Words,
words, everywhere, yet none that seem to fit.
Words,
words, worthless ware… NaNo’s hard. I quit.
Struggling
with the English language? Finding it difficult to suss the perfect words from
the inept, not just in your novel, but in your explanations of NaNoWriMo?
You’re not alone. Here we are, more than three weeks into this crazy adventure
to which we have (once again and with masochistic glee) subjected ourselves,
and if you’re anything like me, you can’t help but consider how insufficient our
vocabularies can be. How clumsy and inadequate our phrasing in describing this
yearly ritual to anyone in the normal world, where staring at a blinking cursor
with your hands in your hair is seen for the demented exercise it certainly is.
How are we to explain why our socks don’t match, why we haven’t showered in
four days, or why our families are giving us such a wide berth that friends are
left questioning whether “WriMo” might be a euphemism for someone with a heavy
meth problem?
We
can say it’s a test of will. We can call it weary madness and ambition and SO
MUCH COFFEE. But that doesn’t cover it by half, does it? And what of the secret
to winning? If you were asked to condense the key to this month-long affair
into a single word, could you do it?
Luckily,
removing language barriers is one of the unspoken perks of being a veteran.
(Not really, but take the journey with me anyway. It’ll be fun.)
Hi. My name is Ryan Shea and I am an elementary school counselor at a K-4 school. I've been in education for 15 years, and I'm still going strong because I love working with kids! A big majority of my day at school is spent in the classrooms teaching kids how to control their feelings when dealing with difficult people, or in their world...teasers! I combine two programs that are available to any school district: "Bullies to Buddies" and the "Be Cool" program.
Most of what I do is from the Be Cool program and I pull bits from Bullies to Buddies. Basically the kids learn the phrase: DON'T BE HOT, DON'T BE COLD, BE COOL.
Students learn that kids tease in order to get a reaction. Getting mad at a bully/teaser is a HOT reaction, and getting sad/crying/begging to stop is COLD. Not giving a reaction is COOL. Being cool is as simple as ignoring teasers, walking away, laughing, and even saying "Hey thanks!"
But kids have to work at being cool. So many just give up and show the Hot Cold reactions, the bully is given the response they wanted. I tell the kids, if you show Hot or Cold reactions to someone teasing you, for example, "I hate your new haircut!" or making fun of your name, the bully wins; that's what a bully wants, is to win and see you react.
Giving no reaction and being Cool, is boring to the bully. Bullies want reactions. No reactions tells a bully they loose. Although, a bully/teaser will try a few times, but if they are getting bored with no reactions, they tend to move on.
Being COOL for kids is very easy to remember and reminding them they win and the bully loses. I have kids practice saying "Be Cool" to themselves when they feel Hot or Cold emotions in certain situations. DON'T BE HOT, DON'T BE COLD, BE COOL: it's simple, straight to the point, and easy to remember; especially for little ones.
I'm also a published author. My very funny children's book is called: The Adventures of Bob, to Doodledip for Soup. A bad bowl of space soup, a fat purple servant space cat, and space puppies called Froogaloogers, keep kids entertained through out the entire story. It's a great fit for 2nd and 3rd graders, and a fun read aloud to little ones.
Though Chugga Train has been chugging the free corners of the interwebs for an age or so now, I'm so excited to announce the release of Jax and Mack as my first fully illustrated picture book. It is a rhyming children's story about two magical creatures who find their way (through their love of books) to an even more magical place called a library.
(Fans of The Sons of Masguard may recognize this story as told by McKinley the Marauder to a rapt group of orphans following a storm. He'd be so proud!)
Currently available for purchase on Amazon, and on YouTube for your viewing/listening pleasure.
Our new kitten, Seymour, has decided that hugging my arm will somehow expedite the editing process. I didn't have the heart to tell him he was actually standing in the way of the work.
The brilliant and beautiful Rochelle Campbell, author of Leaping out on Faith, was kind enough to allow me to swing by her site for a guest post this week. She's a dear, dear human being -- please support her in any way you can!
