AND I'M STILL DOING THE WRONG THINGS or/and NOT DOING THE RIGHT ONES

Today, at my critique group, I read that my protagonist--I still don't have a name for her-give me some suggestions--was unsure of herself, felt that she was always doing the wrong things, or perhaps not doing the right things. Two of my fellow writers said, "I feel just like that, that I never know what to do."

I didn't tell them that when I got to Carol's house--where the critique group was held--that I realized my shirt was on BACKWARDS and that I had to stand in the living room and take my arms out of my shirt and turn it around, before going into the kitchen, where everybody was.

Yes, my protagonist and I are one and the same. Maybe I should just call us Klutz and be done with it.

THE CHAPTER BOOK

Here are some of the things DeAnn and I decided I need to take out of, or put in, my chapter book. (DeAnn's blog is here.)

We took out the cattle guard at the cemetery. We figured modern kids wouldn't know what a cattle guard is and it had no reference to the story anyway. I overwrite. Obviously. I'm sure you have noticed this.

We took out my wanting to sit on the grave that had the ornamental fence around it. (I slept on my grandparents graves once--with all my girl friends, but that's a story for another day.)

We took out Mr. Anderson's grammar lesson.

We decided we needed the "smell" of the country store.

We liked the thumping of the watermelon but again, it has no reference to the story. Can I somehow pick up the watermelon and shoot it later? (Reference to, "If you show a gun someone is going to have to shoot it later.") Maybe watermelons are exempt. In the version DeAnn didn't see, they thumped the different watermelons to play a tune. DeAnn is spared some nonsense.

I decided the protagonist wants to design shoes, not be a fashion designer. I'm not sure either one works. I got the idea from Curly Sue who wants to be a fashion designer but not sew the fabric, just pick it out.

I took the reference about the bottle caps out before I even showed it to DeAnn. I loved it though. Maybe I'll put it back so she can tell me to take it out next week.

We took out that the plural of dice is die.

We took out that Mr. Drake chops off the lamb's tails. He did it with an "Ai-Yah" and a very big knife. Some things are obviously not meant to be in kid's books.

I ended the chapter--twice too long, I think--without a climax. I ran out of steam. I must fix all this stuff by next week. I didn't talk about how the sandals were ruined or the protagonist knew her sister was going to punish her.

Oh, how well sisters can punish and never have to lay a hand on the victim. I am personally damaged by my clever sister's psychological punishment. That's why I blog, to punish my readers as I was once punished. Is it working?

THE CHICKEN COOP AND THE MATTRESS FACTORY

This came to me today in an email from Tut:

"Most don't stop to think, Lynne, but both having money and not having money make fantastic adventures possible that would not otherwise be possible.
Same for having, and not having, anything else.
Everyone's a winner in time and space - The Universe"

I was driving home from my critique group the other day and took a little side road, getting lost in the process, but look what I found!

A chicken coop almost exactly like the one that used to be on the back property where I grew up, except ours was longer. In one side of our chicken coop my birth dad built what has been called for sixty-five years, a mattress factory. In the mattress factory he built...well, mattresses. That is, until he crashed in a private airplane in a snow storm and died. Then the mattress factory ceased to function.

This is what I wrote this week in my manuscript about the mattress factory. You realize, of course, that I don't have "rotten sisters." This manuscript is a work of fiction, worked from scenes plucked from my real life. I have always felt cheated that my dad died before I was old enough to know him and this chapter is heavy with that regret. Here's a bit of it:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I whirled around and left her standing in the strawberry patch. I went where I always go, to the mattress factory. I was supposed to set the table for dinner but they could eat right out of their hands for all I cared.

"I sat on the sofa that my dad built and laid my head down on the arm. It smelled like dust. Pat and Julie probably watched him make the sofa when the frame smelled like new wood and the fabric was bright. They knew what the mattress factory looked like when it wasn’t laced with spider webs, so thick with dust that they looked like twine. They had watched Dad feed mattress ticking into the sewing machine when it wasn’t pocked with rust spots and the belts weren’t cracked. They probably sat on the big table and swung their legs and watched him use the huge scissors that are so rusted they won’t even open. They have clean, sharp memories. All I have are imaginary ghosts.

"I pulled the notebook out from under the middle cushion and wrote about my rotten sisters. I wrote that Mom said I was compassionate which was as bad as saying you have nice feet when everyone else is being praised for looking like Miss America.

"I stayed in the mattress factory until I was sure dinner was over and the dishes were done. When I heard the screech of the mattress factory door I shoved the notebook under the cushion and looked up to see Mom picking her way around a pile of bed springs, carrying a tray with a dishtowel over it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, you can see why I loved the chicken coop when I saw it. It almost made me cry, it was so beautiful. And it's certainly not something people "with money" would have in their back yard. But, it brought me a whole soul full of joy and I'd give almost anything to have it in my back yard.

