Pay it Forward: The Ballet

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“I can’t.” Caroline stared at the laces that had just landed her in a heap.

“Honey, you did it last week.”

“I can’t.”

And no, today, she can’t. I hate being the one who has to constantly remind her, “you can you can you can”.  I hate sending her the mixed message that autism enhances her life while telling her to accomplish the things that autism makes damn nigh impossible. And I hate that I’m right when I do it.

Because she can tie her shoes. She can. Just not today.  Only she has to do it today, on a day when she can’t, or she’ll lose the muscle memory. It’s that vague muscle memory that’s making her say, “I can’t” in the first place.

This morning, I tied her shoes.  But she’s going to do it before we go Christmas tree shopping tonight. And I reminded her that cute girls sneakers, past a certain size, and until a certain age is reached, are tie-ups. And that if she wants adorable school shoes for the next 9 years, she’s going to have to tie them herself. Of course, I did not do this in the calm rational way that I meant to. I did it in a confrontational, j’accuse shouting match while trying to also braid her hair.

Because it’s December again, just like it is every year, and I’m trapped between my Thanksgiving anxiety and my Christmas anguish, I’m not managing my emotions very well. I read more negative news around the holidays. More depressing (or at the very least emotional) blog posts. I don’t do it on purpose; I just gravitate that way. I try the perky shit. But unless it has an underlying baseline of cynicism, it just pisses me off. But if I’m not careful, the bummer reading brings me down, too.

Really, this time of year, I shouldn’t be let near a computer.

Or a newspaper.

Or television.

But music is OK. I adore songs no matter what their mood.

And I’ve been offline for a week for all of those reasons. Also because I have a volunteer job to do, listening to The Nutcracker while I sew hooks on ballerinas’ costumes. Both of my kids have roles, and I like to help out where I’m, needed. While I’m not a particularly competent seamstress, anybody can tack on hooks, and the sewing keeps me in good company.

There are others whose skills and efforts are far more Herculean than mine. My little hooks are insignificant beside the stitches of the woman who (among other feats) sewed perfect reindeer costumes out of whole cloth. My work pales beside that of the board president, who has been up until three AM every day sewing. And that doesn’t even touch the efforts of the dancers themselves or the choreographer/ ballet director. They are pushing themselves to the limit to bring a new Nutcracker to Montgomery this year.

In theater, they say “Merde” in place of good luck and good work. It’s a ‘break a leg’ thing. Facebook has been lit up with Merdes as the dancers show the world what they’ve been working up. Because … well, I’m superstitious enough not to jinx. But let me say that at last night’s first performance in a high school auditorium in Demopolis, Alabma, the standing ovation happened before the curtain had finished closing on the final act.

I think I’ve worried some people writing a couple of maudlin Thanksgiving posts and then vanishing from the face of the earth. But truly, it’s only sometimes that I want to put my fist through the walls. I do lie low around the holidays, because it’s safer that way for me, and for everyone. But It’s all good right now.

If you live in or near Montgomery, Alabama, I’d highly advise that you attend the Nutcracker this year. Because Merde.

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I’m linking this post up with Missy Bedell of The Literal Mom and her blog partner Carolyn of Hooked and Happy. Missy wrote the most wonderful thing to me as part of her pay it forward series, and it touched my heart in so many places. She is truly a stunning lady, and she made my day so much brighter. I’m paying it forward myself by asking people to come see the Nutcracker this year in Montgomery. Atlanta is not too far away. Montgomery has an amazing professional ballet troupe, which isn’t something often found in a city of this size, and this piece is engaging even to those who might not think of themselves as ballet types. If you haven’t seen them perform under the direction of Darren McIntyre, you’re missing out.

The Jester is OUT (but you can find me elsewhere)

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Hey there Jester fiends! I’ve been really busy this week. I’m helping out with the Nutcracker. I’ve been sewing on hooks and chasing small people in brightly colored costumes. I am, how do you say in this language? A zombie right now? But that’s actually a wonderful state for me for December, as it keeps me out of my own head.

However, AmyBeth Inverness, who is a kickass awesome writer herself, and whose writing, along with mine, appears in the Write on Edge Anthology Precipice, went and interviewed me for her blog. She asked some great questions, and if you head over there, you can find out who I think shot first, Han or Greedo.

Trifecta: Nonfiction

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Dear Scott,

I told you I can’t unlive the knife twisting ghost holidays. But every year with you is a year further away. And I trust your peaceful days and your level soul.

