Life Ain't Easy for a Boy Named "Shel"

I love Shel Silverstein.  Some of my favorite poems are found in A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends.  So when I started putting together lists and research as I was working on our big Banned Books Week event at the library, I was shocked and dismayed to see A Light in the Attic on one of the lists.  But then I thought, "oh, yeah, there's 'Crowded Tub.'"  'Crowded Tub' is a delightful little limerick that goes:
There's too many kids in this tub.
There's too many elbows to scrub.
I just washed a behind
That I'm sure wasn't mine - 
There's too many kids in this tub!

And I remembered that that there was a sketch of a naked butt at one point - either that went with the poem about a guy trying to scratch that itch in the middle of his back, or the poem about a bee that spells out a message on someone's butt by stinging him.  There was also the poem advising children to sprinkle pepper in their hair so that if they got caught by a child-eating witch they would be too spicy to eat.

Parents always have issues with butts and the idea of kids being naked for some reason.  Witches always cause problems, too.

But I started looking into it and none of those were the reason why the books was challenged. As it turns out, the two poems that apparently caused the controversy were a poem advising kids to drop dishes while washing them so as to get out of dish-washing duty, and the poem where a girl threatens that she will die if she doesn't get a pony - and at the end of the poem she does.  (It's kind of the kids' version of Anachie Gordon.)

So apparently sarcasm is what got the book actually pulled off the shelf in at least one school system.  There were complaints about the scary stuff - the witch and all that - but the idea of obstinate children was apparently what got the book labeled as #51 on the most challenged and banned books of the 1990's.  Seriously?

It's worth noting that my mom, who would not let me watch Nikelodeon's Salute Your Shorts (partly because of the word "fart" in the theme song), was perfectly fine with my reading and quoting Shel Silverstein.

I think humor - sarcasm being part of humor - is an important element to teach and encourage.  Humor is a kind of creativity, and creativity seems to be falling by the wayside in many school systems.  We're getting so caught up in electronics, cookie cutter math and science tests, and the possibility that we might offend somebody, somewhere, years from now, that humor and sarcasm are often the subject of controversy these days (and apparently as far back as the 90's, too).

Also, fun little bit of trivia, Silverstein wrote the lyrics of both "A Boy Named Sue" and "Unicorn" (the song about how the Unicorn missed getting onto Noah's Ark).
 

Banned Books Week Day 4 - Of Penguins and Guinea Pigs

When is a child too young to learn about people that are different than the group they've grown up with?  When are they too young to introduce to concepts like alternative lifestyles, and the fact that even in nature couples don't always add up the way some people think they should?

Today I'm going to talk about two very cute and very controversial (at least in some areas) children's books:  And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen.

As a former children's librarian, these are books I read, just for the heck of it, to familiarize myself with the collection, because they looked cute, and, most likely, not because I went seeking them but because I was looking for books for certain theme displays (in this case, penguins, and either pets or families).

And Tango Makes Three is a very cute book, based on real events that happened at a zoo maybe about 10 years ago now.  All the penguins had chosen their mates, did their little mating ritual dances, built nests, and laid and tended an egg in that nest.  But there were 2 male penguins who were left out.  One day, one of the zookeepers noticed that the two males were also doing the mating dance ritual, and building a nest together.  As the book very simply puts it, he thought, "They must be in love."  He watched this odd little couple find a rock and place it in their nest, tending it as though it were an egg.  Around the same time, the zookeeper got a call from another zookeeper.  The second zookeeper said they had a penguin couple who had two eggs but could only care for one of them.  She wondered if the first zookeeper had a penguin who might be able to care for the second egg.  Of course, our zookeeper knew the perfect couple.  So the egg arrived from the other zoo and was given to the male couple who took care of it, nurtured it, and hatched a female chick who was eventually named Tango.

There was a big outcry in some places, the main protest being that the book was about homosexuality and was not appropriate for children.  For what it's worth, the zookeeper who wrote the book responded to accusations that he was trying to "turn children gay" and "further the homosexual agenda" by saying, "It's no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks."

To me, as both a product of fertility treatments and the child of an adopted child, this story is not about homosexuality as much as it's a story about a couple who couldn't have a baby the "normal" way and needed help to fulfill their desire to have a family.

Uncle Bobby's Wedding is a book about a little girl and her favorite uncle.  She spends a lot of time with him and he's kind of her best friend.  Then one day, Uncle Bobby tells her that he wants her to meet his Very Special Friend.  Uncle Bobby and his Very Special Friend are getting married!  But the little girl is upset - she's worried that once Uncle Bobby gets married he won't have time for her anymore.  But when she meets Uncle Bobby's Special Friend, they both promise her that they will always have time for her.  So she decides she's happy that they are getting married and agrees to be their flower girl.

The really interesting thing about this book is that since the characters are guinea pigs, Uncle Bobby's Special Friend is named Jamie, and they wear very unisex clothing until the wedding itself, you may not even realize Uncle Bobby's Special Friend is another male until a few pages from the end.

Honestly, this book is even less about homosexuality than it is about a child finding her place when a family expands - it's right there with books about siblings getting married, parents getting remarried, and parents having (or adopting) a new baby. 

What do these two books have in common?  For me, they are both "safe" books to use when you feel it is time to introduce your child to the idea that not all families are the same, just as you might talk about step-families, divorces, or a classmate who lives with grandparents or foster parents.  Not everyone lives with 1 mom and 1 dad, and that's ok.

And when I have a child and decide it's time to explain to her or him about my Uncle Bobbies, and my best friend who will be my child's Uncle Bobby, you can be darn sure I will have these books on my shelf.
 

Banned Books Week Day 3 - To Kill a Mockingbird

I shouldn't have to say it, but I will - we're discussing To Kill a Mockingbird, and I'm quoting some strong language.

So here we have one of the granddaddys of banned books - To Kill a Mockingbird. Published in 1960, it still shows up on the "Top 10 Frequently Challenged books" list as recently as 2011 - 51 years after it was published. Reasons listed for its being challenged are offensive language, racism, and "unsuited to age group."*

Let's examine these, shall we?

Offensive language and racism:

Because of the story line of the book, offensive language and racism partly go hand in hand. There has been a lot of activity lately about trying to prevent people from seeing, reading about, and being aware of awful things that people used to do to each other. I won't get involved in any of these specific arguments - you probably can think of at least one that I'm talking about. [The sad thing is I wrote this 2 years ago, but it might as well have been yesterday.] But here we have a book, written at a very tumultous time, about subjects that were very inflammatory then (and apparently remain inflammatory now). (For what it's worth, the book was written during the Civil Rights movement, but set at the tail end of the Depression.) You can't remove a book like this from the social context of the time. Yes, people used language that we now consider racist and offensive to casually describe other groups. It happened. You can't change that. What you can (and should!) do, is look back and say, "gee, look how far we've come."

Yes, there are things that are very offensive in the book. It is offensive that a man should be falsely accused of a crime simply because of the color of his skin. It is offensive that the one person in the county willing to defend him was harassed and his family threatened. It is offensive that the accusers get away with lying under oath and using racial slurs against a man who is, in fact, innocent of the crime he is eventually convicted of.

It is offensive enough to read about these things in a work of fiction; it is even more-so that events like these happened. But, if no one reads about it, no one knows about it. And if no one knows about, what's to prevent it from happening again? Which brings us to...

"Unsuited to age group."

Ok. So there is a point at which you might say, "my child is too young to read about a racially-charged rape trial." And you would be right. But there is a point at which young people are mature enough to handle it. There is a point at which they are experimenting with those words that get bleeped out on the radio and TV, words they hear in that "explicit lyrics" cd they borrowed from a friend. There is a point at which they are at school and seeing other kids hang out in groups and maybe disliking some of those other groups and coming up with words for them - jocks, nerds, losers, loners, whatever. Maybe these words are offensive and maybe they aren't. Maybe these groups are about common interests rather than race lines. Whatever. The point is, at what age does your child need to learn that one group shouldn't pick on another group, just because they're different?

