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Oh yeah, I'm a Hip Mama!

What's the best thing about being a writer? The fame? The fortune? Ok, yes, those are wonderful (ahem). But one of the unsung pleasures is The Mail.

I'm not talking fan mail. Though we all love fan mail (Hint Hint!). Rather, I'm thinking of the surprising things that show up, like royalty checks or issues of Hip Mama with, would you believe it, one of your very own poems published in it! Double fun when you've forgotten All About the upcoming publication.

Oh, Yeah. I'm hip.

Simplifying Cyber-Hoarding

Cable on-demand is pretty fun, I must confess. I've watched two episodes of Hoarders in the past two days - terrifyingly accurate. I grew up in a house of horrors hoarders, so the scenes with kids climbing over piles of stuff are all too chilling. I remember well riding a tricycle in the clear basement floor around age four, a floor that was lost to sight, a narrow path threading through it, by age seven or eight. The "stuff" was confined to basement and garage until adolescence, when it began the sneaky creep up the basement stairs, into the kitchen, living room, up more stairs to the second floor, until I went away for a semester of college and came home to find half my bedroom stacked with boxes. Last I looked (about four years ago), my old room was full to eye level, a mattress balanced on plump garbage bags and sagging storage containers.

Dr. D and I have a bit of the opposite problem. We make Goodwill runs every few months. Not to buy, mind you, but to give things up. The only exceptions: for Dr. D it's books; for me, files. Every time I do a rewrite on a manuscript, I save it with a new name (usually just an added number: TITLE_05 or TITLE_19), and I keep - obsessively - the previous draft(s). I don't really consider this a problem. Maybe once I max out Dropbox and fill my external hard drive, I will, but thus far I see it as freeing. I can tinker with scenes as much as I like. I always have the old version if I really ef things up. And so long as I always title docs sequentially, I never have to wonder, "which version is the most recent?"

I worry, though, if those files aren't a sign of the same illness. Over the weekend I rearranged my office and cleaned my desk (seen above, after I got crazy in PhotoShop). Maybe it's time to clean up my hard drive?

On Cottony Clouds

Will you be bothered if I wax eloquent a bit, you my singular reader? If so, hmm, I don't really care. I'm going to anyway! Haha!

So here it is. I love cloth diapers. They're so ... fluffy and soft and sweet (sometimes). They're so effective and useful and inexpensive. They're so cuddly. Can you picture it?

Diapers are also much like plot, aren't they? Absolutely essential and sometimes messy?

I often think of plot as the bones inside a body, or the undergirding of a building. Here's where I get to mix metaphors, like playing in the mud. Industrial and urban is cool right now. We love interiors with exposed brick and copper piping. As far as I know, however, we don't like exposed wiring and rafters open to the sky in Michigan, in January. Many books I read have an overexposed plot. Not photographically overexposed, mind you. Exposed like the creepy guy in the overcoat at the bus stop. These books are anorexic, jagged edges of bones jutting out. They're the books that make you want to tap the author on the shoulder and say, "Uh, excuse me, but your plot is showing."

Other books are fluffy. Soft. They're plot marshmallows that have been put in the microwave for ten seconds on high. They're the guy in the low-riding sedan. They need Weight Watchers and a crowbar to pry off the excess layers of 1970s paneling and a sandblasting to clear the 1930s lead based paint to get to the gorgeous red brick below. They're the diaper with so many layers they never fully dry and always sort of stink, so much bulk baby can't sit up. They're a problem.

Yet there's also a range of what works. I love the urban streamlined design, but I also love Victorian frills. So long as both are in the right place. I don't want the historical 1910 colonial stripped down to plaster and lath; I don't want the high-rise condo decked out in lace. Just as I don't want my sweet baby girl peeing out of her too-small outgrown diapers, no matter how much I love them. The fluff has to match the baby; the structure has to match the book. Genre, audience, intensity, all factor in when making the Plot Decision. At the end, the goal is a book that's not like Papa's chair, exposed springs and unsanded wood that leaves splinters in Goldie's bum. Not like Mama's chair, either. So soft the poor girl suffocates. It needs to be like Baby's chair. Baby's diaper? A perfect fit, soft and squishy, Just right.

The Seriousness of Poetry

Setting: A poetry workshop at Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Writing. Fourteen attendees and one facilitator sit in plastic chairs arranged into a lopsided circle.

Attendees have just finished their first writing exercise.

Facilitator: We've all had sixty seconds. Shall we read what we've created? Let's hear three or so, then pause to consider what stands out most ...

Reader #1: (coughs a bit, reads quietly) Lake Michigan ... sand dunes ... swim on wide feet ... out over the river ... it would be lovely ... like a highway map ... on the palm of your hand.

(attendees sigh and nod appreciatively)

Reader #2: (run together) Tulips and traffic of dunes in Peg and Bill's diner open as a book past the glowing compost of my mind.

(attendees nod and sigh, but appear slightly confused)

Reader #3: (clears throat) Electricity. (clears throat again, dramatically, and begins to read in epic poetry slam style) The glow ... of pollen ... on the fallen darkness of my soul ... is ... not ... a thing ... for ...

(As Reader #3 reads, the door opens and Latecomer enters. She moves toward a seat quietly.)

