t find Linnea’s motivation for the longest time, either. Sometimes I still wonder).

The “offense” grows from recognizing the sincerity of the piece while feeling that sullied by its emptiness. It’s an anthem of our “believe enough and you can be sure its true” type of faith in the modern world. It is something I want to believe in, and am disappointed not to be able to embrace. It all sounds so good, but there’s no real hope, and anyone looking for clearer answers is told, I don’t know— I’m still waiting too!

What songs don’t make sense to you?

Snoop & Dragons

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It’s a good thing I’m not in the habit of buying new books whenever I want them, since I’ve got two new ones on my wishlist now (more, actually, but today I’m talking about:).

Snoop and Imagine Dragons.

Snoop, by Sam Gosling, is a fascinating book about using *stuff* to explore personality and how personality might be read by observing an environment. It uses the “Big Five” model of personality-typing (where I read– like most people would expect– as an extrovert), and uses particular environmental cues connected to those 5 elements.

I am loving the contrast between this typing and the Myers-Briggs model, since they really tell me very different things about myself and others.  If I still like OCEAN after finishing this book I might big-five type my main characters to see the differences.

For example, just as I am an introvert according to the M-B definition and extrovert under OCEAN, I think my MC is the reverse.

One way I’m trying to say it so far is M-B is pretty good at describing behavior (especially putting it in context with a whole individual) while I’m guessing OCEAN is more useful at predicting behavior– though both can do either, of course.

The other book is what convinced me I could never go 100% to any of the digital platforms, though I’ve convinced myself that for non-picture books I’d actually like an e-reader: if I’m buying new anyway.

  • the book takes up less space physically
  • is usually cheaper (price would determine format choice) and
  • is easily searchable
    • Most of why I hang onto a book is because I *need* some perfect line or example at my fingertips.
      • this, BTW, is what is most traumatic about having all my book collection packed away.

My favorite part of Snoop so far was in the first chapter, where the author categorized the types of stuff that fill our spaces.

  • Identity Claims
    • others-directed (See: this is who/what I am)
    • self-directed (Remember: this is who/what I want to be)
  • Feeling Regulators
    • things that exist “not to send messages about our identities but specifically to manage our emotions and thoughts.”
  • Behavioral Residue (*Love* this label. Very convicting for me)
    • What is seen because of the way you live and the choices you make.

I’m also enjoying the exploration of what makes a relationship deeper (or deepen).  hint: it’s not information exchange.  But for my current situation (where I’m living in someone else’s house– I just don’t know whose, yet), it helped me understand why I feel less settled, despite my contentment with whatever.

Beginning to think of these three elements, especially in ratio to one another, gave a bit of definition to what I’m feeling about my home.

When I prepped the house, emptied it to a showing (neutral) state, I expected to surrender the first segment– Identity Claims.  It wasn’t that important to me anyway, since visits would be about the house, not me. (Pshaw, I don’t even exist!)

What I wasn’t aware of was the “Regulating” category. Turns out books and music are HUGE regulating factors for me. And with the shift I lost both: books packed away and computers in the back room, so the music system was gone as well.

The last three weeks have involved larger and larger trips from the library (along with some buying) and an evolution of mobile music (I’ve lost my iPod Nano!) that has, I think, settled at my laptop in the kitchen with a new Pandora station.

But it’s only been with the reading of this chapter that I understand my lengthy agitation. (One that I hope is now over!)

~ ~ ~

For something completely different, please consider

I wish I could show you some images from inside the book.  They are just amazing. All this wonderful interplay between line, color and texture. (And I’m not any sort of visual artist!)

Books like these convince me I could never go 100% digital, because *what* could replace my child(ren)’s experience of studying for minutes at a time a complex image like that?  Because that’s what they do when the text is being read: exploring the picture, discovering details.

This is a book I want in my collection!

And you can believe I’ve already reserved this illustrator’s other books from my library. I am eager to see more of her work!

The book itself is a very respectable survey of dragons and lore– including stories well-summarized. The Eastern dragons may be said to be favored (commentary emphasizes they’re not-evil), but their depiction is naked enough to show them as no more kind or caring.

This was meaningful to me mainly because I like using them in discussions of dispassionate, elemental forces.

Yeah, I do that. Weird?

Anyway, I am trying to hold off on buying new books right now (at least, when they’re not inexpensive…), so I’m thankful for our library right now. It’s the patch on a big hole in my life.

Cultural Shorthand

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One place I believe we discover identity is in the cultural shorthand we share with those similar to us; the stories we have in common.  This can be movies, literature, shared experience and even the Bible– if you have that in common.

For example, in this odd season I find myself in, I’m finding it easier to explain to Biblically grounded people what’s going on.

And I don’t mean that as any species of slur to people who don’t know the Bible.

It is a running gag (mercifully petering out) in *Bones* to have one character make a cultural reference and the title character responds, “I don’t know what that means.”

In the 3rd season someone compared the latest antagonist to the Sith (Everybody here knows Star Wars, right?) And the point: A master and an apprentice, there can never be more than two, which one are we dealing with? was communicated that simply and succinctly.

If you got the reference.

This is one advantage of a shared culture: efficiency.

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