It's interesting to note that the age at which students are reading To Kill a Mockingbird and learning about the Civil Rights movement has a decent overlap with the age at which they learn about the Holocaust. I read To Kill a Mockingbird in 8th grade, which put me somewhere in the 13-14 year old range, depending on when it was in the school year. This would actually be smack-dab in the middle of my Holocaust obsession (obsessed with the victims and survivors, not the perpetrators, for the record). While Mockingbird was assigned to me, I had picked up the Holocaust fascination kind of on my own. However, I remember very keenly that I was eager to read Mockingbird, once I got into it. We were supposed to be reading and discussing 1 chapter at a time as a group, but I had to know what was happening and couldn't resist the urge to read ahead. I finished the book quickly and went back and reread each chapter as it was due, so that it would be fresh in my mind.

In fact, there is one scene and line in particular that had such an effect on me that it stayed fresh in my mind, lo these 20ish years later. I remember reading, with the urgent need to find out if Tom would be convicted, as the testimony got... shall we say, heated. I remember the accuser's father testifying, in a way that I realise now was meant to scandalise and inflame the jury, "I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin' on my Mayella!" I remember being shocked and aghast (after I looked up what "rutting" meant).

It's worth noting that when I went too look up the line just a few minutes ago, I had remembered it completely accurately despite not having reread the book since 8th grade. And by comparison, it's worth noting that despite having re-read and listened to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban many times since my first reading, I had to go and double check the lines I quoted in my post yesterday. That's the power of language - the shocking, offensive passage was apparently more memorable to me than enjoyable passage.

Shocking. Offensive. Important to remember.

So what I'm getting at is this - we need to read these books. We need to be offended and outraged. We need to be offended enough and outraged enough so that we remember what we used to do, what we have changed, what we need to continue to change, and what we must not repeat.

*These statistics are compiled by the American Library Association - you can read more about it here: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

Azkabanned!

Just in case you have been living under a rock for the past few decades, be aware that this post contains spoilers for various Harry Potter books and The Empire Strikes Back. Yes, because that's how much of a nerd I am.

Everyone falls in love in college. My freshman year, I fell in love with Harry Potter - the books, anyway. I had been working in the book section of a Media Play for a year or two and had a vague notion of Harry Potter as "that kids' series about wizards." I had never thought much of it, except that it was "just for kids" and that it was probably a passing phase. My mom and her best friend - who was an Episcopal priest and middle school chaplain - had been trying to get me to read the first book, and I kept thinking I might, eventually. Then, Spring Break of freshman year, I went on a road trip (as one does on Spring Break in college). It's probably telling about both my personality and the kind of books I read that said road trip was not to a party scene on the beach, but a week-long, medieval re-enactment festival in in rural Mississippi.

On the way back from Mississippi, my friend who was driving asked if it was ok if he popped in one his Harry Potter tapes (yeah, remember those?). He said that he was at a really exciting part and he just had to know what was going on. My family had always been partial to Garrison Keillor tapes on road trips and, while I had not read Harry myself at that point, I had no aversion to it either. I said sure, and from the stereo of that ancient Oldsmobile came Jim Dale's voice and J.K.Rowling's incredible world.

I was suddenly locked in an office with Harry, mad-eye Moody, and questions. Who was this Mad-eye fellow, and why was he increasingly crazy? Who were these professors breaking down his door? Why was this poor Harry kid locked in an office with a crazy guy ranting about a dark lord anyway? I was suddenly intent on this world that I'd been thrown into, like being thrown into the deep end of a swimming pool, only to find it was full of dark chocolate pudding. Very cool choice - but why? I didn't find out any of the answers to those questions - at least not that rainy March evening - because my friend suddenly gasped in terror and said, "You can't listen to this! You haven't read the book!" I found out later he'd spoiled the climax and major reveal of the 4th book for me. But he made up for it by what he did next. He happened to have the first cassette of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and he put that in instead. The first paragraph of the book is what sold me on the series: "Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework, but was forced to do it in secret in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard."

That's it ladies and gentlemen - that's how to hook a reader.

I don't know if it was because of those first 3 chapters I listened to, or if it was just because of the way the story was crafted, but Prisoner of Azkaban became not just my favorite in the Harry Potter series, but one my favorite books ever. And for someone who if you ask for their favorite book will start listing off about a dozen, that's saying something. Seriously. Top five. Ever. It may be because it's what I think of as the boundary book - Azkaban is the book that separates a lot of things in the Harry Potter Universe. It's the book that everything before it is good family fun - great for all ages! - and everything after is darker, scarier, and solidly into Young Adult territory. It's the book where you realize Voldemort really could come back. It's the book where you realize the good guys don't win every battle. But it's also a book of hope. It's the book that has new friends accross generation lines. And it's the book that has my favourite reveal. Say what you will about Harry discovering he's a wizard in the first book, or finally defeating Voldemort in the final one, my favorite moment is when Harry discovers and accepts that Sirus, his parents' best friend, his godfather, is not an evil, double-crossing murderer after all. To me, that's right up there with Vader's "No, I am your father" - except on the opposite end of the emotional spectrum.

And of course, if we're talking about boundary books here, it's the book that separates my pre-Harry Potter and post-Harry Potter life. Because even though I heard a few paragraphs of Goblet of Fire first, and even though I then went back and read the books in order, it was those first three chapters of Prisoner of Azkaban that captured me.

So there we go, readers - you just got Azka-banned!

How NOT to Blog About Banned Books Week

Once again, Banned Books Week is here, and once again I have exactly 0 plans for blogging.  In 2015, I made a blog for every day of banned books week.  Last year, I had way too much on my plate, and this year... well, I got married a week and half ago, and that's an excuse I'm gonna milk for at least another month ; )

Seriously, though, Banned Books week really crept up on me this year.  It's the first year since I've had this blog that I haven't also worked in a library.  If you work in a library or school, you're working on BBW in, like, July, so there's no way it's gonna surprise you.

So, in interest of doing SOMETHING, I'm going to fall back on what I did last year, which is repost my daily blogs from BBW 2015.  Yeah, kind of a cop out, but at least this year it's a different website, so it actually kind of serves a little bit more of a purpose to get the information and opinions back out there on the web.

So, without further ado, I give you...

Banned Books Week - Day 1

So today is the opening day of Banned Books Week, and I think I'll open with a little background.

For those of you who may not know, Banned Books Week is a national observation headed by the American Library Association in which libraries celebrate banned and challenged books. "What's a banned book?" you might ask. "What's the difference between a banned and challenged book? Who's banning these books, anyway?" Good questions.

A book is considered "challenged" when someone files a complaint that they hope will result in making the book available to fewer people. This can range anywhere from asking a library or school to move the book to a different section so that children under a certain age can't access it, to completely removing it from a library's collection. When someone succeeds in removing a book from a school or library, or prevents it from being sold in a certain area, that book is considered banned.

"Oh, no, that's awful!" you might say. "Who is doing this?" The answer is - you. Or me. Or anybody. Any time anyone attempts to prevent someone from accessing a book, that's part of what is going on. Now, there's a difference between, say, giving your 7-year-old a book with explicit sex and violence and trying to prevent ANYONE from reading said explicit book. The latter is what we're really talking about here. (And the former is a topic for a different blog post.)*

So to kick off Banned Books Week, I offer up a list of books I have read that can be found on the various banned and challenged lists on the ALA website. If you are up for sharing, please type the titles you've read in the comments. No comments along the lines of "You read that book? You have no soul!" You might look at my list and say, "Ugh, your reading choice is terrible," as long as you agree that I have a right to my terrible reading choice. This week is not about whether or not a book is well-written, offensive, or both, and neither is this post. This is meant to show how much these "mad, bad, and dangerous to know" books people are actually reading. (And yes, you can count it even if your English teacher made you read it.)

Banned and challenged books I have read (In no particular order):

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell

Beloved by Toni Morrison

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

The Twilight Series (all 4) by Stephenie Meyer

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Uncle Bobby's Wedding by Sarah S. Brannen

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The Harry Potter Series (all 7) by J. K. Rowling

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

The Giver by Lois Lowry

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein

The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice) (Well... I still haven't finished the 3rd one. All that spanking gets really old after a while...)

Carrie by Stephen King

The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

1984 by George Orwell

Animal Farm by George Orwell

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

The Lord of the Rings (all 3 ) by J. R. R. Tolkien

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

The Bible (no I haven't read the whole thing)

And probably more - I'm sure there are regional lists, books that caused a stir at your high school, or books and authors that were removed quietly enough from a library or school here or there that no one noticed.

