On Writing – Page 30 – Hey, Look! A Writer Fellow!

March 23, 2013March 23, 2013

The Truth About Being a Writer

Last fall I was invited to visit an area private school to get folks into the spirit of Thanksgiving. It was a full-day affair and my schedule was so packed that I was given a “handler,” someone whose job was to run me from one classroom to the next. My handler was a lovely young librarian named Amanda who had the patience of a saint.

It was a great day, and I’m pleased to report that I was well received. (I have a gift for being goofy around children. Kids like goofy.)

I kept my dog and pony show pretty consistent from one class to the next. First I told the kids about how I woke my parents up on Sundays at 5 am by banging on my dad’s typewriter. Then I talked about my wonderful, influential (if perpetually frowny-faced) sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Snelback. Then I talked about my days as a reporter.

“As a reporter I wrote about everything!” I would announce, oozing with faux smugness. “Everything! Try me! Name anything at all, and I bet I’ve written about it! I’ve written about EVERYTHING!”

I then called on a kid who, without fail, would spout something ludicrous. (“Robot mummies that are really apes!”)

To which I would reply, “Everything except that.”

This gag brought down the house every time.

Then I dialed it back and segued into a little talk about Thanksgiving followed by a reading of my book, Sarah Gives Thanks. This was followed by the Q&A thing, which would continue until Amanda, who was watching the clock with growing alarm, was forced to grab me by the elbow and drag me to the next class.

In the afternoon, as Amanda and I hustled to my final appearance, for which I was already late, I asked, “What grade is this next group?”

I had noticed as the day progressed that the age of my audience was increasing. I started with third graders. Then I was led to fourth graders. I had just finished the fifth. Sixth grade was pushing it age-wise for a picture book author, I thought, but the fifth graders were my best audience of the day so I figured I’d be fine.

“What…grade?” Amanda repeated, panting as she ran.

“Sixth grade?” I asked, also panting.

Amanda shook her head. “Seniors,” she replied.

High school seniors? Hm. Perhaps it was time to rethink my dog and pony show.

But it wasn’t a class, really, more like a half-dozen seniors who weaseled their way out of another class to sit around a table with me in the school’s library.

These were the creative writing students who wrote creatively outside of the classroom. They had dreams of pursuing writing as a career. Because of the group’s size, the chat was relaxed and informal and driven by the questions they asked – which were intelligent, earnest, and plentiful.

At one point in our talk I heard myself say this:

“I want you to know that you can have a career as a writer. You can support a family as a writer. It’s not easy. You might need to write about a lot things you don’t care all that much about. But if you work hard and never give up, you can do it.”

I wasn’t planning for a halftime locker room speech, but there it was.

My statement was greeted with complete silence. I looked around the table and was met with wide eyes. In that moment I got the idea that no one had ever told them those words before.

And that’s a shame because what I said was completely true.

I know it doesn’t always feel true. I’ve earned my living as a writer for the past 15 years, and it doesn’t always feel true to me. Sometimes, when I’m feeling lousy and the words aren’t coming, I wonder how much longer this writing life will last.

I do pull myself out of this funk, thank goodness. Eventually I realize that what’s true is true. It’s true not only for me, but for everyone.

Never forget that, OK? And if you do forget, read this post again. When I forget, I’ll meet you here. I’ll even bring donuts.

But right now I gotta go. I have a job to do. I’m off to write a story about robot mummies that are really apes. No punk kid is gonna to pull that stunt on me twice.

March 17, 2013March 18, 2013

Zombies. Sure, why not?

Yep. I did a "Plants vs. Zombies" stamp for my son. — Yep. I did a “Plants vs. Zombies” stamp for my son.

If one year ago you sat me down in my living room and told me that I would soon be noodling around with a young adult zombie novel, I would’ve told you two things:

“It’s not gonna happen. I don’t like the genre.”
“How did you get into my house?”

But it turns out you would’ve been right! I am noodling around with a young adult zombie novel!

That said, you still had no right to burst into my house unannounced. Call first.

One of the many things I love about the blogging world is how it pushes my brain in new and exciting directions. The bloggers I follow all see the world a bit differently than I. Being in the company of such people always gets my creative juices flowing.

My sudden interest in zombies can be traced to an old flash fiction contest over at Writerlious’s place. The rules, as I remember them, were to write a story in fewer than 150 words that contains the words “zombie” and “serenity.”

So here’s what I came up with:

Carpet slippers are not very good at negotiating asphalt shingles. Not that Ethan had much time to consider his footwear – or much else for that matter – as he scrambled up his downspout in a groggy panic.

What was worse was that he had no one to blame but himself. He heard the warnings that accompanied the weather forecast on the evening news but was too lazy to pull an all-nighter. “I’ll board up my windows first thing in the morning,” he thought. But he overslept, and now his house was full of loitering zombies who were leaving trails of blood and pus all over his hardwood floors.

The weather was beautiful, however. The sun calmed him, and Ethan soon discovered that, despite the dozens of undead squatters on the floors below, he could still find a little serenity on this most unusual spring day.

It was a fun exercise and I found the result promising.

Over the next few months I began to think about Ethan and wonder what his life was like before he found himself stranded on his roof. So, when I wasn’t writing at my day job, or writing picture book manuscripts at night, or doing the husband and father thing (which is rewarding beyond measure, but keeps my word counts alarmingly low), I scribbled a few notes and banged out a few scenes.