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Truthfully, the winter holidays will never be any of my favorite things. But Scott and his family make them manageable for me, so that I can avoid clouding my children’s impressions of the season. And if the stories that come out of those gatherings would be boring to anyone who wasn’t there, then they must have been good days indeed.

A favor continued

Posted on by November 15, 2012

Check out part one of the story by the amazing Christine at Trudging Through Fog HERE:

http://trudgingthroughfog.wordpress.com/2012/11/13/a-favor/

“Please.” The woman continued looking away from Joan, who turned the bezoar with her tail.

“Unripe persimmons?”

“Yes.”  For the first time, the two regarded each other across the table, serpent and woman.

Joan said, “It’s the most common cause.” Her sibilant s’s seemed to soothe her patient. “But it can’t tell me anything.”

“Please!” The woman hefted her purse onto the table.

“No. Even without it, I think we can undo some of his damage.” She nodded to the woman’s ripe belly. “But we’re going to have to hurry. Are you up  for a little adventure?”

http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2012/11/trifecta-week-fifty-one-anniversary.html

http://www.velvetverbosity.com/2012/11/14/trifecta-anniversary-mash-up-part-two/

The five-ninety nine-twenty five rule

Posted on by February 25, 2020

 

 

 

If everyone is driving five miles per hour above the speed limit, there is a 99% chance that upon seeing a cop, they’ll all drop to twenty miles under without giving adequate warning.

In the spirit of Andy Rooney’s 50-50-90 rule, Trifecta has asked us to come up with our own probability equations.

Fiction: finally left

Posted on by July 12, 2023

It was because we had the fall open for the first time since we were five years old. Think about it. Fall was school. And when we could have stopped, we didn’t, and we didn’t again, and twenty five years is a long time between free Septembers.

We went down to the beach, and everybody else had gone home, so it was just her and me. And we’d known each other our whole lives. We’d been a couple since high school. But that vacation after your Mom finished her doctorate was the first time we’d travelled alone together.

It wasn’t the same as going in a group, like we used to do over spring break. The quiet places were all full, and that hotel felt so crowded with nobody but us staying in it. Everybody wondered why we’d never gotten married. And that weekend was when we had an answer. I’d wondered before that. I’d tried to go sooner. She had, too, I guess. But it took that vacation for me to realize we’d never have any quiet if we stayed together.

So I left.

She called me six weeks later when she found out we were pregnant.

I was staying in your grandmother’s basement looking for a university to hire me after the start of the school year. Those aren’t easy to find any time. Coming home seemed easier. And it didn’t seem right… this was how many years ago … anyway, we got married to put a good face on the thing.

Turned out we were wrong. There were a thousand quiet places left. A hundred thousand. But we’d never have found them if I had stayed at that hotel in the first place.

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For the Scriptic.org prompt exchange this week, David Wiley at http://scholarlyscribe.wordpress.com gave me this prompt: He finally did it. After years of failure he…

I gave Katri at http://bookslikeher.wordpress.com/this prompt: Of course, the logic was perfect if you considered it from her perspective.

A morning in the day of the life

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Sam, get back in this house right now. We do not go outdoors naked.” I stagger-stuffed my legs into jeans as I pelted out onto the back patio. “Jesus Christ it’s cold.” I turned around and went back for something to put on my feet.

“Told you.” Scott was lacing up his own shoes.

We went back out together. Sam poked his penis through the tree house slats and shook it at us. “Wanker!”

“Oh God, I thought the ‘wanker’ phase was over.”  I stalked to the base of the tree. “You’re going to get splinters if you keep that there.”

I could feel Scott’s eyes on my back. We both knew I was the one who taught him that word for his favorite piece of anatomy. I turned to my husband, “He was two!” I protested.”And how was I supposed to know that of all the foul words I spew over the course of a day, it would be that one that stuck?”

Scott shook his head. “Well he’s not two now. And at least two neighbors can see him from there.” He joined me.

“More than that.” I counted the houses visible from our yard. “Maybe they’re all still asleep, enjoying that extra hour.”

“Let’s hope.” Scott started up the ladder. “Sam, you need to get down.”

“Wanker!”

I tried, “Aren’t you cold?”

“My penis is cold,” he admitted.

“Let’s take your penis inside and put it in some underpants.”

“He’s not that cold.”

He?

Scott was up in the tree house now. “How long have you been out here?”

I didn’t hear anything, so I climbed up enough to poke my head through the floor. “How did you get out?”

“I unlocked the door.” Sam rolled his eyes. He was right. It was a stupid question. Scott and I had both seen the key in the deadbolt. And we had known what happened even before that when we woke to the sound of his voice singing in the back yard.

“What happened buddy? Did you get hot?”