For more information, lists, statistics and all kinds of fun things, you can check out the ALA's banned books pages: http://www.ala.org/bbooks/

One of the things you can find on the ALA website is a graph of who is challenging books by group - parents make up the largest percentage by far.

Come back each day this week - I'm challenging myself to blog about a book or series from this list all week long.

Storm Stories

I didn't think I was going to have time to make a post today, but now that work is going to be closed tomorrow (at least), I have some unexpected free time.

I used to be a huge weather nerd.  I could rattle off facts and stats about inclement weather that made it sound like I'd been in Twister.  
 

And not that it doesn't still fascinate me (because it does), but I just have other things to do now than watch Weather and/or History channel specials about natural disasters and track hurricanes.

I remember thinking a couple weeks ago that Harvey was going to be this generation's Katrina.  And then I thought, "no, that's not right - it hasn't been all that long since Katrina."  But it actually has.  Katrina hit in 2005.  The amount of time between Katrina and now is about the same as between Andrew (1992) and Katrina.  But then Irma formed.  And when I started hearing about it, I thought, "This is not going be another Katrina or Andrew.  This is going to be Camille*.  This is going to be Galveston**."

*Hurricane Camille, 1969, Mississippi/Gulf Coast.  Wind speed at landfall uncertain, due to the instrumentation breaking, but generally agreed to be in the area of 175 mph.  It caused utter devastation to structures because of the high winds, but thankfully moved quickly and was not a big rain maker.

**The Great Galveston Hurricane, 1900, Texas.  Probably peaked at upper-level category 4. Estimated death toll between 6,000 and 12,000.  Leveled the island town of Galveston.

I have been fortunate in that I have not seen a lot of natural disasters.  I have stories of having experienced winters storms and the fringes and remnants of tropical systems.  I have been fortunate in that all of my interactions with severe weather have been inconveniences - the sort of things that are annoying at the time but become that funny story about the time your dad cooked pasta on the grill  in a blizzard.  I have been fortunate in that I've never lost possessions, a home, or friends or family to a hurricane or other natural disaster.

To the many of you who are in harm's way, I hope you come through this with just minor annoyances.  I hope you come back with the stories.  I hope you come back.

Keeping it Real

How do you take something most people have never had to deal with - war, devastating natural disaster, genocide - and make it resonate?

You narrow the focus.  You pick something small, something someone can relate to, and you show the details that grip the emotions.  You make it familiar, you make it local, you make it relatable.

Last year, I applied for a job at KSU's Museum of Holocaust History and Education.  As part of the 2nd round of the process, I was asked to make a presentation suitable for 10th graders discussing the book Night by Eli Wiesel.  One of the things I included in the notes with the presentation were interactive exercises to be done with the students to help them digest the unfathomable idea of the sheer number of people killed.  One of these activities included randomly selecting 3 students from the class (assuming a class of 25) and informing them that of their class, they were the only ones to survive the forced-march evacuation of a concentration camp.  I did not get the job.  I wasn't given a reason, though I wonder if maybe the presentation was too intense.

Yesterday, I saw a graphic online of Hurricane Harvey's area of destruction as overlaid over other coastal areas.  It didn't hit home for me how massive the area of destruction was until they showed the area overlaid over the Georgia/Carolina coast - the entirety of South Carolina was covered, as was a chunk of Georgia as far inland as Macon.

Last night, Jason and I watched The Zookeeper's Wife.  This movie really "brought home" some things about Poland in WWII for me - and as someone who spent a large portion of middle school reading everything about the Holocaust that I could get my hands on, that's saying something.  I don't know why, but for some reason it never occurred to me that Warsaw was bombed when Germany invaded in September of 1939.  I don't know why I thought that Germany just rolled up in trucks and said, "hey, you're part of Germany now" and that was that.  And even then, maybe I had known at some point about the bombardment, but forgot, because it was the bombing of nameless, unfamiliar buildings.  When a mother walks out onto her back balcony to investigate the sound of airplanes, only for a bomb to land just dozens of feet away in her yard, while her son and pet play in the room behind her, that hits home.  Watching the animals that this woman has just greeted, petted, fed, and healed in the previous scenes  run in terror, or fall to the violence, becomes very real.  Watching the man who we have watched struggle with the dangerous choice of hiding people in his home take up arms and shoot at Nazis from between the bombed-out walls of the city that we have watched be slowly destroyed over the course of the movie makes the utter devastation and nightmare that the people of Warsaw had to deal with approachable.  You see pictures of a bombed out city and you think, "well, that sucks."  You watch characters you have come to "know" deal with the destruction and the loss, and it becomes real.

There is a phrase "a million is a statistic."  I think Eddie Izzard says it better, even though it was said in a joking context - "over 20, we can't deal with it."  I think it's true, though.  You tell someone that 20 people have died in a fire or a storm, and they think, "Oh, wow, 20 people.  That's how many people were at the last party I went to.  That's how many people are in my kid's class.  That's awful."  You say thousands or millions of people have died or been displaced, and we just can't wrap our heads around it.

In an odd way, it's another thing I learned from theatre.  One of my theatre professors was always impressing on us to make our acting choices - our choice of an expression, a way of walking, a tone of voice - more specific.  "The more specific you are, the more universal it becomes," he would say.  You have to do something, find something that is relatable.  When you do, you can make the audience or reader understand.

National Dog Day!

Reposting last year's National Dog Day post:
 
The Older Sister:
When I was born, my parents already had a dog.  Her name was Menze (pronounced Men-zee). She was (supposed to be) a Lhasa Apso, but my mom always liked to say that Menze's biological mother had been a woman of questionable character.  We think she was actually a Lhasa-poo, before hyphenated dog breeds were cool.  She was grey and had 3 different textures of hair - curly like a poodle on top of her head, wavy on her back, and fine and silky on her tail.  She was a mullet dog.

Menze was as fiercely protective as a 13 pound grey fluffball can be.  UPS guy at the door?  He better step off!  Squirrel on the lawn?  He's up to some sh*t!  Leaf blows across the lawn?  Hey, you deciduous delinquent, you better just keep moving!

But she was also a sweetheart.  My dad would put her up on his lap and play the piano and they would "sing" together.  I remember her best as she was when she was an older dog.  

She lived to be almost 17 - 7 days short of her 17th birthday, as I recall.  She died on MLK day when I was almost 13.  She had been going downhill since our cat, who she had thought was her mother, died 6 months earlier at the age of 22.  She died quietly, in her place of honor at the end of my parents' bed, early in the morning.  I did not see it, but I was told later that my dad cried.  This is the first time I ever knew of that he cried.  She was just as much his baby as my sister and I were.

4 1/2 years ago, my boyfriend and I decided we wanted to get a dog.  I had been without a dog since Murphy died, and Jason had been without one since his childhood dog, Skeeter, had died when he was 18.  Neither of us had ever raised a puppy, so we decided to look for an adult dog at a shelter.

We did research online ahead of time, narrowing it down to a few promising-looking dogs.  One of them we thought we probably wouldn't look at, unless we were disappointed with the others.  He was 38 pounds - bigger than we wanted.  He was a German Shepherd/Corgi mix.  Nothing against Shepherds - we just didn't know that a dog that big would work out for us.  But we got to the shelter and looked at the first dog on our list - too hyper, and she didn't pay any attention to us.  As we were wandering around looking for the second dog on our list, we passed the one we weren't sure about.

Sitting quietly, watching us as if he has been expecting us, was the only dog in the very large room not barking. This was the dog we were unsure about?  But he was so calm and sweet!  We petted him through the fencing (even though we weren't supposed to).  He wasn't really all that big, and he had such a giant, goofy grin.  We stood up to go find someone to unlock the cage so we could interact with him some more - and he stood up on his hind legs and reached out to touch the cage door, with a hearbreaking look on his face that said, "no, don't go!"

We took him to the "get to know you" room, but we had already decided this one was a keeper.  They were calling him Cashew, but we named him Baldur, for the Norse god of the sun and general goodness.  It suits him - he is dark gold, and he trots around with a regal gait one could only expect of a son of Odin.

We took him home, where the first thing he did once we were inside was to tackle me and lick my ears.

