Outside the comfort zone

I finished Happenstance in the late morning yesterday and quickly drafted a review for Hippocampus. While I felt the book deviated from standard storytelling technique, in the end, the author (Robert Root) brought everything full circle and fully incorporated his title. Well done. And his message seemed much more thought provoking than I thought it would be. I try to connect with what I read and I found more of myself than I thought I would in this piece. If you want to know more, you’ll have to wait until the issue releases.

I also did something out of character for me and pitched a creative non-fiction piece to the editor of Hippocampus. It involves another writer, one I’ve known and respected for quite some time now, and I hope this gives me a chance to bridge our careers. The boldness of pitching a story idea without even knowing if the subject would say yes is, again, something out-of-character. It made me wonder if I could find something to pitch to someone every day. That is a lofty goal, but the change in thought process might prove to force me from my rut and perhaps bring progress. 

The child returned to school today and the husband to work. I don’t work until 4 p.m. It’s a wet day and all of my umbrellas are missing so after walking child to school I am enjoying a hot cup of decaf chai. I realized this morning that I only have six more months of my morning walk as next year my daughter will ride the bus. I’ve had the same routine for four years and the change may prove disorienting. 

My list of things to do is short, but it’s an unpleasant list. I already tackled the dishes and I think the laundry will wait. I need to decide what comes next. Work on my resume? Research refinancing the house? Deal with bills? Develop a long range budget? Organize the 2013 paperwork for tex season? The choices are undeniably dull. 

I could entice myself with tasks like “query an agent” or “pitch to a magazine” but my heart isn’t there either. Would writing be a valid choice or would that be neglecting more important household duties?

I have made dribs and drabs of progress on the Jacqueline/army medic story. A sentence here and a paragraph there. I think I sorted out the time frame last night. I think the story begins in early February 2003. Why 2003?

These initial novels take place in a certain historical context. My main characters have to be a product of post World War II France. My strong female character in the Fashion and Fiends trilogy Basilie d’Amille was a corporate raider in the 80s and had other business background that just wouldn’t work in the dot com and later economies. Later, my fashion model character has to come of age in the late 1980s because she’d be too curvy and athletic to be a supermodel post Kate Moss’ success.

Even their families couldn’t exist with a shift in time, the impact of various wars and international conflicts impacted these families in ways that created who they are.

But don’t worry, later stories can bring the families up to date. 

Happenstance

I’ve made significant progress on literary scholar Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance (University of Iowa Press: 2013). The book has grown on me, a bit slow paced but consistant in its contents and style. I am reviewing the book for the online magazine Hippocampus. My deadline approaches (January 20). 

With a past as a journalist, I put way too much effort and thought into reviewing books. I want to be fair, and honest, but it’s a lot of effort to write a book and when I don’t love the book… I don’t want to say anything that would hurt the author or publisher. I guess that’s a professional responsibility. Whatever I say reflects on me, and I want to find the strengths on any manuscript and look at what the book offers for the intended audience. For example, the biography of Jimi Hendrix I reviewed obviously was never targeted at someone like me for its demographic. 

I think that’s also the way I’ve tried to look at the world. What is the good in this situation? Who benefits? Why am I uncomfortable? 

But back to Happenstance… I’m three-quarters of the way through the text. I’ve noticed a pattern, or more maybe a theme. Root is looking at his childhood through relationships— primarily marriage and divorce— and I believe he is searching for how these marriages and divorces molded his life and influenced his own relationships.

Of course, it looks ridiculous to write that. Of course a memoir would develop in this way! Let me refine. The relationships… Mom and Dad and their divorce and subsequent remarriage… remain the characters that Root returns to again and again. There are isolated instances of topics that don’t relate to this theme, his first job as a pin boy or his love of the cinema, but uses the theme of his parents’ relationship(s) to build the story.

The book is more than half finished and he hasn’t reached high school. I am curious to see how and where it ends.

The Freedom of Bad News

I’m an optimist, though people find it hard to believe because I always assume the worst. I always think scenarios through to the worst case scenario. I truly think things work out for the best, but in order to reassure myself I have to know how I would handle the worst case. This makes me a handy companion in a crisis. Whether its storing bottled water and having non-perishable food on hand for a hurricane or merely taking a bar of soap from a hotel in Paris when leaving for Africa just in case… I like preparation.

I received some potentially bad news today. It made me realize that even though in my head I’m planning what I would do if we have to sell our house, that I’m not afraid of that happening. Bad news and even bad things provide new beginnings and often these are the new beginnings that push us out of our comfort zone. We have to change to respond to bad things. We can’t maintain the status quo.

And there’s a freedom in that.

There’s a freedom in knowing the worst case isn’t so bad. Or that you faced the worst case and survived. Or that you outwitted the worst case scenario and made a better scenario. Can bad tidings perhaps be synonymous with hope?