Post:
My childhood home was crushed last year.
Smashed into a disc of debris by one little windstorm and an old cottonwood. If you were to stand in the wreckage, you’d never have known that it was once a humble house from a humble neighborhood. With windows and worth and walls covered in pictures of smiling faces. It’s a strange thing to see a symbol of permanence reduced to violent rubble – one that the dear people of Oklahoma understand all too well right now. (Our thoughts are still with you!) After discovering that no one had been hurt, those of us who’d long since flown the coop were surprised to realize that the destruction of the house wasn’t as upsetting as it might have been. All symbols aside, it was only a bit of wood and paint. It could be rebuilt.
The cottonwood was another matter.
Losing that blasted tree brought us to tears.
To be fair, this was no ordinary cottonwood. It was ooold, having stood benevolently at the home’s side for more than a hundred years. It had provided shade and shelter not only for us, but for countless birds, squirrels, and beneficial insects that were now left with nowhere to sleep. It had been a permanent hiding place for raccoons and a temporary roost for eagles. My baby sister and I had wasted entire summers in its branches, playing at spies and soldiers and daring one another to climb higher, ever higher. Courtesy of an odd clustering of what looked to be four trees melded into one, its trunk measured over thirty feet in circumference and its canopy was a sky unto itself. The dear woman from the local Arbor Society who came to record its passing said it was the most astonishing of its kind, the most remarkable cottonwood she’d ever documented. It had been the reason my father, now gone, had purchased the property thirty years before. In the end, it was the reason the house fell. I suppose there is something sadly poetic about that.
By now, you’re probably wondering at the title of this post. It’s a long way to go for a writing metaphor, but I’m ambling my way into a point, I promise.
Though we didn’t know it at the time, cottonwoods are notorious for this very type of thing – falling on houses, cars, even people – and as such, aren’t recommended for residential properties. With that in mind, it would be fair to accuse that big, beautiful thing in all its glory of being a mistake. You could say it wasn’t right for the house and the house paid for it. You could say we should have removed the thing the moment we arrived. Maybe you’d be right. But there was a reason that tree had grown to a mounting spectacle, as it did; a goliath that stood apart from its species and endeared itself to everyone who was lucky enough to sit beneath it. Due to a unique growth pattern, the tree’s root system was exceptionally deep and strong. Many cottonwoods tumble after being uprooted by their own girth, but not this one. Had it not fallen victim to disease, those roots might have sustained it for a hundred years more. Even now that it has been shorn to a stump, that system remains, stretching beneath the soil, a living network that none can see, providing a foundation for the new trees that have now been planted atop it. They will tap into that system. They will be nourished by it. They will grow to be more hardy, more successful, and likely more beautiful than they could ever have been on their own.
And they will have that beautiful mistake to thank for their success.
My point, dear reader, fellow writer, is this:
We sometimes find ourselves in the aftermath of a writing mistake. Maybe you’re struggling to find acceptance for your work. Maybe something isn’t selling the way you thought it would. Maybe you’re looking at the devastation of a grand failure and wondering whether it’s at all worth it to rebuild, to start over – or whether you’d be better off to move away from this entire writing endeavor and find yourself a quiet corner office where nothing goes wrong, where work is always rewarded with pay, and where nothing beyond your control is ever going to fall on your dreams and crush them into filthy shards.
You could do that.
But you bloody well know that you’d regret it.
Not everything you write will be publishable, no matter how much you love it. Not everything you publish will be marketable, no matter how much you try. Novels will be shelved, ideas will be abandoned, entire works will come crashing down on a massive scale and you will stare confounded at the debris, but that doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your time. Everything you will ever write has something to teach you. Cut the book to nothing, you will still have the memories of hours wherein you dared yourself to go higher, ever higher. You will learn in hindsight that there was a reason why it failed. And you will have a foundation upon which to build something new.