My boy turned 6 last week, and he is still the love of my life.  Actually, everyone loves him.  Everyone in our neighborhood knows Baldur, and he has more friends (both human and canine) up and down our street than I do.

He is pushy when he wants to be petted, stubborn about eating and peeing in a timely manner, and likes to body slam dogs who are bigger than him.  Since he is coffee-table height, this is about 2/3 of dogs he meets.  But he is also a sweetheart.

He is very aware of his size when playing with smaller dogs or my parents' tiny new cat.  He is gentle with kids.  He knows when I'm upset or sick and curls up with me.  One of the best days of my life was when this boy picked me out and said in his sweet, sad-Corgi-face way, "I want you to be my Mommy."  Here's to many more years with my boy.

Please leave a comment about the dogs in your life!

I remember that being an absurdly cold January.  I'm pretty sure the week Menze died was the week that it was so cold that we had an inch of solid ice on the pool cover.  But regardless of whether I'm remembering the extreme cold precisely, it was cold enough that the Georgia clay in our back yard was frozen solid when Menze died.  She lay in state in a box in the garage, with a little blankie and a chew toy tucked in with her, until it warmed up a little bit and my dad could dig a grave for her in the back yard.
 
(Below: My blonde baby sisters)

The Baby Sister:
We were petless for a while after Menze died.  We just had to be in mourning for a while.  We missed our fuzzies, but we weren't ready to jump into another one for a while.  But around the time we decided that we were ready for another dog, fate literally dropped one in our laps.

Toward the end of my freshman year in high school, my mom, who was a preschool director, had a mother walk into her office and ask "Do you want my dog?"  After my mom realized that Ashton Kutcher was not going to jump out and proclaim, "you got punk'd!" she asked, "Don't you?"  After being told that "she doesn't fit our lifestyle anymore," my mom accepted with the condition that my family would have to meet her and make sure we liked her.  She shouldn't have worried - my dad was rolling around on the floor of a stranger's house playing with this little dog 30 seconds after he got in the door.

Murphy was a Maltese - a little white fuzzball who was 11 pounds at her heaviest.  She was the sweetest little dog in the whole world.  My mom would bring her when she came to pick me up at drama club.  Murphy would sit on her lap in the dark in the last row of the theater and watch us walk back and forth on stage, perfectly attentive and quiet.  Afterward everyone would gather around to ooh and aah and get kisses.  You could scoop her up on your forearm and carry her anywhere.  How this dog wouldn't fit anyone's lifestyle is beyond me.

Murphy was clever, too.  Jumping off the couch was a long way for a little dog with legs as tiny as hers.  She would push the end cushion off the couch and jump down onto that.  She always knew what time it was.  When she got older, she developed high blood pressure and had to have a pill at 10:00 every night.  If we didn't start heading back to bed within 15 minutes of her bedtime meds, she would come to the foot of the stairs and let out one impatient bark to remind us that it was, in fact, bedtime.

Murphy started losing the hair on her back as she got older.  The pink freckly skin under the sparse hair made her look like a teacup piglet.

When she was 16, Murphy suddenly got sick.  She was chasing me around the coffee table on Wednesday.  On Thursday, she was lethargic enough that my mom, worried about her, took her to the vet.  She came back with a probable cancer diagnosis.  Friday night she had a stroke.  Early Saturday morning she started having violent, full-body seizures and as soon as the vet opened we took her in to ease her suffering.  

I have never cried so hard in my life - afterward my face hurt with a pain worse than the worst sinus infection I've ever had.  Our cat, Miso, who had acted exactly as you would expect a little brother to act toward Murphy all their lives, spent the next several days pawing cabinets open to look for her.

Some of you will think what follows is a bunch of hooey.  Some time before Murphy died, I had a dream where I was in heaven.  It was the most stereotypical heaven you can picture - all clouds and people in white robes.  A little girl with wavy white-blonde hair and dark brown eyes came running up to me.  I knew without having to ask or her having to speak that it was Murphy.  She was so excited and she said to me, "Elizabeth, I got promoted!  We're going to be sisters again!"  I don't know if you believe in reincarnation, but I personally like the idea of it.  I hope to meet Murphy again some day.
 
My Baby:
Baldur - my baby, my buddy, my insufferable butthead.

4 1/2 years ago, my boyfriend and I decided we wanted to get a dog.  I had been without a dog since Murphy died, and Jason had been without one since his childhood dog, Skeeter, had died when he was 18.  Neither of us had ever raised a puppy, so we decided to look for an adult dog at a shelter.

We did research online ahead of time, narrowing it down to a few promising-looking dogs.  One of them we thought we probably wouldn't look at, unless we were disappointed with the others.  He was 38 pounds - bigger than we wanted.  He was a German Shepherd/Corgi mix.  Nothing against Shepherds - we just didn't know that a dog that big would work out for us.  But we got to the shelter and looked at the first dog on our list - too hyper, and she didn't pay any attention to us.  As we were wandering around looking for the second dog on our list, we passed the one we weren't sure about.

Sitting quietly, watching us as if he has been expecting us, was the only dog in the very large room not barking. This was the dog we were unsure about?  But he was so calm and sweet!  We petted him through the fencing (even though we weren't supposed to).  He wasn't really all that big, and he had such a giant, goofy grin.  We stood up to go find someone to unlock the cage so we could interact with him some more - and he stood up on his hind legs and reached out to touch the cage door, with a hearbreaking look on his face that said, "no, don't go!"

We took him to the "get to know you" room, but we had already decided this one was a keeper.  They were calling him Cashew, but we named him Baldur, for the Norse god of the sun and general goodness.  It suits him - he is dark gold, and he trots around with a regal gait one could only expect of a son of Odin.

We took him home, where the first thing he did once we were inside was to tackle me and lick my ears.

My boy turned 6 last week, and he is still the love of my life.  Actually, everyone loves him.  Everyone in our neighborhood knows Baldur, and he has more friends (both human and canine) up and down our street than I do.

He is pushy when he wants to be petted, stubborn about eating and peeing in a timely manner, and likes to body slam dogs who are bigger than him.  Since he is coffee-table height, this is about 2/3 of dogs he meets.  But he is also a sweetheart.

He is very aware of his size when playing with smaller dogs or my parents' tiny new cat.  He is gentle with kids.  He knows when I'm upset or sick and curls up with me.  One of the best days of my life was when this boy picked me out and said in his sweet, sad-Corgi-face way, "I want you to be my Mommy."  Here's to many more years with my boy.

Please leave a comment about the dogs in your life!
 

A Matter of Perspective

This has been a rough year for a lot of people.  Last year was a rough year for me.  This year has been better, in large part because in February I started a new job, and in April I got engaged.

Now don't get me wrong; the year hasn't been perfect.  Work is often busy and can be frustrating.  There is stuff going on in the world that every time I think, "well, we just hit rock bottom," it keeps going.  But I find that I am in a much better place mentally and emotionally than I was last year.  This has been a drastically better year for me than last year, in spite of the story I'm about to tell you.

On Easter, I caught on fire.

Jason, Baldur, and I were at my parents' house for lunch and I was helping my mom in the kitchen.  She asked me if I could get something out of the cabinet for her.  Said cabinet was over the gas stove, which was on.  Rather than getting a stool and coming around the side, like a smart person, I decided to take the quick and easy route and reach over the stove.

Anyone remember that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire, where Robbin Williams says, "Gosh, it's hot in here," about a second and a half before he realizes his blouse is on fire?  It really does happen like that.  My stomach got hot and I thought, "I'm probably too close to the stove."  Then I thought maybe I had brushed up against the hot metal of the pan because it was too hot.  Then I backed away from the stove and saw little yellow flames on my shirt and realized what was going on.  It takes so much longer to type or tell that than the actual realization, which probably took all of a second.  

I screamed.  The concept of "stop, drop, and roll" went out of my head, and I thought instead of water.  I was close to the sink and grabbed for the extendable hose and tried to spray myself.  My mom had realized what was going on and was also screaming, beating at the flame with a dish towel.  I realized that the hose's reach was not quite far enough at the same time that my mom came to her senses, cried "stop, drop, and roll!" and pushed me down to the stone tile floor, hard.  

