Challenge of the Ordinary

I'm still working on my honors thesis, getting ready to present at NCUR in a few weeks. Gulp. I'm occasionally working on my werewolf coming-of-age story as a stress relief. I just finished another GLVWG newsletter and I'm still applying for jobs.

Since the winter is slowly transforming into spring, many of my writer friends have found success with their New Year's goals. Fellow GLVWGer Linda Frindt has met her goal of blogging everyday, despite many personal challenges.

So, it makes me feel like a slacker. Even though I have everything in paragraph one going on, plus work, and family.

But I need to spend more time exercising my writer brain, if only as a way to sharpen the senses.

Now, with Easter coming, and my conference, I probably won't meet a goal of posting everyday. I have met my personal challenge of renewing my journaling habit.

I extend this as a next step: post a blog entry everyday, short, but developed, on something ordinary. Bring to it my writer's eye.

Today it's a toss up. My morning tea or my car.

Here's some words on my car, totally off the cuff and unedited. First draft.

BEAUTY THE NISSAN

A few months before my husband and I got married we bought our first new car, a 2000 Saturn SL2. The SL1 didn't have enough pep. The Pontiac Sunfire we drove had red dashboard lights that my husband said looked like staring into the fires of Hell. I don't remember what else we looked at, but the choice clearly came to the Saturn.

It had no fancy features. The SL1 we looked at had every special doo-dad. The SL2 didn't even have power windows. They had similar price tags. We took the SL2 for the bigger engine. $14,500 in August 1999.

We used that car to move (twice). We drove to Boston, to Niagara Falls, to Virginia, to North Carolina. We brought home our baby in that car. We piled our bikes into/onto that car and went for rides.

It blew a head gasket last August. Two weeks shy of having it 13 years. I'd been spending about $2,000 a year on car repairs for several years and had already spent my annual car repair budget when it happened. My husband and I discussed it and there was no way we were spending ANOTHER two thousand on an old car.

We started shopping for a new car, but we only had a day to make up our mind. And we saw the price tags on the new cars, close to 30K for a car we thought was comparable to our Saturn. We knew we couldn't spend that. We went to the used car section. At our budget, the salesman was showing us two-year old Hyundais. I had never been so disappointed.

Then, I saw her. She glistened in the sun, a beautiful dark red (my favorite color). A 2005 Nissan Altima with 24,000 miles. She had leather seats, a sun roof, even a six CD-changer. Using our monthly grocery budget as a guide of what we could afford, we bought her. We charged the $1,000 down payment, knowing my mother-in-law was giving us our Christmas present early.

My daughter named her Beauty. She had named the Saturn "Herbie." Yes, like the Love Bug. Even Herbie has a happy ending. My dad had him fixed and we sold him, making a $800 profit once we reimbursed my dad for repairs.

Beauty is fun to drive, but tomorrow we find out how fun. Even though we've owned her for almost six months, tomorrow she takes her first road trip.  

The Philosophical Approach

The last few years have had their challenges. Bad work situations, anemia, a changing newspaper industry where I saw my career ending right before my eyes, a child with chronic ear infections and let's not forget breaking my teeth...

But such is life. Some people avoid these tribulations. Some people never have to worry about money a day in their life. But these people have their own challenges.

I walked away from professional employment almost three years ago. I needed to find out who I was, where I was, and I had to appreciate my little girl before she grew up. I went back to school, took a part-time job at Target, and traded the financial security of being a dual income family for the chance to be a part of my family.

I've lost friends. I've made friends. I've gained mentors. I've found souls that inspire me.

I'm slowly learning to let go of this first world stress and to revel in the moment. I still have goals and places I desire to go, but if I never get the chance to do them, am I a failure? No. As long as I make steady progress and really see my life as I want it to be, I am no one's victim. I want no regrets. I'm not focusing on my happiness as something that comes as a reward for what I've done.

Happiness can only be how I frame this moment.

Right here.

Yeah, the moment I'm wasting on the Internet talking to everyone and no one at the same time.

There's a ton of old proverbs, Bible verses and adages that address this. The past is gone. The future will never come. I even had one of them read at my wedding. The verses from Matthew that say something like this: Don't worry about the future. See the lilies of the field. They don't worry, yet God dresses them beautifully. 