Writing isn’t something you do, it’s who you are. So write. If you fail, start over. And if you fail again, start over again. You will get stronger with every step, every word, every book. Every part of this loony ride of ups and downs is worth it, in the end – even the mistakes.
Scratch that.
Especially the mistakes.
My childhood home has been rebuilt and it is a remarkable sight. Starting over has injected that humble plot of land with enough sweat equity that the once-dilapidated property could now be a contender on any market. But my favorite part? The sea of trees sprouting strong and beautiful from the place where one gorgeous calamity of a cottonwood lived not so long ago.
When we first purchased our updated farmhouse in the foothills, the yard was a disaster. Having sat on the market for quite some time with no one in the house to see to its upkeep, much of the acreage had reverted to sagebrush and knotweed. Only one small patch of grass remained beneath the struggling apple and plum trees in the triangular front yard. You may question our logic but after seven years on a stifling suburban lot, we were over the moon with the prospect of transforming this neglected property into something spectacular.
That first year couldn't have been more rewarding. We purchased hose and shrubs and a stable lawn tractor. I became an avid gardener, growing everything from seed and soliciting oohs and ahhs from people who'd "never seen anyone have that much luck with tomatoes before! Wow!" That small patch of grass grew to encompass an acre, surrounding the house with a luxurious blanket of green in an area that rarely saw enough rain to keep the mountains from shriveling in on themselves.
All of that changed when I fell ill the following year.
Not in the gee, it's the flu again sense of the word, but rather in the dragging your family to the emergency room at two in the morning because the pain scares you that much sense of the word. Months of uncertainty and testing and pointless medication would later reveal that my guts had flat stopped doing the job of digestion, leaving me with massive inflammation and infection throughout my esophagus and upper stomach. It was a year of constant discomfort. Nausea to pain to immobility and back again. Overtaken by my own weakness, my struggles with agoraphobia intensified until I wasn't leaving the house, even on the days when the discomfort was minimal enough to allow it. My husband's fourteen-hour workdays left him unable to care for both a sick wife and an ailing yard. So our green oasis faded until it was anything but. The shrubs died. The grass grew sparse. The few tomatoes I'd transferred to my once-loved garden were so quickly scorched and shriveled that I lost the will to even attempt to care for them. But the worst was the dandelions.
In our old suburban neighborhood, dandelions had not been tolerated. A dandelion was a badge of shame, the surest sign that the homeowner couldn't be bothered to care for their lawn with the proper chemicals and twice-a-day mowing that one expects from a dignified and decent conformist. Upon seeing just one, neighbors would walk by and shake their heads, even slowing in their cars as they passed to subtly notify the homeowner of their disapproval. Armed with this backlog of judgment, where every unfinished chore on our new homestead was a screaming reminder of my uselessness, it was the dandelion takeover that really twisted the blade of disgrace.
How small and helpless I became. How ineffective. I was a burden, incapable of contributing or controlling any part of my life. And damn those weeds for reminding me of that.
One day, as I was returning from dropping off my boy at the school bus stop, four miles down the road, I found myself halting in the middle of our long driveway, astonished to see that our unkempt yard had become a moving sea of yellow. For a moment, I wondered whether those blasted dandelions had multiplied and mutated into spastic dance choreographers, but no. Our yard was covered -- absolutely covered -- in goldfinches.
Dozens upon dozens of them. Golden feathers glowing in the sunrise, they gobbled up the dandelion seeds and chirped one to another as if coordinating a symphony. I turned off the car and watched them flit about the work of cleaning the yard that I could no longer tend on my own. Tears filled my eyes. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Had I been robbing myself of this all these years? In a rush to control, to tidy nature's corners into what I'd foolishly thought to be dignified and decent, had I been keeping its most beautiful offerings at bay?
They stayed for nearly a week, those gorgeous angels of nature. And they left when the dandelions did. I was sad to see them go, but grateful for the work they had done. More than that, I was grateful for the lesson that maybe, just maybe, burdensome-ness isn't such a concrete thing. Maybe dignity is in the eye of the beholder. It was a lesson that was driven home again in the fall, when my inability to clear the fallen apples from the ground drew a herd of deer onto our property. Once again, nature took care of itself, gracefully and without any help at all from me.