This whole incident seems like it took several minutes in my head, but in reality, probably was less than 10 seconds.

I lay on the nice cold tile, shaking from adrenaline, aware that I had been burned, but also aware that I was, in the grand scheme of things, fine.  "I'm OK!" I called at least twice.  Baldur had come running in, concerned, at some point, and by now Jason and my dad were in the kitchen, too.  My mom was distraught - much more upset that I was.

I was led to the bathroom.  I had worn a white, gauzy blouse (as one does on Easter) - the entire front was just gone.  Jason helped me out of my ruined shirt, and helped me wet the burn and put aloe on it.  I remember looking in the mirror and thinking, "Oh, ok, that's not so bad - I've had sunburns that looked worse."  I don't remember what I said, but I made some black humor remark along the lines of, "well, there's our lunch plans up in smoke."  Jason told me later that that's when he knew I was alright.

They took me to urgent care.  On the way, I asked my mom to hang onto the ruined blouse - "I need it for a book I'm writing!"  My parents said this is when they knew I was going to be OK.

I walked into urgent care in a large baggy cotton beach dress from the 80's - the first thing we could find in my mom's closet that was breathable and big enough that it would allow for a lot of space for the burn under it.  The receptionist asked what she could do for us.  I announced that my shirt had caught on fire.  
"Your what?!" she asked.
"Not this one," I clarified.

I was taken back quickly, because you don't mess around with burns.  The consensus of the nurse was that it was, all things considered, a best-case scenario.  I had what looked like it would stay the angry, red of 1st degree burns on most of my stomach, with a couple smaller streaks that were turning the white of 2nd degree.  I would probably blister, she said, and I would have to go to the burn specialist on Monday.  But given how quickly it got put out, the fact that the shirt was thin, natural fibers, and the fact that my hair was not longer, all had given me a lot less damage than she normally saw with clothing fires.  They wrapped me up in gauze like Gwyneth Paltrow in Shakespeare in Love.

At the burn center the next day, the nurses and doctor were amazed.  They were used to seeing 3rd degree armpit burns with clothing fires and were astounded with how minor* mine was by comparison.  The pain of the headache from the reaction with the pain medication was much worse than the pain from the burn itself, which really was more itchy than painful.  The doctor came in, looked at my stomach, and said, "Oh, yeah, that looks great!"  He predicted I would have no scarring and would not need surgery.

*"Minor" does not mean it was fun, though, so don't get any ideas, kids.

I didn't tell a lot of people about this - just family, close friends, and those who needed to know why I wasn't going to be at work for a week - mainly because I kind of felt stupid.

This is the sort of thing that could have been a lot worse.  This could have been the sort of thing that ruined my year.  But it wasn't.  Despite this, I still consider this to be a relatively good year.  

I got a new job which, even when it is busy and frustrating, I know I have the support of my supervisor.  And not only her and my coworkers, but also professors, deans, and the Provost all seem to think I'm doing really well at what I do.  Even the President of the University has stopped me in the hall to say what great things she has heard about me.

In a month, I will be married to a wonderful man who has been my companion, my comfort, and (more often than you would think) my caretaker for 6 years.  We have had a great outpouring of love and support from our friends and family, which helps when it's been frustrating trying to get in touch with the florist.

I don't mean it to sound like I'm bragging.  I'm just astounded at the difference a few months can make.  If I had caught on fire last year, it would have been so much worse, just because of where I was emotionally.  As it was this year, it was just a minor setback.

Those of you who are having a rough year, I wish for you the sort of year I've had (minus the fire).
 

Am I Too Picky?

Sometimes I read a book and I get really into it and issues with minor details don't bother me.

And sometimes... not.

I recently finished reading a book about a group of scientists discovering a megalodon shark alive in the Pacific.  Cool premise - giant, prehistoric shark is made aware of small, tasty humans and wreaks havoc.  In practice, though, the story was less than satisfying.  Most of the characters were unlikable - like, seriously, the loathsome wife existed ONLY so that you would kinda cheer when she got eaten by the shark.  The protagonist was bland.  The "mentor" figure who was set up to be a wise environmentalist made stupid decisions and put everyone at risk.  The whole story would have been avoided if people followed basic safety protocol - not rushing a risky submarine dive when there was a storm coming,* not choosing a submarine pilot who has a known history of claustrophobia-induced panic attacks, and not choosing afore-mentioned submarine pilot who hadn't dove in 7 years and who was unfamiliar with the new vessel over an active pilot who had worked extensively with the new model and the lead pilot because she was "too emotional."  

*Said storm** never actually occurred.
**I was hoping this would be like Jurassic Park and Sphere, where the action is set off by a storm that locks the characters into an area for the duration, as opposed to just being a flimsy excuse to ignore procedure.

The only character who was interesting (or, rather, could have been) was way under-utilized.  A young scientist and submarine pilot, she was overshadowed by her older brother (also a submarine pilot) and her school-girl crush on the protagonist from when her father trained him years earlier.  We were told she was too emotional to pilot a submarine into the Mariana Trench, but never actually saw her be more than just slightly aggravated (and this aggravation was always justified).  Her one problem was that to begin with she was antagonistic and kept calling the main character misogynistic without provocation, but after about the first 30 pages that went away.

(Though I guess maybe these aren't minor details.)

Despite the fact that every few pages, something (the complaints above, logic bombs, etc.) would take me out of the story, I kept reading - mainly because I wanted to see what happened with the shark. 

Maybe I'm being too picky.  Maybe I should have given the book a chance to redeem itself, even though just 10 pages in I had already had so many issues with the characters that I kind of felt like I was looking for problems.

As I mentioned above, there have been other books where I notice issues - historical inaccuracies, characterization problems - that don't necessarily prevent me from enjoying the book.  For example, a few months ago, I read a historical fiction piece about the Romanov sisters.  The girls all came down with the measles right around the time their father abdicated, and someone mentioned antibiotics at one point.  While I remember thinking, "I don't think antibiotics were around during WWI," the rest of the story was compelling enough that I let the slip go and kept reading.

Likewise, there's a series I'm currently reading that, while it is not historical, is heavily based on medieval England.  It always throws me for a loop when they mention drinking coffee, but I remind myself that this is fantasy, not history.

So I guess maybe the question is not "am I being too picky?" but rather, "at what point do the problems become so overwhelming that you can't fully immerse yourself in the story anymore?"  As a writer, I'd be curious to know what your reading turn-offs are: poor characterization?  Historical or technical inaccuracies?  Logistical problems?  

Please comment - I often ask about things you enjoy as readers, but it's important to know what can ruin a story, too.

Guerrilla Poetry

I had a dream the other night where high school students started a rebellion using poetry.

In the dream, the kids were concerned about being identified by their handwriting, or by IP addresses, so they took great pains to turn the poems into visual art rather than simply writing out or posting their poetry.  They cut out words from magazines and other print sources.  They wrote on pictures using Sharpie and their non-dominant hand.  They wrote on paper, but then crumpled the paper, copying it multiple times to mask their hand-writing.

After a while, the storyline of the dream became lost and it turned into me just coming up with what essentially now was an art project.  What supplies did I have that would work for this "guerrilla poetry?"  Could I make this work as a youth library program?

I haven't done kids' art projects as part of my job for 2 1/2 years - and I never did teens - but I still come up with stuff like this.  I constantly see things, or come up with things, and think, "gosh, what a cool art project!"  Maybe someday I'll get to the point where I'm doing that again, either in my main job, as volunteer work, or even with my own kids some day.  (Correction, if I have kids, they will have art projects : )

In the grand scheme of things, I didn't do kids' art projects all that long either - just a couple of years.  But I grew up in a house where craft projects were the norm, where my mom taught pre-school and/or art for most of my childhood, and then I went into costume design for a few years.

While my art is mostly verbal now, I do sometimes get the itch to take up paper, paint, pens and just craft something.  If I ever get around to doing any "guerrilla poetry," like I describe above, I'll show it to you all.

What's in (the Spelling of) a Name?

Let's talk about a character in my next big project*.

The main character in the novel I have decided to work on next in named Reala.  For the purposes of this post, that's really all you need to know about her.

