writing

Who, Me?

Posted by

0

Recently I was asked by a group of ladies to answer an e-mail thread titled Who Are You? A seemingly simple question with a few obvious, quick answers.

Brittany, Britt, B- all depending on who you are in my life.
Wife
Mom
Blogger

But I took my blue ballpoint and went a little deeper. It’s a question I’ve explored much over the last few years in a myriad of ways. What do I really want in life, for this life? Who do I want to be, what legacy do I want to create?

-Born to a building supply warehouse manager and a college registrar in the 80’s.
-Collateral damage of a divorce as a preschooler.
-Blessed with a third parent, a step-parent.
-A Midwesterner who doesn’t miss the humidity but longs for the green, rolling hills and towering oaks of the backcountry.
-A country girl. Forever.
-Raised a hunter. I know how to load and shoot a rifle, and have killed and helped gut two deer.
-A former codependent who at times forgets the “former” piece of that sentence.
-A born-again child of God, saved by Christ, no longer a legalist though my theology has hardly changed.
-In love with moving writing, strong coffee, and food so delicious I nearly buckle.
-Free, in so many, many ways.
-A young bride, a wiser wife always learning.
-Mother to a girl, a boy, and another girl, for whom I’d die.
-A friend who pursues, is patient, and will say the f-bomb with you when the situation requires.
-I don’t give up, but I know my limits even if not until they’ve been exceeded.
-A listener to a melting pot of music from Elvis and Stevie Wonder to Bruno Mars and Katy Perry to The Band Perry and Hunter Hays to hymns that were the staple of my childhood.
-Undefined by things in my past that don’t benefit my true identity in Christ.
-Favors antiques and vintage décor.
-A woman who knows how to implement boundaries, though I may have to remind myself of the need.
-Relentless desire for the outdoors, even if it’s just a scenic homepage on my computer screen.
-Will waver between an afternoon iced caramel mocha and an Angry Orchard, though I most often go for the coffee.
-Obsessed with Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, and action or sports movies with a moral ending.
-A damn good blogger who will write whether there is an audience or it stays hidden in my journal. (My mother will raise her eyebrows and cringe a bit, and my husband will cover his open mouth for using that word.)
-Seeker of truth.
-Daughter of Abba.

How would you answer?

What Do I Say?

Posted by

0

Weaving my way around this drive-thru Starbucks is like a game of Pac Man. I’m inside lugging 15 pounds of notes and books, a computer and one small power cord to my phone that does not make or break the weight, but can be the deciding factor of whether I will still get emergency calls from the school about forgotten lunches. So I keep it.

I see moms pulling out all manner of Crayons and Hello Kitty coloring pages. There are meetings between Metros and women who are avoiding the highway in this mess of snow. Which is quite pretty from my view over a steaming mocha.

“Would you mind if I share this table with you?” I ask her.
“Oh, absolutely. I’m leaving soon anyway.”

Lovely. There are reasonable people in this society.

Her hair is chopped with texture that doesn’t happen right out of bed. She highlights her makeup around the dark lipstick she’s chosen to accent her emerald dress. Her knee-high, black, healed boots are professional, with sass. And she has the personal skills of a great salesman. Someone who works with people, likes people, makes people her business.

I’m guessing, of course.

“The snow is much prettier from here,” I say.
She doesn’t hesitate. “I know. The highway is still closed.”
“Oh, it is?” I wouldn’t know. I only see it when I’m finding a Costco. And I don’t watch the news because all I need in the morning besides strong coffee, enough Pop-Tarts to split three ways, and a drop-off lane, is the school cancellation number.
“My husband was here but he thought he’d give it a try. He’s still sitting.”
Yeah, I’m with you. I’d rather be stuck in a coffee Taj Mahal too.

She didn’t ask what I’m doing here. I didn’t offer. What do I say?
Well, I’m writing a book. (I know. Who isn’t? Yes, I do realize the statistics.) My second try. The story, the idea, gives me chills. I believe in it and some say I’m great with words. I have almost 4,000 of them but they could all be bad. I’ll probably get lots of rejection letters but you know what? I’m doing it anyway. Because if I could write my own headstone whenever the time comes that I need one, it would say: She Held Nothing Back.

