Such a Lovely Problem

It is such a lovely problem... but a problem, none the less. It is one of two problems that occur during that in-between times when a writer is finishing up one novel and starts thinking toward the next. The hideous problem is when the ideas cannot be forced into story, and the fear arises in the back of the writer's head as she stares at the blank page (or, in my case, screen): What if the stories never come again?

Then there is the lovely problem, the one that I struggle with now: too many ideas. I have five novel ideas and one short-story idea (which I started writing but then got slightly stuck, so it's like a deep shadow in the back of my mind that needs the right angle of light before I can finish it), all of which still thus untitled, just nick named.

We have (in no particular order) "The Red-Neck Girl Story," where Katie has to move with her mother away from her father and brothers and the farm that she grew up on to finish High School in the suburbs of a different state.

Next is "The Cinderella Complex," where Emily, Lia, and Bianca all come from dysfunctional families and their journeys to escape those households (one marries out of it via an other's brother and the other two move out together).

Then there's "The Artist Story," in which the "Artists" (who can be musicians, actors/actresses, painters, writers *giggles*) have this power to engage their audiences and captivate them in this incomprehensible, super-natural way, and they use it to show their audiences deeper things of God's glory. But then there are also the "Liars," who have the same ability, only instead of using them to God's glory, they use their gifts to draw attention to selfish human emotions.

And then there is "The Castle Story," in which a married woman with, like, 5 kids moves into a big house that still needs some work, but they turn it into the house that she's always dreamed of. A couple of days after they move though, she finds herself the legal guardian of her teenage, bitter, closed-off niece.

The most recent addition to the mess in my head is "Pain's Child," nine-year-old Abigail who doesn't have the ability to separate the things she hears about on the news or sees happening to others from her own experiences. She's developing an eating disorder, has nightmares, becomes very frightened for no apparent reason, and it's all because she doesn't know how to cope with these things that aren't even happening to her.

The short story was inspired by the country song, "A Long Line of Losers," (which, as of yet, is the story's nick name), about a college student who lives out of hotels during the summer trying to break the cycle of failure that is her family.

And then we arrive at the problem. I sit down to write and suddenly they all break out of the confines of their stories. The Artists and the Cinderellas all line up for battle, Katie and Jessica duke it out, the short-story collegiate and the mom from the Castle Story debate about life goals... luckily everybody feels sorry for Abigail and leaves her alone. But suddenly an epic battle unfolds in my mind, and suddenly all I can do is more editing the snot out of Speechless.

Out of the Dust

I am taking a moment to take a breather from the ridiculous task of "prettifying" the basement. (Word for word, that is the assignment I was given this morning, I kid you not). So I got all of the books perpendicular to the floor, which always makes me feel better, then looked at the wall with the fire place... and almost cried. The entire wall is stone-- jagged stone that protrudes from the wall. As I was vacuuming up all of the dust and cobwebs, I remembered my older brother and I playing with cars and Lego's and finding ledges for our little pretend people to climb.

Then came time for the mantle. No joke, I would hold the nozzle of the Kirby two inches away and the dust bunnies would crawl. This entire wall and everything on it hasn't been touched since before the basement became Mom and Dad's room, which was six and a half years ago now. I was vacuuming the pictures just to see who was in them. The whole entire task was rather outrageous.

There were baby pictures. There were pictures of grandparents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles. There was a picture of me in my polka-dotted pajamas, blending in with the matching sheets. My big brother when he wasn't quite so big holding baby me. Gramma holding my baby brother. My mom's senior pictures. Smiles, family, happy times, life.

Then I found a box that after vacuuming it I discovered to be blue. It was full of my parents' wedding pictures. My mom was so young, and she was glowing, fingering her bouquet, smiling in every shot. My dad was hardly recognizable: he was thin, all of his hair still jet black, and with this goofy grin on his face that said, "This is exactly where I am supposed to be, and I'd like to see you try to challenge it." Mema and Papa (my dad's parents) were happy-- honestly happy. Two of my great grandmas were in those pictures.