As some of you who have followed this blog for a while know, one of the things I consider strongly both when reading and writing is spelling vs. pronunciation of a character name.  In fact, it's kind of been in my head a lot recently because I'm reading Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King and, as you might expect of a book set in 11th century Scotland, there are a lot of old Celtic names that are most definitely not pronounced the way they are spelled.

I personally find it kind of annoying to pick up a book, begin reading, and have an idea in my head of how to pronounce the names, only to find out several chapters in that what I had in my head has been wrong for dozens or even hundreds of pages.  (And in this particular book, the character list, glossary, and pronunciation guide is in the back of the book, and it has spoilers: "Dudgdhe - pronounced Dude - son of Gusgeheh - pronounced Guy.  Killed by Brugheheh - pronounced Bro.")

So, because I think that at least the main characters need to have names that are very clear right off the bat, I'd like to know from you, my readers, when you see the name "Reala," what is your immediate thought as to how it is pronounced?
A. Ray-all-a
B. Reel-a
C. Something else

Please comment! (Yes, you may be the one to determine the spelling of a character's name in a future novel!)

*No, I'm not working on Wolf and Sheath just yet.  At least, I'm not doing any major work on it until after the wedding, but I am thinking about it a lot, and may start working on small things like name research as I have a little free time here and there.

Dress for the Role You Want

Most of you have seen the meme online: "My boss told me to dress for the job I want, not the job I have, so now I'm in a disciplinary meeting dressed as Wonder Woman/Darth Vader/The Goblin King/[insert other cool but oddly dressed character here]."

There is a very strong visual connection between clothing and character, and I don't just mean in a "the guy in the white hat is the good guy" or "the girl in the red coat dies" way.  Human beings are very visual, and what each of us wears tells something to the people that see us.  I'm not saying that's good or bad, it's just the way we're hardwired.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we would react differently to being aproached on the street by a young man in a sharp suit as compared to a young man in grubby casual clothes.  A young woman in provocative clothing would deliver a different message than the same young woman in conservative business dress, or even in "mom jeans."

As a former costume designer, I was very aware of this.  You have seconds to make a visual impression on your audience.  Now you can decide to misdirect - put the character who is eventually going to stab everyone in the back in average clothing in unassuming pastels - but the moment your character is out in view of the audience, they are making assumptions and judgements (for better or worse) based on what they see.

The great thing about writing is you don't have that snap visual decision made by your audience. You can take your time to describe the character when it best suits the story.  You can build in layers.  Maybe they need to know immediately that her hair is red, but it can wait 'til later to point out that she mainly dresses in purple.  Or maybe the color or cut of his clothes are important and need to be described as soon as possible, while his physical stature and description are less important and can wait. 

Back to the joke about dressing as a character from above, how many of you feel that your clothing is dictated by the "character" you have to present yourself as at work?  Are you able to dress as "yourself?"  For example, if we're going on the "dress for what you want to be" idea, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the job I dress for is generally "witch."  I don't mean a "and your little dog, too!" witch (though I tend more that way in the winter - striped tights and dagged velvet skirts don't mix well with 90 degrees and high humidity).  I mean a Pratchett witch.

Those of you familiar with Terry Pratchett's Discworld books will be familiar with what I mean.  The primiary purpose of Terry Pratchett's witches is to know things.  To know everything.  To know when to use the things they know to help people, and when to just be quiet and keep out of it.  If I had to sum up the primary purpose of all the jobs I've had in the past 10 years, "knowing things" would actually be a pretty good description.

In addition, I was extremely heavily influenced by a little series by Monica Furlong when I was a kid.  Most of you haven't heard of it, and I'm pretty sure it's out of print now.  It's refered to as the Doran series; "doran" being a word that literally means something like portal or doorway, but is used in the series to be mean a wise person who lives in harmony with the world.  It takes place in the late ancient/early medieval British isles.

So I dress like a witch, but a witch as filtered through Downton Abbey with a little bit of hippy thrown in for good measure: broomstick skirts and lacy tops in the summer, lots of heavy dark fabric in 20's, 30's, and Oz cuts in the winter. 

I came across my personal sense of style in college; I was coming out of a period of rebellion against contemporary fashion and had worn mainly ankle length jumpers and pale colors for the majority of high school.  But I have a distinct memory of going to a meet and greet the weekend before freshman year, striding out in a long black full skirt (so full that I could do a high kick unencumbered) with a fitted burgundy top (two colors that were new to my wardrobe then but that I wear all the time now).  I was also wearing snugly laced black ankles boots and I remember thinking that this outfit was "me."  And not just me, but also witchy and powerful.

So back to you, my readers - what is your character?  What do you wear that is just "you?"  And where can you wear it - or are you lucky enough that you can dress as yourself all the time?
 

The Gorgeous Losers of Wrestling

(The below contains mild spoilers for the first episode of GLOW, but those spoilers really shouldn't do anything but convince you to watch the show : )

I've read somewhere, probably multiple places, that the most compelling characters are the ones who have lost everything, the ones who have hit rock bottom.

Jason and I have been watching GLOW on Netflix.  It's a show about... well, it's a show about losers, when you get down to it.  In the 1980's, a washed-up director is attempting to get a women's wrestling TV show off the ground, and all he has is the dregs, the losers, the people who have hit rock bottom and have literally nothing else.  And it is glorious.

Each episode, we learn a little bit more about these "losers," about what rock bottom is for each of them.  I'm not sure what I expected going into the show - maybe more silliness.  And there is humor, don't get me wrong, but there is also drama and struggle, and characters that you identify with.  These characters, these losers, they're the ones that you watch claw their way back up from nothing, and you root for them.

It's also doubly impactful for me watching it, as a former actress.  Ruth, one of the major characters, is an unsuccessful actress.  She goes to auditions and never gets called back.  She's taking acting classes, but has no money for food or utilities.  I've been there.  She accepts a casting call for the wrestling show mainly because she has nothing else and she has been assured that it's not porn.  And she's the worst!  She complains.  She can't take direction.  She doesn't want to play the bad guy.  For someone who has been in enough acting classes that one would assume she'd have at least some physical (dance, stage combat, etc.) training, she has no physical prowess.  And I sit there thinking, "god, she is the WORST actress!"  And then it dawns on me that yes, she IS the worst actress - that's the point.  Her story arch is going to be that she grows as an actress once she starts taking this seriously.

And - spoiler alert - she does.  She gets kicked out of the show for not being able to take or follow directions.  She completely loses it in her acting class when the teacher falls asleep in the middle of her Tennessee Williams monologue.  Then she pulls herself together.  She starts watching wrestling on TV - she researches the characters and the moves.  She shows up at practice for the show, striding in the door in costume and makeup like she owns the ring, and proceeds to deliver a verbal throw-down of the Maggie the Cat as portrayed by Hulk Hogan.  And then she gets her ass kicked by her (ex)best friend.  And it is one of the best pilot episodes I have ever seen.

Even if it were just Ruth, it would be a good show.  But it's not just Ruth.  We're slowly seeing characters being torn down, their vulnerabilities revealed.  And now, about 6 episodes in, we're starting to see them make their comebacks.  We're seeing them transform into something new and better.  We're seeing them start to glow.

Confession Time: I'm Not Super Girly

It may come as something of a shock from someone who wears skirts a majority of the time, but I'm really not all that girly.  I can't really do my hair.  My makeup routine takes about a minute and a half in the morning.  Said "makeup" is mostly baby powder (yes, 'cause I'm that pale).  I haven't had my nails done professionally since my senior prom.  The last time I did my own nails is coming up on 2 years ago, and that was for my grandmother's funeral.

So now here I am, 35 years old with no hair or makeup skills (aside from stage hair and makeup, and even that was a long time ago), and I'm getting married in a couple months.  I'm now having to make appointments for these things, and when people ask me what I want to do, I don't even know the right words to use.

Most people have never asked, but there are reasons why I don't do much with my makeup or my hair.  One of them is because of the time and money you save by not doing much with either.  (The afore-mentioned baby powder?  99 cents for a 3 month supply of makeup.)  But I think actually a big part of it is because I was in theatre at such a young age.