“Yes! I was sweating in bed, and I felt awful, and I wanted to be cold, so I came outside.”

Ah. Progress. His teacher had reported something similar when we started this dial down of his current medications. Her class is particularly chilly, and there was one day when all the other kids were sitting at their desks wearing jackets, and Sam was in shirtsleeves with soaking wet, heat-mottled skin. It made some sense. Tenex was originally a blood pressure drug. Sam took it to help with his behaviors, and even a slow rate of decrease was producing some serious side effects.

That and all the behaviors it had been controlling were returning with a vengeance.

“Well come and get Mom and Dad when that kind of thing happens. We can get you a cold bath next time, Okay?”

He screwed up his face and roared. So much for progress.

“Are you still hot?” Scott tried.

Sam bellowed, “Noooo!” and stomped one foot.

“We have got to go in,” I told him. “And your choices are to climb down the ladder or let Daddy pass you to me over the railing.”

“Those are not my choices!” OK, he was right. The second one was a bluff.   “I’m climbing down my way/.”

“Uh.”

“I’m coming down the ladder.”

“Right, great idea. Glad you thought of that all by yourself.” The sarcasm was lost. I scrambled down out of his way. He followed, and Scott came last.

“Are you walking in,” I asked, “Or am I carrying…”

“I’m running,” he declared. He took off towards the back door. “Cheetah speed!”

The door popped open before he could ram it. I called, “Thanks Caroline.”

Inside, I said, “How much longer until we can start the new stuff?”

“We’ve still got half a pill of old stuff to phase out.”

Sam thundered down the hall to his room.

It was six o’clock in the morning. But our bodies were screaming “too early” at us. There were at least fourteen hours before we could hope to put Sam back to bed.   “So you’re saying, ‘not soon’.”

“No. Not soon at all. Best not to think about it.”

“I am Ostimus Prime!” Sam bulleted out in a cape and Star Wars boxers.

I said, “It’s Optimus Prime.”

Scott said, “I don’t care if he’s Osteoporosis Prime. He’s wearing pants.”

“Point taken. Let’s see if we can get some breakfast in him.”

“OK. Maybe a pancake will settle him down.”

I looked at Scott. He looked at me. We both knew it wouldn’t happen. I said, “Hopefully,” and went to the kitchen to find the griddle.

WhyNo WriMo?

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Before the post – in my ongoing saga, I’m now at number 3. Please take a moment to tweet, vote for, review, or like me at http://www.ebookmall.com/author/jester-queen

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November is the month of the writer. NaNoWriMo. NaBloWriMo.  Thirty full days of typing and progress. Thirty days of community building and butt-in-chair work. I love it. I love everything about it. I get high on the very idea and spiral around in a dance with myself.

But as enthusiastic as the month of writing makes me, I don’t join either meme. I cheerlead my friends from the sidelines, but I don’t hook up myself. Why? A number of reasons. First and foremost, NaNo especially is designed to force you to write if you’re struggling. It orders you to find the time and offers a community to help you get it done. Its basic premise is that there is never a ‘perfect’ time to get that novel you’ve been meaning to write out of your system. So you should carpe diem (or carpe mensem, I suppose) and do it now. Second, I thrive under different circumstances.

I love NaNo. I seriously love it. I know some awesome writers who just need that extra kick in the ass to get their book off the ground. But I’m not one of them. As the matter of fact, NaNo is all about helping you develop discipline and regularity in your writing. You know the two things I thrive on the least? Yup. Those.

As the matter of fact, every single thing that works for me goes against the grain of good writing advice. It took me YEARS to learn to give my students the good advice and pretend I wasn’t being a total hypocrite. It took me YEARS LONGER to realize why my own teachers gave everybody else in the room but me the good advice and told me, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

And the answer was simple. When I follow the good advice, my writing is shit. When I do my own thing, my writing is good. It isn’t completely true that I ignore all rules– there are some pieces of good writing advice I follow religiously. Like treating it as seriously as my paying gig. (Note – my paying gig has irregular, self chosen hours, too. Coincidence? I think not.)  Like the importance of butt-in-chair time. Like the willingness to write through a plot issue. Like outlining novels. I have got to outline novels or I get lost .Holy shit the outline for Divorce: A Love Story changed sixteen times as I wrote it. But I updated the outline as I worked rather than trashing the document entirely, because it helped me keep my scattered mind focused.