 

 

Whoops Abound

Posted by

0

Whoops and hollers abounded this Christmas when the kids opened a Wii they didn’t even know they wanted. Inwardly, Chase and I were whooping too. We are not forerunners on the technology front. We live simply in this way, without satellite or cable, with movies we borrow from the library or rent for $1. It was a decision we made in protest to all the family time that was being robbed by Wipeout and American Idol. Still, we open the lid of our Toshiba when we want a Parenthood fix but the Wii, let’s just say it was a big hit.

My son is a Mario extraordinaire. A fanatic.

My daughter, the little one, she holds the remote and shouts like she’s part of something big. She is.

My other daughter, the oldest, she tries. Oh how she tries.

It is such great entertainment when they play together. My older daughter will often die on her first jump, a single slide, an erratic I’m- just- going- with- full- force attitude. It’s hilarious. But even funnier is the way she’s perfected “Button A.” The button that puts you in a bubble. Milliseconds from a painful death in rolling lava and she bubbles herself. Midair and heading for the enemy, she floats. It’s genius, really. Until her brother dies. Until he has to be in a bubble too. Because then the game is over.

I feel like I’m in a bubble right now. A writing bubble. I might come out for a snack or to ensure that no is strangling anyone else. I do what I have to, and not much more because I’m dangling above everything in my own space. While the kids jump and run and fight enemies below me, I am hovering with 26 letters and a passion.
In this space, my characters are like real people, the intersecting story of their lives, a part of me. I know them. I like them. And I think you will too.

The Lunch Crowd

Posted by

0

There are 9 of them sitting in front of me. They are curly, straight, colored, braided, short and long -haired. They are chewing salads and smiling as they relate stories of having babies. They are Panera Bread’s lunch crowd. At least one table of it. Make that three tables pushed together, one square, two rounds.

I do not know this scene. I haven’t lived it myself. Not really. Once when I worked as a dental assistant we had a lull of patients so three of us went to a Mexican restaurant for an hour. This was in stark contrast to race downstairs while a mouth was numbing parade we usually did. The only thing I remember said that day was, “I’m eating my calories in cheese today.” Hmm, I thought. I eat my calories in more ways than cheese every day. But OK.

That’s what I know of lunch meetings.

Two days ago I was depressed. I was going over note page after note page of background on made-up characters. I was willing to write but utterly uninspired. Until…

“A breakout novel rattles, confronts and illuminates. It is detailed because it is real. Its people live because they spring from life, or at least from the urge to say something about life. Their stories challenge our hopes, plumb our fears, test our faiths and enact our human wills.

These novels change us because their authors are willing to draw upon their deepest selves without flinching. They hold nothing back, making their novels the deepest possible expression of their own experience and beliefs.”

                   -Donald Maass

Now I remember. I remember what I want and that it’s worth a fall on my face to try. Because stories rock me, the good ones. And there is a pull in me to create something that “rattles,” and teaches and inspires back.

Carry on ladies, maybe someday you’ll be talking about my book.

 

Here Goes Nothing, and Everything

Posted by

0

Come to me words.

Chapter one, first draft (a.k.a awful and little of it will remain).

Deep breaths, in and then out.

You over-50 Chatterboxes a table away, this is the quiet zone of the library and I have panic attacks to deal with. Shush.

Off the Cuff

Posted by

0

There is a blog post I just moved to the trash bin. I started it over the weekend and I gotta tell ya, it was going to be great. I was going to use big words and say things that were meaningful. You were going to love it, praise it, share it, and I would feel good about myself. Until it was awful.

What I was writing was true, it meant something to me, it was relatable. But it was also forced. Ergo, trash.

Moments come to me when I think, Why even write? Really, am I going to pen 1,000 characters about how there was mud on my shoe, my kids are adorably hilarious (which they are), I love the outdoors, I’ve read something touching, and then through all this I’ve had a grand epiphany about life?

