Do I Love It?

A few weekends ago, several friends and I were socializing at Northern Michigan University’s Student Nurses Association Charity Ball held in The Landmark Inn. We’d spent a very classy evening drinking gin and tonics, martinis and one delicious dark and stormy—totally classy, except for when my tight red dress split ass-side open while I was crunking on the dance floor, but that’s a story for another day.

Kathryn VanderWoude, fellow author and editor in blue, and I, in red, just before the ball.

As the evening wound down, our group of ten or so retreated to the cozy mezzanine above the Northland Pub. One of the group members was a nursing student friend of mine whom I secretly want to corner and force her to discuss writing with me—on top of being a student nurse she is also a graduate of St. Mary’s with a degree in Literature an Women's Studies. I normally refrain from totally cornering her because I am not quite that crazy—as of yet.

But, having drunk a few beverages, I was all over chatting with her and her fiancé, who also attends Northern in pursuit of his Master’s degree in English.

“I love criticism,” I blathered on, sometime during drink number four five of the evening. This was my response to the fiancé, after he’d discussed giving criticism to his introductory English students.

Oh, fuck, did I really say that? I have a nagging habit of wanting to articulate my feelings in a way that they always ring one-hundred percent true. It sounds simple enough, but I dare you try a day without exaggerating a single emotion or event in the slightest. Try to spend the day picking out the perfect word or phrase to describe how you felt when that asshole driving the black Silverado cut you off in traffic. Did you really want to kill him or did you just want to follow him to his next stop and slash his tires?

There’s a big difference.

Numb from inebriation, I didn’t worry much that night about this pattern of mine, but when I awoke in the morning, it was the very first thing that popped into my head. Do I really love criticism?

Probably?

I’m not saying I haven’t wanted to smoke till I passed out or eat myself into a coma so that I didn’t have to deal with the stress of re-writes or so that I could escape from the tenacious shaking doubt that plagues every creative person alive. I have. Often, after working on the same piece for so long, the task of going on seems too mountainous to accomplish alone. After an extended time in front of the same project, all the words start blurring together, they—I swear—dance off the page and jump into the trash, committing hara-kiri because the author who penned them is simply a failure.

These are the moments when I just need another person’s eye. Sometimes, I think that without a little direction, by way of another writer, is the only push I’ll ever need. And, of course, I don’t always agree with the criticism I receive, but I need it.

But, do I love it? Perhaps, but if I do it’s only in the way I love antibiotics. In the end I feel better, but meanwhile my insides are being torn apart and I’m spending a socially unacceptable amount of time in the bathroom. Usually crying.

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Ego

The other day, I met two wonderful friends of mine at The Vierling, a classic restaurant and microbrewery that opened its doors in the 1880s. My friend Nathan Lyle began the conversation by asking how writing was going.

“Good, um, I guess. No, yes. Really good.” I answered, my confidence withering with each additional word. “I’m at the peer review stage, I’m giving copies to friends to read, but I’m getting nervous.” I proceeded to explain how a few hours earlier I had called Kathryn and started asking whether I should remove a scene from my book. She didn’t believe I needed to, and advised that I work on something else while my beta-readers did their thing.

Later I explained to Nathan that I was feeling like I wanted to start hacking the thing to pieces. Yes, Nathan agreed, I should take some time away from the novel before there wasn’t anything left. The conversation moved on, and Nathan suggested that I get my hands on a bigger ego. Whether he was joking and being totally honest, I’m unsure, but in time I’ve deduced that it was both.

Ego is an interesting concept and can be a mixed bag when it comes to writing. Hold onto it too tightly, something I haven’t even been able to do, and you’ll be blinded by your own perceived greatness. Live without ego, and lack the confidence needed to make things happen. I believe this is where I lie. So far, I’ve managed to at least get the ball rolling. I’ve written a book. It may be shit, but hey, I did something. When I began this journey, I couldn’t see past finishing the first draft, and that was probably for the better. My atrophied ego may have gotten the best of me had I focused solely on the difficulty of succeeding and the massive amount of commitment it takes to turn that first draft into something readable.

I’m at an advantage as I wait to hear back from my peer reviewers,—I’m in nursing school, so my life is busy—and I don’t have the time to sit around resisting the urge to set my manuscript on fire, which is helpful. I wonder how all this time away will affect my opinion of my work once I sit back down to look over the reviews. I’m thinking it will do my fragile ego some good, and in the meantime I’m praying to all of the known gods (especially Thor, I mean seriously…. ) that my beta-readers come back with nice things to say about my novel. If they do, I’m projecting that I’ll be lifted to a higher level of egoistic understanding and will thus have the balls to do another edit and someday send my work into an actual literary agent or publisher. If they think it’s trash, I hope to suck it up and keep on going, re-writing till I pass out or get a serious case of carpal tunnel. After all this time, that’s better than giving up, right?

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What's Your Favorite Book?

When I meet someone for the first time, and we engage in a conversation that lasts longer than a few minutes, I usually ask, “What sorts of books do you read?” or “What’s your favorite book?”