But the two best pieces of advice, the ones NaNo is trying to help people to establish, are the ones that don’t work for me at all. If I try to write at the same time every day, I get bored fast. Like by day two. I look ahead of me, see only the slog and grind, and then I stop. In fact, if I write every single day, I get bogged down fast. I prefer to write a day, edit a day, blog a day, then mix up the order and do it all again, then spend a day in there somewhere sending all my short stories around. There’s a specific set of tasks I do. But I plan only a few days in advance based on what’s going on in my life. (It’s easier to edit at a therapy appointment; easier to write waiting an hour for ballet to get out.)

And then there’s the ‘just write’ focus. That’s so important. It’s so easy to let the internal editor shut a piece down because she’s being an asshole. Me? I don’t write a consistent number of words at a time, and I go back and edit heavily as I work and THEN revise the shit out of it afterwards. I love Anne Lammot’s shitty first draft theory. But my first drafts need plenty of work even after my ongoing edits, and the ongoing edits might slow a project, but they rarely halt one. I have to edit as I go. And I can write between 10,000 and 30,000 words a month reliably and reasonably well.

Finally, there’s this. I’ve written three novels. That push that NaNo is designed to give could just as easily prevent me from finishing another. But I love NaNo, because have friends who might just be able to complete some important work thanks to one of the coolest memes on the web. So I’m cheering for them this month and every time I read their words. And me? I’m plodding steadily along. Or herky-jerkily along. Depending on the day.

The Next Best Thing

Posted on by February 25, 2020

The always awesome Andra Watkins has tagged me in a meme that’s bouncing around the internet right now called “The Next Best Thing”. Since I’m participating in the America’s Next Author Competition, she’s nailed me at the perfect time. Somehow, I’ve landed at number 2 this week. I have no idea what that means. I don’t think I’ll get ‘nominated’ from a number two slot. Which means my stomach is in knots (oh, maybe that’s why I keep throwing up. Hmm. Never thought of that.) Also, it means I have to keep up my momentum for another week, and ask people to keep supporting me by voting, reviewing, tweeting, and liking my story on Facebook. I can’t get over how many people have gone out of their way to do this for me. Thank you so much, and please stick with me through November 27.

Oh Jesus hold me. Since I hit publish I went up to number one.

I’m also going to tag the next best things I know about. A lot of the people I want to tag are already tagged. But not everybody. I’m going to ping a few more awesome folks here. First:

Somehow, nobody in my circles has gotten Cameron Garriepy. And I’m going to hurry up and hit publish on this post before somebody beats me to her!! Cam recently released her self published novel Buck’s Landing, a sea coast romance that seems particularly poignant in light of Sandy. I want to know what she’s working on now. (She’s also in the America’s Next Author Competition!)

Carry Rogozinski at The Muse Unleashed  is one fantabulous lady. She recently attended her first writer’s conference. I know she’s been working on a series about a young woman who tries to pursue a doomed romance in multiple realities. I want to know more about her novel in progress, and I want to see her name in print!

Ré at Sparks in Shadow has a captivating series going on over at her blog. It’s called Entanglement, and it’s got one of the most plausible love plots I’ve seen recently, combined with hardcore modern fantasy.

Finally, SAM at From my Write Side is always writing.  She has completed several novella length pieces (uh – I think) and I want to know what is next in her grab bag. I love the way she can approach an innocent topic and merrily turn it sinister. She’s turned watermelons into murder weapons, people. She’s also over in the America’s Next Author competition, so if you have time, show her some lurve.

I’m not tagging Lance, because Tara beat me to him.   And I can’t tag Tara, because Lisa beat me to her! And I can’t tag Lisa, because somebody ELSE beat me to her. (See? I gotta hit publish SOON). But Lance is also over in America’s Next Author, and I’d be totally remiss if I didn’t name him. Because his blog can beat up my blog. (Why no, that joke will never EVER get old, thank you for asking.)

OK, onward. Let’s talk about my work in progress.

This is awkward. There are ten questions about my work in progress, and I don’t know what they refer to. I just finished a draft of a novel that I’m having fact checked right now before I submit it to a publisher. I am also knee deep in revisions of another novel. I’m going to answer about the book I’m having fact checked. Largely because I have actual answers for all of these questions for that. And the other one I’d have to think awhile.

What is the title of your work in progress?

The Marriage At the Rue Morgue

Where did the idea come from for the book?

OK, long answer to a short question. My Mom can’t read my published novel. Divorce: A Love Story has some fifty odd instances of the word ‘fuck’ in its pages. It’s gritty as hell. My Mom can’t make it past page one. I wanted to write a book my Mom could finish. We both love light mysteries, so I set out to craft a book that would amuse her so much that she didn’t notice that I pepper it with foul language.