But they were stuffed in an unmarked box and buried under dust bunnies that hadn't been disturbed in six years, and I found them playing Cinderella while my parents and little brother yell at the Huskers upstairs. The mass-cleaning is in preparation for a family reunion tomorrow (which was an impromptu event, Mom just kind of said on Thursday, "By the way, we're having 20 people over on Sunday, hope nobody minds!" not only to my little brother and I but to my father as well). I haven't seen these people in years. I hardly know them, they don't know me, but we're all vacuuming up the dust bunnies and putting on big smiles to see each other and pretend for a day that it matters.

Plastic smiles frustrate me to no end, and I'm claustrophobic and anti-social anyway. I think I'll hide in my office with my psychology homework.

"Speechless"

Sorry folks, nothing sparkly. (Well, the bathroom is sparkly... again... I swear, I'm never scrubbing that room again if it only takes half a week to be ridiculously messy again. Wait, I've said that before.) As a matter of fact, outside of homework at the moment the only other component of my life is editing my novel, "Speechless."

America has reformed its education system, and now high schoolers have to go to massive boarding schools, or "Youth Education Centers." In these facilities, it is believed that Christians don't allow for anyone else to be right. It is said that Christians don't believe in anyone else having a freedom of religion, so they don't deserve that right themselves. When Christian students are separated from their parents and sent to this school with these brutal ideas and where unbiblical activities run rampant, it seems like a losing battle simply to cling to a faith that everyone tells them is foolish.

Until Jackie arrives. Her older brother Jeff, who has been there for two years now, catches her off the bus to save her Bible from the inspection, and then watches in wonder as his little sister reminds him of the passionate faith that he feels he has lost. His new roommate Matthew arrives and only brings more light into the darkened campus. They inspire the silent Christians on campus to live like they mean it, they bring the Gospel to their new friends, and they stir the stagnant waters until their safety is no longer a certainty. But when they hatch a risky plan to expose what truly happens within the fences of the Thomas Jefferson Youth Education Center, how much are they willing to lose?

The Wonderful World of... Homework.

I think I was just doomed from the day I was born: my life was simply destined to be dominated by homework. A math test, working on a paper for my computer class, a test and a paper in Psychology... my weekend was eaten before it began.

Unfortunately, the sources for the psychology paper have to be primarily journals. My topic is human creativity as it relates to self-expression. And the school's data bases hate me. Upon the very rare occasion that I actually find something that remotely pertains to my topic, well, it's a journal. Have you ever tried to read one of those, seriously? Eyes bugging, jaw dropping, yawning, must... pay... attention... wait, what language was that? Seriously, you've got these people who live in universities trying to describe creativity in the least creative ways possible. And they aren't even giving me the information that I need.

I got the computer paper to the point to where I can leave it alone for the moment, and studying for the tests won't be difficult, just time-consuming. Psychology is open-note (which is code talk for read the question, find the answer in the notes, move to question 2 and repeat, and still finish an hour early. I love psychology!), and my math teacher is one of the best math teachers on the face of the planet... and coming from me, that's saying quite a bit. Math and I do not get along.

All of this being said, I hope to blog again in the very near future... and it will be something creative, bizarre, off-the-wall, fascinating, entertaining, and sparkly! Why sparkly you ask? Well, I'm not really sure, it just sounded like a good idea at the time. Not to mention that nothing academic is sparkly, so it will be a relief when I finally finish all of this homework!

A Child-like Honesty

I love little kids. Just thought I'd throw that out there. I taught Cubbies tonight, and as I was preparing the lesson (and trying to hunt down those little terracotta pots that are a pain to buy in bulk anymore), I started thinking about why.

Preschoolers have no formulated ideas or preconceived notions as to social norms. Society has not yet taught them things like it's weird for a graduated high school student to color, that when somebody stutters it means they're stupid, what people should look like in order to be pretty. They haven't learned to put up a front in order to look cool until they become a completely different person. They question the important things: why God does what He does and how He does it. They don't question the things that should be certain: who they are and that God loves them.