Actual photo from our front yard.
Though I've now found a fantastic doctor and am healthy enough to attack the yardwork with all the vigor I ever had, I make it a point to leave the dandelions alone. And when the apples come down in the fall, I let them lie as well. Because it took falling ill with uselessness to realize something that my desperate need for potency wouldn't let me see.
Sometimes in life, the weeds serve a purpose. Sometimes the rotten apples aren't so rotten after all.
And sometimes, the silver linings even come with wings.
When I was very small, I checked out a certain book from the school library. It was a thin paperback with beautiful illustrations and whimsical themes -- kings and quests and a talking wolf. I loved that book. So much so that I didn't return it for weeks, checking it out again and again until they'd allow it no more. At which point, I racked up an impressive fine. (Well, as impressive a fine as a school is willing to levy on a seven-year-old.)
My mother could have gotten angry. She could have chastised me and given a lecture on respecting deadlines or knowing when to let go of something that wasn't mine to keep. Instead, on the night before it was to be returned, she sat down at the typewriter and copied the text, word for word, leaving room on each page for the illustrations, which she also drew by hand. I don't know how late she stayed up. I only know that, the next morning, I had my very own copy waiting for me on the kitchen table.
Across the years, I'm sad to say that my cherished, by-hand book was lost a page at a time. But the story didn't end there.
When I became a mother myself, she went looking for that book. It took several false purchases and nearly a year to find the right title, but find it she did. And once again, I had my tale of whimsy and talking wolves -- this time, to share with my own child. I still love that book. It holds a prominent place on my son's bookshelf, facing outward, where I can see it from the doorway anytime I wish.
Had this situation taken place today, it would have been a simple matter of looking up the title online and downloading a copy before returning that thin paperback. There would have been no years-long search, no page by page reminder that stories matter and that mothers will do anything for their children, sacrificing sleep and time and money they didn't necessarily have to spare. And though I am now an indie writer who publishes primarily in the e-market, printed books will always be important to me in a way that's difficult to describe without getting a little teary.
There was a time in my life when I thought I was going to be a psychologist. I was fascinated by the study of the human mind and desperately wanted to help people. As it turns out, I'm too much of a wimp to pull it off. I can't listen to a sad story without crumbling like an empathetic pansy. I can't watch someone cry without crying with them. And I certainly can't lose a pet without grieving the grief of one who's lost a family member.
Maybe you're here because you've found yourself in that same position. If so -- if you've recently lost a pet and are looking for ways to deal with the pain -- I firstly want you to know that I am so, so sorry.
No one can pretend to know what you're going through -- everyone experiences loss in a different way. Whether yours is a quiet hurt or a wailing wound, it can be difficult to believe that the pain will ever pass. Believe me, it will. There will come a day when you are able to look back on the memories and smile, rather than cry. Until then, you can take healthy steps to cope with the very normal process of grieving for your friend.
1) Don't blame yourself.
You may think your pet's passing is somehow your fault. Odds are, nothing could be further from the truth. Remember that you gave a loving home to an animal that might otherwise have been homeless. You made room in your heart for a dog, or a cat, or a horse to spend their days; to be cherished in a happy and secure environment. Nothing about that is worthy of guilt. Be proud of the place you had in your pet's life.
2) Surround yourself with people who understand.
Not everyone will be able to identify with the pet/pet-owner bond, let alone the emotional ramifications of having that bond disrupted by death. And that's okay. It doesn't make them evil people, and it doesn't mean you need to remove them from your life, or damage your social and working relationships. Right now, however, you need to take care of you. It's difficult enough undergoing this process without having your attachments devalued. So reach beyond your normal social sphere if you must. Make new friends. Join a support group. You may be surprised, not only by the number of people who will share in your grief, but also by the number of people willing to help you through it.