And then further down the road, where I was lost, I saw this marvelous tree and it gave me happiness again with it's ungainly beauty.

So, I think I was not lost at all. I think the angels sent me on a detour. I thank them.

FRIENDS WHO ARE WILLING TO BE CRITICAL

Tuesday I went to my Personal History group. I didn't take copies because I was still working on the piece. Hardly anyone ever writes on the copies anyway except for Sarah. I told them I really wanted feedback and Sarah, bless her heart, gave me some. And her ideas were good.

So I took her suggestions, fixed the manuscript and took it to DeAnn to critique. DeAnn then read it and gave me more good suggestions. They will make the manuscript better.

I could use another dozen critical friends.


Here are some of the sentences we cut:

“Well, if I ever have two dates in one night I’m not getting caught because I’m not cleaning out the chicken coop,” Holly says.

"I should get an award for encouraging sub-standard humans."

“Don’t touch your faces with your dirty hands,” I say. “Germs will crawl up your nose and eat out your brain.”

“Your stomach is inside, all covered up by skin.”


Now you can see why critical friends are good to have around.

FOUR TIMES FOUR ANSWERS

This came via email today. If anyone wants to do it on their blog...well, it would be a post and you'd be done for the day. I'm done for the day and it's not even three-thirity in the afternoon. Practically a record for me.

Four, Four, Four, Four...

A) Four places that I go to over and over:

1. Church --The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints--The Mormons

2. Grocery store, Costco, the most, probably or maybe Days Thriftway

3. J-Dawg, for those incredible Polish dogs, or Heaps, for the great salad bar, or Smart Cookie for the yummy lemon cookies with crunchy lemon bits baked right in, or Chuck-A-Rama on Thursday for their Mexican salad, or Dairy Queen, late at night, for those frosty's—do you see a pattern here? Not so good. But, hey, call me and I'll pick you up, and away we'll go. It will be fun. We will visit and eat stuff.

4. My writing/critique groups.

B) Four people who e-mail me (regularly):

1. Pam --who always seems to know exactly what to say to life my spirits.

2. Cheryl--who should blog. She has the most incredibly funny things happen to her or maybe she just looks at life with joy.

3. Terri--who also should blog for the same reason.

4. Gilmore Girl--who doesn't email me so much so she really should blog.

Everyone who thinks all these people should blog raise your hand. The voting appears to be unanimous.

C) Four places I would rather be right now:

1. In the Swiss Alps or maybe Paris. If "right now," then the Alps because Paris would be hot and with all the dog doo problem, that Paris has going on, it wouldn't be pleasant.

2. Back in time to when the kids were little and everything was hectic but not as stressful as now, how I'd love to gather them up on my lap and read to them or sit with them on the lawn swings, eating popcorn and rhubarb and just letting them be silly, entertaining Phil and me.

My favorite lawn swing memory is when Lord Bumhampton was about two or three-years-old and Mom was here. It was time to put him to bed but we were on the lawnswings--the lawnswings were out back, that year. We didn't want to go in so we bathed Lord Bumhampton in a bucket on the patio. He was all blond and slippery-wet and delighted to be bathing in a bucket.

Then we "jammied" him and cuddled him down and stayed out there until way past dark, just talking. The crickets turned on and so did the stars and Mom and I sat in friendly mother-daughterness for a long time while Lord Bumhampton went to sleep in my arms. So if I could go back in time maybe that would be two of my choices, once with the kids and once with my Mom and a sleeping toddler.

3. In New York City for a week with a purse full of money and tickets to everything

4. San Francisco, ditto with that full-purse thing. Or maybe Carmel.

D) Four people I wish I were more like:

1. Jeanne Inouye, for about fifty different reasons, some of which are her grace, her love for everyone, her dignity under difficult situations, her wish to be happy and to share her happiness with others, her work ethic, etc. She is one of those people who you cannot believe is real because she is so perfect and yet she makes you feel like you are just who you should be, even if you're not.

2. Terri, Pam, Cheryl and Gilmore Girl for their insaneness. They laugh--and I laugh more when I am with them--than can be imagined.

3. Eleanor Roosevelt, but prettier.

4. Sarah Barlow. She has the most giving heart. She wants to help others all the time--and does. And Boyd Helquist, who is such a social person and he makes everyone feel they are important in his life. He always walks down to talk to us if he sees we are outside, even if he just has a minute to spend. He's that way with everyone.