Aside from the Christmas pageants and small scale elementary school plays that everyone does, I began my work on the stage at the age of 8.  I was in the Atlanta Ballet's Nutcracker.  As you might imagine from a major dance company, things were very professional.  Even the youngest children (8 was the minimum age) and their parents had many of the same responsibilities as the adult professional dancers.  Our call was an hour before curtain.  We wore heavy pancake makeup.  Our hair had to be solid as a rock.  On top of that, we were expected to remove our makeup before leaving the theatre and we were not allowed to leave in only our leotards and tights.  We had to either change completely, or wear street clothes over them.  Heaven help you if someone caught you trying to leave the building wearing your dance shoes.  (I still cringe when I see kids out in stores or restaurants wearing just their leotard and ballet or tap shoes.)

We were expected to be professional.  Not only did that mean that we were expected to be there on time or either call our understudy and the children's director if we were sick, but that also meant our behavior in and out of the theatre.  There was a very strong delineation between performance/character and your normal self.  It was drilled into us our characters did not leave the building.  Every trace of your makeup and hair (unless you had one of the hairdos that took 2 hours to undo) should be gone before you leave - because a professional does not leave the theatre in costume.

(Granted, many years later, I joined a community theatre where it was common practice to greet the audience as they left in costume and makeup.  But you could argue that that was an extension of the performance and the character.)

Fast forward a few years.  

When I went to high school, my mom decided that I was old enough to wear makeup.  We bought foundation, eye makeup, and lipstick.  It wasn't long before I decided I didn't like it.  It felt heavy, and somehow both greasy and dry on my skin.  The eye makeup usually itched.  Plus I think by that point, having been in the Nutcracker 4 years, and in drama club all through middle school, something about wearing "that much" makeup (I say it in quotes, because in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't a lot) just out and about on a day to day basis didn't feel right.

I don't remember when I stopped wearing foundation and eye makeup on a daily basis.  I don't remember when I started wearing just powder (translucent cosmetic powder, at first), a little blush, and lipstick as my daily makeup.  I do remember, vaguely, either in college, or just shortly thereafter, when I was dirt poor, and realized that $5 for a compact  of translucent powder that lasted a few weeks was nowhere near as good a deal as a travel bottle of baby powder.  I did go in for eye makeup for parties, but you could almost argue that that was a character/persona thing.

Then there's hair.  Even at the height of my theatrical ability, when I was more capable of doing things with my hair, I didn't.  My hair is very fine and it takes a lot to keep it in place.  Even a little hair spray brings me flash backs of the absurd amounts of Dippity-Do (a 1980's hair gel that was something like clear Elmer's glue in radioactive green) that lived in my hair for most of the month of December for  4 years of my childhood.  They say there are light, fragrance-free hair sprays out there.  But in my (admittedly limited) experience, just like with sunscreen, even the stuff that is supposed to be "light and fragrance free" is still heavy and smells like what it is, in my opinion.  Plus, there again, if I have stuff in my hair, I feel like it should be because I'm on stage with a period-accurate 1820's chignon.

So what's a non-girly, bride-to-be to do?  I actually felt a lot better about it yesterday after meeting with a hair-stylist to try out some stuff on my hair.  In her simple ponytail, she confessed that she doesn't do much with her own hair anymore, either - it's time she could be spending on other things.  Plus she agreed with me that at your wedding, you want to look like yourself - the prettiest, best version of yourself, but still recognizably you, and not a Character.

What does this have to do about writing?  Well, not a lot, really.  But it does kind of give you a glimpse into my mind as to where Character begins and ends.

Animals Are Characters, Too

This week, I have to brag on my good boy.

My dog, Baldur, has some issues.  He has a sensitive stomach and sensitive skin, and he has seasonal allergies.  He's actually very much my son.  But, unlike me, sometimes he does things that aggravate these issues.

Jason's parents live on a lake in Central Georgia.  When we go down to see them, we always take Baldur.  My boy is a wanderer, an explorer.  He loves to go roaming around in the weeds, and rolling in the grass.  His mommy avoids weeds, and never walks barefoot in grass, and for that matter tries to avoid walking in high grass without closed shoes, socks, and long pants on, because grass makes her skin itch.

A few weeks ago, 2 weeks in a row, we went down to the lake and let Baldur hang around outside with us.  Despite having a bath when we got home, both times, he kept scratching himself - a lot - after those 2 weekends.  This came to a head last weekend when he just couldn't stop scratching for more than about 30 seconds.  We rolled him over onto his back so we could look for bug bites, and we found several places where he had scratched enough to break the skin.

To make a long story short, the vet prescribed some ointment, and antibiotics and prednisone for him.  But this required him being rolled over onto his back twice a day to get ointment on several places on his tummy.  He doesn't like being on his back - it makes him sneeze, and usually he's not good about following directions.  Plus, I can't tell him to roll over, because for Baldur, "roll over" is a feat of athletic prowess that would get him a gold medal in the Olympics, if he could stick the landing.

But over the past week, he has very patiently come to me when I call him in the morning and evening and slowly (though not always elegantly) flopped over onto his side, and let me take his little chicken-thigh legs in my hands and roll him over like a lamb on a spit.  He always gets a treat for this (and by "treat," I mean a pill cleverly hidden in a ball of wet dog food).

I'm always fascinated by animal personalities.  The things they like and don't like, how they think, their little quirks and excentricities.  Baldur hates water, but he enjoys the process of being dried off.  He will sit in the tub with a sad, resigned look on his face, but when he gets out, oh, he loves his carpet surfing!  After he's been towel-dried, he goes running around the house, sliding around on the carpet and rubbing himself drier.

Murphy, the little Maltese we had when I was in high school and college, was a problem solver.  She didn't like jumping down off the couch (as small as she was, that would be like you or I jumping down almost a full story).  She would push one of the decorative pillows off the couch and jump down onto that.  But sometimes it wouldn't land right - it would hit at a diagonal against the coffee table.  She would let out an exasperated "huff" and go down to the other end of the couch and start over with another pillow.  She was also a stickler for schedules.  In her later years, she developed high blood pressure, and got a pill for this, every night at 10:00.  She always knew it was time for her pill and would come remind us.  Then, if more than 15 minutes passed before we got up and started getting ready for bed, she would come to the foyer, where she could both stand at the bottom of the stairs and look into the TV room at us, and huff or bark impatiently until either we got up, or until we told her to go on up.

My mom's cat is fully grown at 7 pounds.  But in Willow's mind, she is a 700 pound tiger.  She flips the heck out at other cats in the back yard.  She mercilessly stalks any bug or lizard that gets onto the back porch with a determination that rivals an army sniper.  She is so active and fearless (walking the hand rail on the balcony of my parents' 2 story family room, for example) that my mom considered naming her after Edmund Hillary, the first successful climber of Everest.

Some of the most interesting people I know are animals.  Because to me, they are people.  They are clever and sweet and weird and opinionated.  And sometimes I turn to them for character inspiration.

Please tell me about the animal characters that live at your house.

Fear and Fascination

If you knew me when I was a kid, you wouldn't pick me as a horror fan, or a writer of dark short stories.

When I was really little, everything scared me.  I had nightmares about the Giant Mouse of Minsk from An American Tale.  (Yes, really, it's kind of embarrassing.)  I had nightmares about the pictures in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (but then, really, who didn't?  That's why they redid the illustrations a few years ago). I had bad dreams triggered by the Disney version of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.  I was afraid of heights.  I refused to ride a bike for fear of falling off and hurting myself.  I would make my mom fast forward through the Night on Bald Mountain sequence in Fantasia.  After reading Old Yeller in 5th grade, I had a period of about 3-4 months where I refused to sit with my back to an open door for fear that a rabid animal would sneak in and bite me.  I was afraid of everything.

Everything except vampires.  I remember asking my mom at a very young age about Communion; did the fact that we ate Jesus's flesh and drank his blood make us vampires and cannibals?  I don't remember her exact response, but I do remember asking not out of fear or concern, just simple curriosity as to classification.  I remember carving pumpkins at about 11 years old with a History Channel special about the history of vampire movies on in the background, and it occured to me that I had never been afraid of vampires.

I was afraid of everything except vampires and sharks.  And lions.  I remember having no problem watching Discovery channel programs where lions were ripping into gazelles, and Shark Week was must-watch TV.  I remember watching Jaws for the first time at a neighbor's house at about 11 and wondering what the big deal was and why people thought it was so scary.  Maybe it was the simple knowlege that lions and sharks were so far removed from the realm of possibility that it wasn't a concern.