3) Give yourself as much time as you need.
Don't allow anyone to tell you how you should grieve -- or for how long. Some people move on more quickly than others. Making your way through the stages to acceptance may take weeks, it may take months. Don't feel ashamed if it takes longer. And don't feel guilty if it doesn't. 4) Honor your pet's passing in whatever way you feel is most appropriate.
Whether you opt for a burial, the saving or spreading of ashes following a cremation, or the planting of a living memorial (a tree, bush, or perennial flower), we humans find a great deal of comfort and closure in the performing of rituals. The idea of laying our loved ones to rest in a meaningful moment brings us peace. Give your pet and yourself the benefit of ceremony. If you can, supplement the ritual with something that allows you to feel useful and involved, like donating time or money to your local animal shelter.
5) Don't salt the wound.
You may find it more difficult to focus on yourself if you are surrounded by reminders of your pet's absence. Sometimes, it can be helpful to put your pet's things into storage until you've moved on to an easier stage in the grieving process. (If this is too difficult, you can ask a friend or a family member to do it for you.) You aren't locking away your memories, you're simply giving your heart the space it needs to cope.
6) Move on... but only when you're ready.
When the time comes to adopt a new pet, it's normal for people to feel as though they're replacing the one they lost. Take some time to reflect. You know yourself better than anyone. Are you hesitating because you aren't ready for a new pet? Or are you holding yourself back out of misplaced guilt? If you feel that you are ready, know that you aren't using your new pet as a filler to spare yourself pain, you are opening yourself up to new love and happiness -- both of which are things that you very much deserve.
Best of wishes, warmest regards, and every heartfelt hope to you in this difficult time. May your grief be gentle and fleeting. And may your memories fill you with comfort.
Writers are delusional. All of them. The smart ones check themselves into treatment. Those of us who are a little more... challenged... in areas of reason just keep putting pen to paper until our sanity is so far gone that the paper starts talking back to us. In exchange, we get to walk around with the oh-so-distinguished air of someone who's just super with the English language.
Totally worth it.
But here's the thing. Beneath that phony air (the one that hinders our social abilities and smells vaguely of cinnamon), writers tend to have a very love/hate relationship with words. We are not masters of language. We're members of the chain gang with Stockholm syndrome and we're praying to every deity ever known that no one will find us out. To prove it, I'm dumping a pile of word droppings here for your reading pleasure.
I hope you still respect me in the morning.
If ever you did, that is. I don't want to get ahead of myself with assumptions.
No matter how often I use the word specificity, I still have to say it one syllable at a time in order to say it correctly.
It bothers me that the word omelet isn't spelled "omelette," and actively have to remind myself that "trying to class up a pedestrian word" is no excuse for poor spelling. (Don't tell me something isn't allowed to be upscale if it came out of a chicken's multipurpose pooter. Think Faberge eggs, people.)
I was practically an adult before I learned that the proper pluralization for octopus isn't "octopi." (It's octopodes, but most nations adopted the word octopuses instead -- which seems somehow vulgar...)
I love the word copacetic, because reasons.
I don't understand why people don't use the words argle-bargle and bumbershoot on a daily basis.
I laughed for an hour the first time I heard the word hoary.
Absent sarcasm, I can't say the words sublime or mellifluous without sounding pretentious.
Absent an impressive case of the Mondays, I can't say hootenanny, kumquat, or bubbles in an angry tone of voice.
I love that the word bad in German means bath, and that gift means poison. I think this says something about the differences in our cultures.
I think American politics has forever ruined the word maverick.
I spend way too much time reading phobia names and definitions because I get to learn words like genuphobia (the fear of knees) and hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia (the fear of long words).
So, as you can see, I'm still learning to get on with language in a civilized manner. Whether or not we'll come to an arrangement in the long run is anyone's guess.
Cheers, all.
Oh, and if you aren't sick of me just yet (How could you not be? What on earth is wrong with you?), take a gander at this week's interviews.