Sometimes the universe kicks us in the butt. Sometimes it’s a nudge. Sometimes it’s a flamethrower.

The uncertainty is certainly more unnerving than the worst case or best case scenario. But what can we do? We live. We try. We embrace the good moments. 

Onward ho. 

Snowy day

January 3, 2014:  7 a.m. on a snow day

Yesterday’s progress toward unspoken goals focused on a paragraph or two of my Jacqueline story (and sharing the opening with a friend because after five or six drafts I may have discovered a chapter one idea I like) and reading a few more pages of Robert Root’s Happenstance.

And watching several episodes of House MD in the evening while doing laundry and watching the snow fall.

So now it’s 7 a.m. My husband and daughter have a snow day, but I working retail, do not. A colleague has already mentioned that she has no transportation today. Her evening shift is mine for the taking. I had volunteered for a noon to 5 p.m. cashiering shift, and who knows if the person scheduled to do the mid shift in our café will make it. A heap of snow makes everything helter skelter. 

I need to decide if I am working my existing shift, my colleague’s shift, both or a combination of the two. After we start shoveling, I’ll need to call and see what’s happening.

In the meantime, here’s hoping that the child sleeps in and perhaps I’ll allow myself a few more paragraphs of the Jacqueline story before I try to negotiate our checkbook (it’s pay day!) and dig into the cat box. 

And yesterday I finally listened to a track by Maj Trafyk I downloaded. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s okay. Chances are that if you’re an anglophone you never will. I discovered him while searching iTunes for a French translation of Frosty the Snowman. Struggling to hear and understand the French words reminded me of the roots of my affinity for obnoxious French rap. 

My honors thesis at Lafayette College looked at the stereotypes regarding Algerian Muslims created by the French during the colonial era and how those stereotypes still exist in contemporary times, especially as the French legislate the presence of the veil in their society. I examined some of the political statements made by Diam’s in my work. I would love to continue my research with Todd Shepard at Johns Hopkins. I think French rap music makes a lot of statements on the disenfranchisement of “immigrants” in French society. This is what I thought about during my shift at work yesterday.

I see that some of my friends are reviving old writing projects or picking up books they’ve meant to read. Two friends of mine are currently reading my latest revisions of my manuscript(s). Pins and needles time for me.

Enough babbling for now… 

Choices and discussions

After nearly two weeks away from the daily grind, I find myself rediscovering my morning routine. For instance, why do I drink so much tea on days that my daughter has school but have no desire for tea when she doesn’t?

Answer: It’s cold out there. By the time I get home from walking the neighborhood kids to school my legs burn with cold and my nose runs making tea warm and very delightful. Today it is 32 ounces of Traditional Medicinal Organic Rose Hips. 

The Northeast is anticipating a snow storm. I wouldn’t be surprised if my region gets a foot of snow tonight. Of course, storms being what they are I also wouldn’t be surprised if we get four inches. My neighbor has already informed his son that school will be canceled tomorrow. That’s a tad premature.

So, I have several options for the two hours before I head to work. Not including the obvious. I will need to eat a meal. As I enjoy my tea, I ponder… Do I reply to a recent email from my high school peer JM Cooper who is progressing with her MFA in YA? That is the most compelling option, but the email would require the answers to various “how are you” and “what are you writing?” questions. Not sure I know the proper response.

Do I continue reading Robert Root’s memoir Happenstance? I have a review of it due on January 20 for Hippocampus Magazine. I feel like I should remember this guy from my undergraduate career as an English major. The book has yet to excite or bore me. I’m in the vicinity of page 50. Thus far, he has approached his life as one might expect of a literary scholar. He examines family photos and interprets poems and letters written by family members. This technique leads me to believe he is looking for answers, or perhaps even order, to his life more so than setting out to tell a story.

In my little side foray as a book reviewer, I have discovered that I only enjoy memoirs that have some sort of larger message. Sheridan Vorsey’s Resurrection Year gave insight into the intersecting and conflicting emotions that come when Christians face infertility. Kylie Jones’ Lies My Mother Never Told Me resonated with me because 1. I’m a francophile 2. I’m an English major and her father is a famous novelist and 3. It addresses alcoholism and growing up as a child of an alcoholic (something I share). My all time favorite memoir is by Ted Morgan, a journalist conscripted by the French during the Algerian War. He combines the horror of war, the skills of a journalist and the everyday realities of love and sex. 

The final option for this morning is to work on my new novel. It’s connected to my Fashion and Fiends universe but features new characters. It occurs after my first manuscript in the series and overlaps the second, bridging the time gap to the third. I have chosen the youngest sister of Basilie Saint-Ebène d’Amille as my protagonist. Basilie is a main character in all of my Fashion and Fiends novels. The third manuscript is “her” book. 