But except for vampires and lions and sharks (oh my!), I was afraid of everything as a kid.

And then somewhere in middle school, a switch got flipped.  I became obsessed with the Holocaust.  I developed a fascination with pandemics; I watched Outbreak until I could quote the movie verbatim, and I read everything by Robin Cook and other medical thriller authors that I could get my hands on.  I watched The Shining at about 14 and, like Jaws, I remember wondering what the big deal was.  Night on Bald Mountain had become my favorite sequence from Fantasia.

And yet for some reason, I guess remembering what a big scaredy cat I had been when I was younger, I still steered clear of things that were explicitly labeled as "horror" (with the exception of the afore-mentioned movies).  

I discovered fantasy and Young Adult books in college, a lot of which can run very dark.  I had friends and roommates who had very dark tastes in music and movies, and so was introduced to horror movies and dark, gritty films - some of which became favorites.  By the time I started reading Neil Gaiman, who is often marketed as horror, I found that what a lot of people labeled as "scary" or "Horror" wasn't frightening, but rather, fascinating.  "This isn't scary," I often found myself thinking as I read Gaiman and Poe, and later King and Lovecraft, "This is really interesting!"

There is a very fine line between fear and fascination, I think, and that line constantly shifts.  I also think that that line is not only different for each of us, but is also different from kid to kid.  As a former children's librarian, a lot of the time I had parents asking me what was "appropriate" for their child to read.  What one 11-year-old finds scary, a different 8-year-old may not.  And at that same time, an 11-year-old who is scared by certain subject matter might be OK with other intense material that her peers are not ready for.  

There is an interesting story that Neil Gaiman related in an article I read once.  He and his editor were trying to decide whether to market Coraline as a Young Adult or Adult book.  The editor took it home and read it to her two daughters (I want to say in about the 8-12 year old range, but I don't remember), with the idea that if they thought it was too scary that it would be marketed as Adult.  Many years later, at the premier of Coraline the Musical, the younger of the two daughters (now in her late teens, I think) confessed to Gaiman that she had thought the book was really scary, but she had lied and told her mother she wasn't scared.  She had thought if she had admitted she was scared that her mom wouldn't have finished reading the book to them and she never would have known what happened.  So Coraline was published as YA, based on a child's lie.  I think it's really interesting, though, that her fascination was stronger than her fear.

Fear and fascination: where do you draw the line?

Slow But Steady...

(Which is appropriate because I'm currently reading a Terry Pratchett book in which a tortoise is a major character.)

So, June is quickly approaching and I have not (yet) entirely met my goal for May.  I HAVE finished proofreading "Ashes," and if I get my act together this weekend, I can get it submitted to at least 1 literary magazine.  As to my goal of submitting to 5 before the end of the month... well...

I probably could do that if I were not still trying to nail down some things with the caterer and florist.  It is consistently taking me longer to get wedding stuff followed up on than I think it will.  Part of this is due to the fact that I have bad cell reception at work and therefore can't do a lot on my lunch break.  It also doesn't help that I was pretty much incapacitated by a 2-day headache on Thursday and Friday.  I'm not saying I would have gotten submission stuff done, but if I had been able to use those 2 days to follow up on wedding stuff, I wouldn't now be having to use this weekend for that.  Maybe.  'cause there's still no guarantee that the caterer will answer his email...

But enough of that - this is supposed to be my monthly "what are my next plans" post.

So for June - finish submitting "Ashes," ha.  Seriously, though, since I'm still trying to nail down other, non-writing things, that's the plan until it gets done.  And after that, we'll see where we are.  If I get "Ashes" submitted to a decent number of places before the month is out, I'll go ahead and do some planning and prep work for The Wolf and the Sheath.  And if not... well, then W&S will become the July project.

Just Because You Write it Doesn't Mean You Feel It

Over the past couple months as I've been re-reading the things I've written to decide what to work on, sometimes I wonder about what people will think.  Not worrying about what people will the of the book (at least most of the time), but occasionally worrying about what specific people might think about specific events, characters, or who has died.  I'm sure this is something that every writer worries about at some point.

Last weekend, I went to my writing critique group.  One of the pieces shared by one of the ladies was about a serial killer who had killed several girls, but who was now starting to fall in love (or at least his version of love) with the one girl he had let get away.  The story was narrated from the killer's point of view, which gave us a great insight into his twisted mind.  He describes why he is making a facial expression and what emotional reaction he hopes to illicit from the person he's talking to.  He feels that he deserves a special reward for not killing that last girl.  He also reflects that if things don't work out between the two of them that the easiest solution would be to just kill her after all.  These are not the thoughts of a normal person (and I'm not presenting them here in a way that does justice to the author's writing).

We praised the author for these disturbing but very well-written glimpses into the character's psyche.  Was this author a troubled millennial who felt the world revolved around them?  Was the author a dangerous-looking man with a heavy metal t-shirt an bothersome bumper stickers on his intimidating car?  No.  The author is, as best I can tell from my interactions with her, a sweet, well-dressed lady in her late 60's or early 70's.

I will say again, we praised her for her writing.  Each person at the critique spoke at length about how strong and well-developed the character was, and how enjoyable (though creepy) it was getting into his mind.  One other participant, also an older, well-dressed lady, said, "I never read this kind of stuff - but I would read this!"

And yet our author, throughout the critique process and after, expressed concern that she had "gone too far."  She was worried about what people would think not about the writing, but about her as a person.  

I guess this is something that all authors - especially the ones that write serial killers, kill off characters, or just generally write dark, scary, or violent stuff - worry about at some point.  But just because you write it doesn't mean you feel it.  Just because you write it doesn't mean you have done, will do, or even want to do it.  I'm pretty sure Poe never hacked up his neighbor and buried him under the floor.  There's no evidence that Stephen King ever chopped down a bathroom door with an axe to get to his wife and son.  I have a feeling that George R. R. Martin has never killed any wedding guests.

You write what comes to you.  You write what you feel is the best idea you've had and has to be brought out and shared with people.  Being an author is the real life equivalent of being a character on the stage.  I went to a theatre workshop once where the teacher said that the Shakespearean monologue and the Broadway musical number are what happens when the emotion builds up to the point that simple speech will no longer serve to express it.  Of all the dozens (hundreds?) of theatre workshops I've been to, that idea is one of the ones that sticks with me as a writer.  When the idea, the emotion, builds up to the point that it can no longer be contained, it must be written.  It must be shared.  

Maybe family members die tragically.  Maybe there is a battle and a beloved mentor dies.  Maybe wolves eat people.  But there is no story if there is no conflict.  The character needs an impetus to get up and get going.  And if everything is just fine and dandy, there is no conflict and no desire to change.  No one is going to read a story about a normal character in a normal family where nothing goes wrong and nothing ever changes.  Or, to paraphrase an acquaintance, "No one is going to pay to read Harry Potter and the Fairly Uneventful Year at Wizard School."

Time to Announce My Next Project

Well, now that we're 2 weeks into May, I guess it's finally time to let you all know what I've decided on for my long-term project (which I likely won't start work on 'til June or later) that I've been debating on for about 6 weeks.

I have decided that the next large piece that I'm going to work on is The Wolf and the Sheath (working title).  I talk a little more about this project in https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2017/3/26/what-to-do-next

and

https://www.iveyink.com/blog/2017/3/28/in-a-world-where-writers-write-stuff .  

(It is the first peice explaned in both posts.)

A big part of why I have decided to work on this is that it's kind of a compromise peice: it's not my longest partial novel, but I also wouldn't be starting a new peice from scratch.  I'm not as emotionally invested in it as Bright Fire, but it's also not as intimidating or messy, structurally, as Bright Fire.  It also wasn't the one that the highest number of people seemed interested in, but at the same time there was more interest for this one than a couple of the others.

Plus, this one also makes me feel more positive.  Bright Fire and Brinyor both have characters dealing with various emotional issues (some of which comes from how I was feeling when I started writing them).  That doesn't mean that I won't ever work on either of them.  It's just that when you have a piece that exudes wide-eyed enthusiasm that I can't help but get into just rereading it, it may be that that's just one more reason to work on that one when you're coming back from a long hiatus in the writing process.