With Book Goodies: Interview #1
With author, Val Muller:
THRILLED to report that Book One is now available on Amazon! (Pick it up HERE? Pretty please?)
Because I'm far too agoraphobic to ever hold an actual release party, I'll instead be sitting in my house drinking coffee and throwing confetti in the air while Amazon hosts my weekend giveaway. Swing by my product page between Friday, April 19th and Sunday, April 21st to snag yourself a copy without having to track down your wallet. (I can't be the only person who loses theirs on a daily basis, can I?)
Remember that you don't need to own a Kindle in order to download/read this wee, piratey adventure. Amazon offers free reading apps to those of us who are a smidgen behind on current technology.
Once you've got it in your hot little hands, give a listen to this fantastic tune by Josiah Leming -- because I have every intention of forcing Paramount to use it as the theme song when they purchase the movie rights.
Don't laugh.
It could happen, it really could... <.< >.>
Purchase the studio version of this song from iTunes!
Thank you all for your patience as this site slowly comes together. Though I had grand visions of flash intros and 8-bit RPGs, little by little, I'm learning that ambition must give way to slow connection speeds and hobbled ability. ("Wait, you mean I have to actually know how to use Flash? Drat...") So, it turns out that I will be a simple gal with a simple site. Somehow, that seems appropriate.
For those of you who don't know me (you fortunate souls!), I am Vivienne
Mathews, and this is where I shall henceforth be turning to express my
woots and woes in trying to wedge my foot in the door to relevance and
really real authorship. In all honesty, it'll probably just be post
after post of me falling on my face, dusting myself off, and running
squarely into a wall. It's this thing I do. I fall down. And I'm not too
humble to admit that I'm very adept at it.
As a literally and figuratively clumsy figure, I know that failure is an art form all its own -- one with oh so many lessons to teach. Little by little, despite objections from my unscathed patches of gumption, I aim to learn them all.
Today's failure: writer's block. Sort of. Though I've written a fair amount in the last month, not a word of it has been on the one project that matters. The second draft of the Mosque Hill Fortune, Part Two sits on the verge of the final climax, untouched; an obnoxious icon in the corner of my screen that pecks and pecks and pecks at my sanity. It isn't that I'm unsure how to proceed with the story. The plot is sorted. I know what comes next. It's the crippling fear that I'm going to get it wrong. Or worse, that I'll get it right and no one will notice.
See, as a writer, the hardest part isn't the work. It isn't the gazillion cups of coffee or the dutiful plinking away at the keyboard. It's knowing that, once the work is done, you'll be sending it out into the world to be read and judged and possibly passed over. Because how could it ever mean as much to someone else as it does to you? You created it. Molded it. Agonized over it in ways that would put any fretting mother to shame. And now, as a matter of procedure, you're meant to let it just go wandering about without a safety net? No, no, no. Better to keep it safe and sound inside your head. A fantasy that no one else need ever see.
Book Two is far from finished. It will need many revisions more before it starts pounding on the exit door, demanding to be released. But it is nearer now than it has ever been. And frankly, that scares the bejeezus out of me. Quite silly for someone who writes about otter pirates, don't you think?
Logically, I know that this is a ludicrous, self-imposed hurdle. I've hopped my happy way across it numerous times before, and this is certain to be no different. A few more cups of coffee, the forced removal of distractions (read "my ethernet card"), and, little by little, the plinking will resume, as it always does.
I'm probably not alone in this goofy affliction of mine, am I? What about you, dear reader? Fellow writer? Do you find yourself sabotaging your progress with *dun, dun, dun* procrastination the way that I do? If so, I have a few words for you. Incidentally, they are the same words I have for myself, right now: Suck it up. Do it anyway. No one is going to tell your story but you.
Maybe it will be that no one appreciates it when you're done, whether or not you do it well. Maybe it will fall down, dust itself off, and run squarely into a wall. Maybe it will fail. And maybe, should you be so lucky, you will learn from your failures until you succeed.