Yeah. Only, I can stay lighthearted for about sixteen seconds when I’m writing before something garish pops into my head. If I’m writing something overly happy, I probably also want to light myself on fire. So, as soon as I started trying to think about a lighthearted mystery, my mind popped to the origins of the whole amateur detective genre, which can be traced to Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.  Instantly, I thought, “I’ll riff on that.”

Now, I knew perfectly well that he was having linguistic fun by making these murders on Morgue Street. But I naturally wanted a real morgue in there. Sort of. And the Poe tale hinges on an orangutan. Spoiler alert. In Poe’s story, an orangutan done it. So I started with the premise, “the only thing we know is that the orangutan didn’t do it.”. Bang. I had a monkey and ape rescue center, which I stuck in the middle of Ohio. And since I’d just reversed the culprit, I reversed a bit of the title, too. Not “in” but “at”, and not “murder” but “marriage”.

What genre does your book fall under?

Cozy mystery

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

I wouldn’t.

What is a one sentence synopsis of the book?

Noel Rue and Lance Lakeland’s best man has been murdered, and the only thing they know for sure is that the orangutan didn’t do it.

This is actually more like a teaser than a synopsis. But whatever. It seems to be what the meme is really asking for.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

No. Just… no. Let me be clear. I have respect for my friends who have chosen to self publish, and I absolutely feel the decision is as personal as religion or politics. For me, it goes like this. This is my career. I will get fucking paid to go to work. I will not pay my employer to hire me. I also lack marketing savvy. Like, to the point that I’ve done almost nothing to help publicize Divorce: A Love Story. I worked with a micropress for that, meaning that we were both taking a risk. Hopefully, a paperback edition will be available soon. I can market that better, I think. Anyway, my point is that not all good publishing houses are the big six, and they aren’t a bunch of unscrupulous monsters who throw manuscripts at the slush pile upon receipt. I will have an agent. I will work with a press. Writing is a collaborative effort, and I feel like following the so-called traditional path (which my experience with Divorce was hardly traditional, but it weren’t no self-published work, neither) is the only appropriate one for me.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

Six months.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?

It is similar to Donna Andrews’ Meg Langslow series in that it features animals in a prominent role. However, Andrews’ books concentrate on birds of different feathers, and this series is set in a monkey and ape rescue center, with a focus on primate issues. My characters are a pair of middle aged researchers who sometimes act like a couple of apes.

Who or what inspired you to write the book?

See the idea source question

What else might pique readers interest?

How about the one paragraph hook?

When the search for an abandoned orangutan leads to the death of their best man, primatologists Noel Rue and Lance Lakeland find themselves in a wedding quandary. Police suspect the ape, but Noel and Lance know better. They cannot call off or delay the big day, and they must juggle their search for the real killer with last minute details like convincing half the family the wedding isn’t cursed just because it’s being held at a former funeral home.

Featured Submission

Posted on by July 12, 2023

Last year, I followed Carrie Goldman’s monthlong series about adoption avidly. Carrie’s daughter is Star Wars Katie who is, I’m not lying, one of the superheros in my life. It’s because I was bullied as a kid. I cheer for what that little girl and her family have done not just to stand up to bullies but to bring real change for other kids in similar situations. I follow Portrait of an Adoption closely and cheer for every post Carrie puts out there.

But still, I’m not adopted. Neither are my kids, so it took a little soul searching for me to realize why I cared as much about the adoption posts as I do about the bully posts. And when I got it, it was the middle of the night, and I was having a particularly stressful week, and I absolutely couldn’t sleep. So I wrote it all out, then sat on it for about a week, edited it, and sent it to Carrie. She said she would try to include it sometime in the next year. At that point, she was considering featuring one story every month.

I didn’t hear anything else, so I figured it was not meant to be. But then last month, she wrote me and told me she had chosen to feature my piece in this year’s 30 Adoption Portraits in 30 Days series. I was so stunned. I had hoped she could use it in some way, but the story I’m telling belongs to others, to my niece and my grandfather. To have it included with the stories of those who carry adoption experiences of their very own is humbling. And it’s an honor. Thank you, Carrie, from the bottom of my heart.

You know, if you’re a regular reader, that I don’t put much about my sister out there. It’s the one story I want to tell most that I spend the most energy not telling, largely to protect my niece. But, if you would like to know a little more about my family’s dynamics, please take a few minutes to read the post over on Chicago Now. You’ll note that it also features another of my personal heroes, my Mom.

http://www.chicagonow.com/portrait-of-an-adoption/2012/11/why-do-i-have-to-be-adopted/

Oh – and here’s a gratuitously adorable picture of Kay from this summer.