But for now I turn to Jacqueline Saint-Ebène. Born in spring of 1968, eleven years after her eldest sister, Jacqueline became a doctor. An Ob/gyn to be exact. While she appreciates the complexity of the female reproductive system, especially as she has seen several of her older sisters struggle with pregnancy and fertility issues, Jacqueline quickly discovers that she doesn’t want to spend the next twenty or so years with her hands inside other women’s vaginas. Out of boredom and perhaps as an act of rebellion, she joined the Army Health Service. After an initial tour in Djibouti, she re-enlists for eight years. My story picks up with her when she’s serving a deployment in/near Algeria during the Algerian Civil War. She mysteriously receives transfer orders to Paris, where she will examine a pregnant veteran who served in the health corps in 1978. The orders seem strange and yet logical when her boyfriend, a health corps psychiatrist, joins the team and they are asked to investigate other veterans connected to a certain mission in 1978. One of them is Jacqueline’s brother-in-law, Étienne d’Amille. 

Which will I select?

Happy 2014

With a variety of goings-ons, I thought this blog might end (and a rightful assumption that was since my attention to this space has always been sporadic).

2013 brought with it much closure... I graduated from college for the second time. I ended my volunteer commitment as newsletter editor for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, which also allowed me to step away after five consecutive years on their board. 

I still maintain my relationship and service as a trustee at my local public library. I am still reviewing books for Hippocampus magazine.

My online portfolio (angelackerman.com) has developed and has received consistent web hits, but my friends have lamented that it's not as quirky as I am. I am contemplating this. 

I have survived a fourth Christmas season at Target, which is no minor feat. I feel no closer to "what I want to be when I grow up" (whatever that is/whatever that means).

I need to be more dynamic in reaching my goals, or perhaps more clear in setting them. Bring more energy to my web presence. Pitch more fiction and non fiction pieces for publication.

Continue to enjoy my family. That is one thing I haven't lost sight of. I started working at Target for the flexibility to finish school and to "be there" for my daughter. Soon, she won't need me. Not in the same way.

Academically, I need to work toward an application to Johns Hopkins. They have a Ph.D. program that fits my honors thesis from Lafayette.

iPhone junkie unplugged... It's not pretty

A month ago, I left my phone in D.C. It came home in this package.

I am an iPhone junkie.

Everyone around me knows it. I have never denied it. Earlier this summer, I left my iPhone 4 on my friend’s bookshelf in D.C. where it was charging. He mailed it to me, but since I left on a Thursday and the phone arrived on Monday afternoon, that meant five days without my phone. 

Monday, while cleaning the bathroom, my iPhone slipped from my pocket and went for a brief swim. As it fell, I reached out to catch it but it was too late. Submerged in water for about seven seconds, the time and my home screen flashed at me briefly before it powered down. I sealed it inside a plastic bag of whole grain brown rice. I'm told I can't touch it for a week. A week!

That was about 50 hours ago. I find it’s not the Facebook or the Instagram I miss as badly as the lack of information. When my husband mocked me for not knowing a 1980s cartoon monkey, there would be no YouTube search. No news makes it into my house. My favorite news sources’ tweets fall upon other ears. No texts from my father. No Facebook messages from work colleagues pushed to the forefront to let me know that extra shifts are mine for the claiming.

No impromptu photography of the ridiculous things my daughter does. No blogging of the meals we eat day-to-day for my recipe blog, www.angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com. My email is limited, as we don’t really have internet in the house. Those job listings I find via the Indeed app each morning... Those are far away. No pedometer to tell me how far I’ve walked or where I walked it.

It’s hard to check my bank balance, especially since I have several accounts at two different banks all of which are more or less empty. When I went to Target to buy my grandmother a new nightgown, I couldn’t use Cartwheel. Read a book? Listen to music? Nope, can’t do that, either. No maps. No easy access to my calendar, phone numbers or addresses. No GPS to tell me where I am. No apps to help me find the nearest bike path or public transports. I can’t even buy a train ticket. 

I’ve been told I can do things via my phone that some people haven’t mastered on their computers. I edited press releases via the Pages app, share them as Word docs and save them to Google Drive or simply email them. I keep PDFs of my resume, favorite samples, portfolio and recent newsletters that I can distribute with a touch of my finger. 

My Instagram followers and Facebook friends may think I’m dead. In a way, I am. I am using my circa 2009 Nokia flip-phone that I gave my husband after his phone went through the washing machine. The kind people who answered at my carrier’s customer service line have forwarded my calls to his line. But that leaves us one phone. For a family of three. And no landline. My daughter doesn’t even remember when we had a “house phone.” Answering machines are alien technology.

The ring tone of my ancient phone is Cake’s “No Phone.” The lyrics remind me, “No Phone. No Phone. I just want to be alone today.” I loaded it as a joke back-in-the-day when I was a newspaper reporter. In the days before iPhones, Twitter and Facebook.

But, hey, the old Nokia has a car charger.

This essay also appears on www.angelackerman.com