Not to mention, I will absolutely repeat myself. I have right now, in one of my scrapbooks, two nearly identical pages of my oldest kid’s pictures from JCPenney, about five pages apart. I did the same page, twice. It will happen on WordPress too. Watch for it.
I will misspell things, never get affect and effect right, and write in fragmented prose.

BUT, it is when I read a great story, or watch one unravel scene by scene on a screen that I remember why I want to do this. I cannot get enough of a phenomenal telling.

What’s your favorite movie? Book? T.V. show?
What do you love about it? 
Me too.  

Words, they stir and they move and they teach and they connect us in a way that matters. 

I want to do that.      

Start the Brewing. I’m Gonna Need It.

Posted by

0

All I hear is the fan that is making the left side of my face a little too cold. It’s 5:08 am. and I’m going to regret this in a couple hours. This being awake.

“No one is up bothering us. Why are our eyes open?”

“I. Don’t. Know.” We say this through black-rimmed glasses and over the tops of our books.

It’s an injustice to be up when the Littles are sleeping. Maybe.

I’m creating characters, a second dive into the waters of a book. It’s overwhelming and I often feel like I’ll never have a last page. Actually I haven’t started writing it yet. I’m just seeing the people, getting a feel for the web of lives I will intersect. I realize it isn’t just a protagonist, there is a life, a history, generations of family. So there are dots and hyphens and outlines on my notebook pages and I can see people I like. People I hope you will know one day.

My first attempt at a book was disconnected. And naïve. I sat down at the computer and just started going, thinking the words would come and I’d learn about the characters as I went.

That was stupid. I couldn’t keep details straight. I changed, tweaked and rewrote everything with no direction but an end result. I wanted to get there quickly and, well that doesn’t make for very good reading.

The ideas tonight, the ones keeping my eyelids wide are on paper now. I’m going to settle in, give the night another shot. Of course, this means that someone will need to turn our bedroom handle. They will need cuddling and breakfast and cartoons. They will tell me of these needs with their morning breath and stale Pull-Up, which only a mother can appreciate.  

Though I think now, perhaps, the two hours of quiet was worth it. Coffee anyone?

“You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”

                                                                                                                -Saul Bellow

 

The Middle is Mine

Posted by

0

Light turquoise wraps around the binding, holding together the whole of what’s inside. The cover says, “Love, Aspire, Grow,” while the face of several different breeds of flowers play behind them. Triangles as bright as the lemons on my kitchen table are lined in rows near one side as foreign designs splash across the bottom.

I guess it’s modern Bohemian. That’s what the back of the book states.

When I open to the first page I see more piercing yellow and exotic art among the quote: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. -Albert Einstein.”

May I introduce, my new journal. Did I mention it’s new? That means the pages are crisp and perfect. The pinch in the center where the last piece of paper meets the next piece of paper smells woodsy and dusty and fresh. The jacket design I picked from a dozen others on Target’s inviting shelves. I even grabbed this one, held the weight of it in my hands, spread it open to get the feel of what it would be like to write in it and then put it back. But in the end it drew me again. The inspiring blurbs around the outside fit just right in the margins, and the colors? Well, I love them.

Although, that’s not the best part. It is between all of this that gets my pulse going. The not knowing how I’ll fill in the empty spaces, but simply knowing I will fill them. With whatever I want. As often as I want. In as many ways as I want.

I always wish the first entry to be flawless. I start out with a vow that my writing will be long and lean, even on all sides and ultimately poetic.  That lasts about one paragraph. Because that isn’t me unless I’m trying really hard; and then I’m just missing the point.

Likely there will be prayers, angry demands and whining, and gratitude. In some spots there will be creativity that’s good, and others that should never be seen. I’ll tell secrets that won’t be whispered anywhere else, and stories that will never be read. I will ultimately “Love, Aspire, Grow.”

The middle is mine. And it’s my favorite part.