So, without further ado, take a peek at a very, very rough except:

The first report took up no more than four column inches of the Dogwood Dispatch and could be found on page A17, wedged between a story about the township’s scuttled plans for a roundabout and the particulars of a newly-approved pooper scooper law.

An unconfirmed report relayed by an unnamed orderly at the Sunnyville Eldercare facility spoke of an unnamed old woman leaping from her deathbed to attack an unnamed night nurse by gumming her forehead. The police were called. The woman was taken away. No one was hurt. And, as far as anyone knew, the old woman was never seen again.

That was all the news Silas Johannes needed to read. Silas was a remarkable man for two reasons: First he was able to read the Dogwood Dispatch all the way to page A17 without falling into a deep, drooly sleep. Second, he was adept at reading between the lines. Where everyone else would’ve read nothing more than an unconfirmed story about a toothless old lady attacking a nurse – if everyone else read up to page A17, that is, which they most certainly never did – Silas saw an origin story, the beginning of what would become a national crisis. There was no time to peruse page A18. There was work to be done.

Even though Silas had been up since 5 AM and was exhausted beyond measure, even though the streetlight had just winked on and he had difficulty driving at night, he didn’t hesitate. He hoisted his ample frame up from his La-Z-Boy and fumbled for his keys. He then eased into the family hearse and headed straight for the Home Depot.

Since you fine folks know what a comments section is for, feel free to critique until the cows come home.

March 10, 2013March 16, 2013

Put The Cat Out

Perhaps my dislike of cats can be traced back to The Cat In The Hat.

My adult self can appreciate the punchy rhymes, solid story arc, and gorgeous pen and ink drawings. But a big part of me can’t help but consider Seuss’s most popular book to be a misfire of sorts. Seuss didn’t write for adults, he wrote for kids, and, as a kid, I found The Cat In The Hat to be terribly unsettling.

Think about it. Two children, perhaps seven years old, are home alone. That’s a vulnerable situation to be in. I had firsthand knowledge of this; I was a latchkey kid and was allowed to be home alone at about that same age. I liked having the house to myself because it made me feel very grown up, but those feelings of maturity were tempered by…was it anxiety? I’m not sure. But when I was alone, a teensy little thought sometimes niggled around in the back of my brain: “What if something happens?” I didn’t know what that something could be, but I did know that some somethings could be very dangerous. Would I be able to handle it? Would I know what to do? Could I keep safe?

The Cat In The Hat seemed engineered to tap into that fear. Without warning, or even a knock on the door, a cat, the size of an adult male, bursts into the house and demands that the children take part in reckless and destructive games that aren’t really games at all.

And this cat is a bully. At the first sign of protest – courtesy of a fussbudget fish – he retaliates with a game called “up-up-up with a fish,” perching the finned fellow’s glass bowl on the handle of his umbrella. When the fish protests further, the cat goes out of his way to make him even more alarmed, by grabbing and balancing more household objects until they all inevitably crash to the floor.

For the young me, that fish was The Cat In The Hat’s lonely bright spot. I loved that little guy. Even after a terrifying fall; even though he had to endure the humiliation of swimming in a pot; even though he was in direct conflict with a natural predator; that proud, brave little guy ripped that cat a new one.

Just take a peek at the fish’s post-fall rant:

“Now look what you did!”

Said the fist to the cat.

“Now look at this house!

Look at this! Look at that!…”

And on it goes. It’s a fabulous “I told you so” moment. Oh, I loved it so.

As a child I loved neatness and order. I liked to play by the rules. Because of this, I tended to gravitate toward wet blanket characters in children’s literature. My favorite Sesame Street Muppet? Bert. My favorite animal from Winnie the Pooh? Rabbit. I identified with characters who existed only to be tormented by the act-first-think-later Ernies and Tiggers of the world.

Fortunately, in Bert and Rabbit’s case, the worst punishment either character received was exasperation. That fish, however, was being threatened with bodily harm.

But the little guy still fought, God bless him!

The fish’s moral victory is a fleeting one, of course. A few moments later, the cat unleashes the Things, and the situation goes from bad to much, much worse.

At least the cat didn’t try to destroy the items he balanced on his umbrella. It was an accident. A stupid, selfish, dangerous, and entirely avoidable accident, but an accident nonetheless. Those Things, on the other hand, were wired differently. The destruction they wrought was deliberate. They delighted in it. I found it awful.

Yes, yes, I know. The boy in the story eventually springs into action and traps the Things in a net. Yes, the Cat cleans up the mess before the mother gets home. But that, in my view, did not make everything OK. That self-absorbed interloper created a lot of undue stress for the kids and that fish, all in the name of “fun” – fun that only he was having.

Not cool, cat. Not cool at all.

Dr. Seuss wrote a lot of stories with similar types of mayhem built in, but The Cat In The Hat was the only one I didn’t enjoy. It was a book that knew exactly how to push my buttons.

That said, I did, eventually, learn to appreciate The Cat In The Hat‘s charms. When my older sister was pregnant with her first child, I offered to paint a mural in the new nursery.

What I chose to paint was that confident cat, locked in eternal conflict with that marvelous, underappreciated fish.

This guy is about seven feet tall. Not pictured: two terrible Things flying kites. (Click to see larger.)

Fish detail. I love this guy. (Click to see larger.)