There is such a thrill in finding that someone shares your favorite genre. Discovering someone likes the same books as you usually turns an acquaintance into a friend instantaneously. Knowing that a person is a reader, whether or not we share an interest in books makes me downright gleeful, but, for me, nothing puts the breaks on a friendship like hearing the words, “My favorite book is the bible!”

Really?

Really?!

Have you read the Discworld novels? The Lord of the Rings? Any of the Harry Potter books? Those are also fantasy and they are much more fulfilling as literary works. No conflicting use of punctuation, and all without rules and regulations on how to run your life.

Alright, I won’t blaspheme, but let’s talk about judging one another based on their choice of reading and leave all Bronze Age texts out of it.

When he visited my home for the first time my friend Curt Coolman stood immediately at my bookshelf and concentrated on it for a few moments before saying, “You’ve got to wonder how we’ll judge people once all of our books are in digital form.”

Oh isn’t that the truth? Don’t we all judge people's book choices?

Twilight even picked a blur of dull gray to act out the protagonist!

The internet loves to rag on Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight doesn’t it? Sure, her female protagonist is a blur of dull gray—all the better to insert your teenage self into—but at least people are reading. Yeah, Bella Swan has a thing for creepy stalkers, but maybe reading Twilight will encourage people to keep reading, and Stephenie Meyer’s The Host was actually entertaining.

Many readers seem to hold onto the opinion that escape reading is for the uneducated, and I respectfully—no, not respectfully, I completely disagree, assholes. Escape reading is just as important as serious, educational reading; it provides us with an outlet to explore other places and a way to step back from the stress of our lives. Well-balanced books have the ability to entertain us while occasionally mirroring reality in a way that allows us to view our world through a different lens.

I’ve heard people talk of science fiction as though it has little practical use and thus subsides as an extraneous arm of literature. This kind of talk couldn’t be more wrong. Science fiction, as well as fantasy can be written in such a way that it sorts out motives behind historical events, or different sociological perspectives that affect our current affairs, all the while keeping our overstressed minds distracted. It doesn’t take long reading authors like Iain M. Banks or Terry Pratchett to see this.

If you don’t believe me, take it from the late Ray Bradbury; his beautiful wording arranges this idea perfectly.

“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas, the history of civilization birthing itself. …Science fiction is central to everything we’ve ever done, and people who make fun of science-fiction writers don’t know what they’re talking about.”

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A Break from the Norm

In honor of the fifth anniversary of the day I wed my beloved husband, Kyle, I am breaking from my normal course and posting two poems rather than a piece about writing. The actually date of our anniversary was yesterday, and so I gave each of the following poems to Kyle, in a frame, for our celebrations. The first is written by my favorite poet--okay, that is a tall order, but I'm going to go with one of my favorite poets, Nâzım Hikmet. A Turkish revolutionary, Hikmet's poetry is romantic and political. The following poem was adapted from a letter sent to him by his wife while he was in prison for his outspoken disdain for the Republic of Turkey. Enjoy.

I

want to die before you.

Do you think the one who follows

finds the one who went first?

I don’t think so.

It would be best to have me burned

and put in a jar

over your fireplace.

Make the jar,

clear glass,

so you can watch me inside…

You see my sacrifice:

I give up being earth,

I give up being a flower,

just to stay near you.

And I become dust

to live with you.

Then, when you die,

you can come into my jar

and we’ll live there together,

your ashes with mine,

until some dizzy bride

or wayward grandson

tosses us out…

But

by then

we’ll be

so mixed

together

that even at the dump our atoms

will fall side by side.

We’ll dive into the earth together.

And if one day a wild flower

finds water and springs up from that piece of earth,

its stem will have

two blooms for sure:

One will be you,

the other me.

I’m not about to die yet.

I want to bear another child.

I’m brimming with life.

My blood is hot.

I’m going to live a long, long, time ---

and with you.

Death doesn’t scare me,

I just don’t find our funeral arrangements

too attractive.

But everything could change

before I die.

Any chance you’ll get out of prison soon?

Something inside me says:

Maybe.

Isn't that fantastic? I am no poet in comparison to Nâzım Hikmet, or anyone really, but I tried. The following poem is for Kyle. I love him so very dearly. Here is to the five years of marriage we have shared and to the many more we will have.

 

High-school kisses came easy

In the morning on the bus

Next to his red locker

Ignoring the reprimands of teachers,

Who surely thought our embraces sweet.

And when we’d skip class

We’d spend the day intertwined in secret

Beneath his bed sheets on that futon mattress.

Then conversation spilled with fervor from our mouths,

Knowing we’d never run out of things to say.

And now, years later,

We have silent conversations

Like plants who know,

Through chemicals carried on the wind,

What their neighbors are thinking.

This morning when he kissed me,

I smelled a familiar fragrance

Between pricks of stubble on his cheek.

Beneath his soap

That smells of cloves,

Was a scent

Like morning,

Like easy love,

Like yearning,

That reminded me of high-school kisses.

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