E) Four TV shows I watch all the time:

1. "Lost," when it's on--and that's what, 12 to 14 times a year? Big whoop.

2. Cooking shows, I don't know why, it doesn't inspire me to cook. I used to cook. Poor Phil, having a wife who used to cook.

3. That's about it--oh, maybe a movie we get from Net Flix—I order never-heard-of-before-movies, the feel-good kind and Phil thinks are lame--the latest one was DEAR FRANKIE, which I loved and he slept through. He has put EVERY SINGLE EPISODE OF 24 on our Queue so I won't be watching TV anymore at all! He thinks Jack Bower is real. Don't tell anyone, it's embarrassing.

4. Oh, wait, "Everybody Loves Raymond," I watch over Phil’s shoulder after he watches the news. I, of course, am on the computer. Blogging, probably, or perhaps waiting for the Muse.

SIX WORD WEDNESDAY 7-2-08

Worst days cannot come very often.

PLOTS, CONFLICT AND WHAT CAN YOU DO ON YOUR WORST DAY?

I went to my critique group today and as per our new policy we each bring some nugget of information to make our writing better.

Amy, who shall be called Young-Mother-With-Long-Hair-Who-Wants-a-Cool-Photo-Taken-Before-She-Gets-It-Cut-in-a-Cool-Short-Style, gave us a handout from Janette Rallison, that we should use when starting a novel--actually, it should be used for each chapter. We decided, since NONE OF US have our novel really fleshed out before writing we need to pay close attention to it.

DeAnn's author said about her novel at the BYU conference, "Your writing is too good to waste on this tiny goal." Or something like that. Go here and read this and you will see what I mean about DeAnn's great writing. I am so jealous.

Her author also said, "How much can you write on your worst day?" And DeAnn said she thought five minutes but then DeAnn, who I shall call The-Great-Writer-Who-Doesn't-Use-a-Lot-of-Fluff-Words said, "Every day cannot be my worst day!"

And so that's what my post today is really about. Everyday cannot be our worst day, we cannot not have goals and aspirations, we cannot not want to strive to do and be better.

So, here's to having life plots, maybe one hundred of them, and working through life's conflicts, hopefully not one hundred of them all at once, and goals and overcoming and laughing in the face of the antagonists. --The Major Antagonist has no power over the righteous, by the way.--

"There is some place where your specialties can shine. Somewhere that difference can be expressed. It's up to you to find it, and you can." (David Viscott) So, I must try to write funny, maybe, and a little tragic so it will be publishable.

DeAnn and Amy are going to have to write more tragic because they are better writers than I am. Amy has this great picture book going and we all know that a four-year-old can't handle a lot of tragedy. They fall apart if their Popsicle falls in the dirt, so Amy gets a pass on the picture book but not on the novel.

So, lets do it. Lets do whatever it is we do and take the "worst day" excuse only occasionally.

THE PROCRASTINATOR

Once there was a woman who thought she had stories to tell. "It's all about the stories," she said. And then she set down to write and joined a group. The self-designated leader of the group poked a non-bony finger and scoffed and she ceased to write.

Later, much later she thought she still should write so she gathered her wits--what few she had--and her self confidence and started again. Too bad she didn't know the rules. "I'm too wordy," she said, because she was.

Again she started but said, "I'll just please myself and write my own stories." And she did. She joined a group. Her stories pleased only herself and she was happy. If one of her children were in the stories sometimes the stories pleased them but she wrote only for herself. "To understand myself," she said. Sometimes the group laughed--not often but enough for encouragement. Sometimes they gasped--okay, only small gasps, but even small gasps are satisfying.

She longed to be a better writer. Smarter. To know the rules. And so she continued to say, "Yes, I'll be part of the BYU Writer's and Illustrators for Young Readers workshop," and then she did nothing. Wrote nothing.

And so it goes. Will this be the first time she will go unprepared? She knows more now, enough to know she's not going to be a great writer but does that give her the right to slack? Does that give her the right to not try to be at least adequate? Or maybe better? Surely by death she will be better. Does she have the right to not try? And die--way, way in the future--better?

Her honesty makes her wonder.

WHY CAN'T I WRITE? MAYBE I SHOULD USE THIS PEN

How come I bring two or three pens to the computer desk and in a week this is the only one left? Week after week, this one is in the drawer and the others are gone.

Today in our writer's critique group. We decided that we need some new blood to give us a jump start. And we need to do a lot of other things, none of which I seem to remember. I blog every day but today to group I took less than a fourth of a sheet of paper with anything written on it. Why can I blog but not write a story?

It's a mystery, as are the missing pens.

PS My morning song was: There is Sunshine in my Soul Today. Very nice.