Reader #3: (continuing unbroken) the squeamish. (pause as if drums are beating the rhythm of the poem) Electricity ... far from dusk ... into

(Reader #3 stops abruptly as Latecomer enters the circle of chairs. All attendees look at Latecomer. The attention makes Latecomer nervous and awkward. She drops her umbrella, trips over someone's bag.)

(Reader #3 watches Latecomer even after she is settled in her chair. For several beats, Reader #3 continues to stare at Latecomer.)

Reader #3: (Clears throat to return to reading. Latecomer shifts her position, causing Reader #3 to stop and fix her with a stare once more. Finally, Reader #3 begins. From the beginning.) Electricity. (clears throat again, dramatically, and begins to read once more in epic poetry slam style) The glow ... of pollen ... on the fallen darkness of my soul ... is ... not ... a thing ... for ...  the squeamish. Electricity ... far from dusk ... into dusk ... (growing quieter and more dramatic) into dusk ... into dusk ... into ... dusk ... in ... to ... ... dusk.

Facilitator: (Over the final syllable.) Very good, so what do we notice about these selections? 

(Attendees begin talking at once, the tension in the air evaporating except for Reader #3 who glares fixedly at Latecomer until lights out.)

The other workshop I attended was on playwriting. Can you tell?

A Visual MFA - Hamline University, 2009-2011

I ran across all my Hamline pictures as I was organizing my photos ... why not share? A few are posted already (look under the MFA category over in the cloud for the rest of the Hamline University MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults posts), but these, for whatever reason, never made it up. Hmmm. Can't imagine why.

We partake in public transportation:

We have tornado drills!

We talk and stuff:

We maintain a standard of personal hygiene:

We sit around sometimes:

We listen to folktales:

We play "So Big!" with Marsha Qualey:

We play with chickens:

We play dress-up:

We plot our books:

Sometimes we yell:

We partake in musical entertainment:

We walk around a lot:

We go places:

When we come back, we relax:

We work hard! Really!

And we shake a little booty:

P.S. This is what writers do when we think no one is looking.

Silliness of the Writerly Sort ~ Habits of the Writing Soul

So, in the past few days of blog-perusal, I ran across a funny post by the Sneaky Ninja Writer, having to do with traits of a writer. And then, over at Karen Hancock's blog, I saw another list of habits, not necessarily writing habits, but interesting habits of a writer. This made me wonder, again, at how seriously unstable unique writers tend to be.

And this got me wondering about my own quirky habits. I have a book somewhere (in a box in the attic, I think, since most of my library is up there so as to give the impression to any potential buyer that our house is spacious and inviting and not crammed floor-to-ceiling with books. Two shelves crept back from the attic, to our Realtor's dismay, but we really cannot live without our books), which is sprinkled with quirks of famous authors. Some wrote in bed, or standing up, or with a silver bullet between her teeth (ok, I made that last one up ... maybe).

Do I write in only one particular location, or with certain music, or in a certain color ink? Do I have an oral fixation? Do I even believe in oral fixations? (Yes, by the way, because I have children. A few things I have pulled from my children's mouths lately: paper clips, pencil shavings, snow off someone's boots, a dead fly, etc.) What are my strange obsessions? What are yours?

Ok, I'll go first. I can't write with any background noise or music whatsoever. Not soft elevator music, not tunes in the genre of my work (whatever that would be), and certainly not coffee shop jazz. Silence. Having kids around causes problems, for rather obvious reasons.

I also will use only one kind of pen. Ink color doesn't matter, but I always use a Pilot G-2 gel ink pen. Nice that my taste here isn't extravagant.

I snickered at Karen's oral fixation. Of course I don't have that problem. Chewing on my fingers. Repulsive. But, ahem, I do tend to have very dry skin in the winter, and the skin on my lips peels like mad (lipstick/gloss makes this worse). So I have the very bad habit of picking at the peelings while I work. I often go too far, because I'm paying attention to the screen (duh), so I tend to have a napkin dotted with lip blood beside the computer. I'll bet you're wishing I'd kept that last detail to myself.

So? Tell all, and if you don't write (or even if you do) you might share your reading quirks instead. Example: I like books I can slip in the side pocket of the van door. I despise, no, abhor sitting, bored, at the gas station while my husband fills the tank. I don't know why, but he always feels compelled to check the oil, fiddle with the tires, snap the wiper blades, etc. all while I wait in the van with the children and no heat. In February! When I have a book, the time is well used. When I don't, I'll reach for my trusty Pilot G-2 (I keep three in my purse) and huff on my hands until they're warm enough to grip, except I'll realize I left my notebook at home, and my husband has neurotically tidily also insisted on collecting all the stray wrappers, receipts and slips of paper while we wait in the cold because heaven forbid we bypass an opportunity to empty the car of any and every little thing we could possible use to WRITE ON, and after searching for even the corner of an envelope that escaped his trashscapade and finding only one rock-hard wadded tissue in which something truly nasty is growing, I will, after tossing that on his seat, end up glaring out the window, and wishing, again, that the book I'd been reading was slim enough to fit in the side pocket of the van. Incidentally, (see, I knew I'd get back to this tour somehow!) The Shadow and Night does not fit in the side pocket of the van.