Evaluate your life. This week I applied for jobs (yes, professional ones), put out some freelance proposals, examined my volunteer commitments, handed in the first massive draft of my honors thesis, and took some naps.

And you know what?

I will never be defined by my jobs, or my mistakes, or even the things I do each day. I will be remembered for how I touch people. That might be by giving a kid a special straw at Target. That might be because of some fiction piece or some article I wrote. That might be walking some child home from school. That might be teaching the neighborhood kids to garden.

Okay, well...
I have some errands to run. 

Humdrum status quo

So, it's the last few weeks of another semester. Just handed in a critique of a speech. I'm working on an macroeconomic analysis of potential cash-carrying limits in Afghanistan (which is torture for my creative brain) which is due Monday. Then Wednesday I give a 5-10 minute presentation on my international affairs capstone seminar project on nation-building in Djibouti. The actual project isn't due until finals week. And on the last day of class I have a group presentation due on the British pound and the Brazilian réal.

In the midst of all this, it's spring and many of my writing friends are renewing efforts on old projects, launching various web sites and other endeavors

Via Twitter and Facebook I watch my friends and the industry and I miss _my_ projects. But in the quiet moments I brainstorm random scenes, and jot down bits of dialogue even if I don't know where they fit. It's more about stress relief.

It's keeping a finger in the pie and soon I'll have a slice.

Inspiration L.A. Banks style

Every writer will tell you that a writing conference or workshop with a serious full-time author will inspire all of us who are struggling to move from unpublished to published, and energize those who are published but perhaps "only" ebook writers or writers who haven't even hit mid-list. Yeah, it can be a brutal business.

So, to spend the day with the gracious and humorous L.A. Banks (and have a fantastic dinner with her last night) can indeed inspire.

She, like her friend Jonathan Maberry, has an incredible energy about her. They share a philosophy which feels so right for anyone in any field: Stay true to yourself and stay positive. Whatever energy you expend into this universe, send positive vibes. Never jinx a project with your own negative thoughts.

Some highlights of the day:

• Ask yourself questions about your work. How is it different? What are the hot trends of the marketplace and how does my book fit? Can my project fill a void in an underserved market? What current movies are similar to my project?
• Find new communities to expose to your work. Have your writing group and/or critique group help you brainstorm marketing opportunities? How can multimedia trends serve you?
• Work conferences to find new communities and to have face time with agents and editors.
• If you're not sure what regional dialogue sounds like, call the local Wal*Mart.
• Don't underestimate the sense of smell.
• What is not said is as important as what is said.
• All classic stories follow the model laid out in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

Ah, feet... Inspiration from life

"Her foot glided across the bed to his, her toes climbing, her ankle nuzzling into the depression beside his. "

That's my sentence. That might be all the writing I do today and if it is, I'm okay with that. I'm sick. I have laryngitis. My part-time job is exploding in my face. My kid needs a bath. The laundry needs attention. I have homework. And I have to play college kid with a series of appointments today-- like with a college writing associate to discuss the first draft of my seminar paper.

Because after 15 years in journalism I need help with a 3,000 word essay... I can edit and strengthen my paper on my own but one must play by the rules... Just like with an upcoming group project. These things never teach how to work with others... and they do play out like real life, with certain people meeting expectations and others tagging along, but really... an artificial context to assign group grades... because in the end individuals are always judged individually. [end rant]

Our own lives inspire us, n'est-ce pas? Our writing also inspires our lives. I know when I get done writing a spicy chapter, my husband reaps rewards. I swear that's the whole reason he feeds me that "You're happiest when you writing" line. I think we could easily substitute "orn" for the "app" in that word.

So, my characters aren't having any form of sex. And I was thinking about ways the depth and purity of their emotion could come through, without trite conversation, and without a physical connection. I have established that Étienne prefers to fall asleep with his hand on her hip (usually), but that doesn't carry the weight for the mutual love between them. That could also merely be habit.

The scene follows a conversation in the middle of the night about other topics. It follows a kiss that fell flat in some regards. It's Étienne's POV and he settles into bed as he normally does, he places his hand on her, she strokes it, and then...

"Her foot glided across the bed to his, her toes climbing, her ankle nuzzling into the depression beside his. "

And they go to sleep. I think it establishes the familiarity and the affection I'm seeking.