These little kids want to learn and thrive and love and be loved with the purest, Godly love. They are who they are, and it's not something to be questioned or hidden. If they want to jump around like a monkey, then by golly they're going to jump around like a monkey and it doesn't matter what it looks like. If they have a question, they'll ask it, because they want to know and they don't care if they'll look stupid or not. These little kids are so transparent, flawlessly open and honest.

I want to look at people without those preconceived notions. If I don't know something, I want to just ask. And if I want to color, then darn it, I'm going to color! I'm sick of altering what I look like for the people around me until I've lost who I originally was. I want to ask the questions of God that will lead me closer and closer to a pure relationship with Him rather than fester and produce doubt. I'm tired of living in this jungle tangled in the vines of what I have learned growing up from that little-kid-age. I'd rather jump back into that coloring book page of wide meadows with the great, blue sky, with everything open and pure and free.

My Lovely World of Editing

A first draft is simple, easy. A first draft is when the story leaps out of your mind and onto the page, stepping clumsily and leaving muddy footprints in the hallways, running into walls, falling through railings, that kind of thing. When it is finished, I usually allow myself maybe 30 seconds to ooh and aah at the saved document, I get it printed out and flip through the ream of papers full of my words that hold my story and my characters and my world. Okay, so after the printing it's more like 60 seconds, especially seeing as how I have to do that printing at Kinko's because my printer is lacking in oomph, so I'd darn well better get some pleasure out of blowing twenty bucks.

But once that minute and a half of "Holy cow, it all survived the journey from my head to the paper!!!" it is on to-- cue the ominous music-- editing. I start to see just how much of the story really and truly survived the journey. I have to choreograph its steps, clean up its muddy footprints, scrub down the walls, repair the railings. I have to check the technical stuff-- the story consistencies, the grammar, I have to have my editor cross out half of my commas (I was writing before anyone ever taught me punctuation; all I knew was that, when reading out loud, you make your voice pause at a comma. So if I pause in my head while I'm writing, doesn't it make sense to stick a comma in there? Don't look at me like that, you know that it's only logical!). I have to tear it all apart to make absolutely certain that it is all put together correctly. I have to make sure that it isn't stupid.

Editing is an extremely complex process! Which is why Speechless, my poor ink-and-paper-child, is being edited-- oh, about a third or fourth time now. Dang it, Jeff, can't you just grow up and be a man already? And Alishia, speak up! I can't hear you over Jackie! Not to mention that Speechless is about a reform in American Public High Schools, so there's a bunch of politics and technical stuff that has to be explained without distracting from the story. And I still hate commas.

So, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, Speechless is being dismantled once again. Oh well, it's a nice excuse to avoid actually starting the Cinderella story, the Castle story, the Artist story, or the Redneck-girl-moved-away-from-the-farm-and-getting-looked-at-funny-by-the-kids-at-school story that have been running through my head and stealing my consciousness in everything I do. I'll have to pick one to start on eventually, but for now I shall simply edit Speechless.

Need to Read!

A good writer must also be a good reader. It's the same as the principle of "garbage in, garbage out," in a way. To be an effective artist with the written word, one must take in the written word, see how others use their craft. It's like a child listening to others speak in order to learn how the sounds form words, an apprentice watching his master work, or Christians studying the Bible together in order to sharpen each other.

Unfortunately, homework dominates my life. Over the past couple years, I haven't been reading nearly as much as a good writer should. I decided that I was going to read a lot over the summer... but I ended up job searching instead. I got the Twilight series (Stephanie Meyer) read, I get credit for that, right? I also just started Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin). Next comes Host (Stephanie Meyer), Inkheart (Cornelia Funke), and Black (Ted Dekker), obviously followed by the rest of the series since Ted Dekker tends to have that affect on me. Then I'd like to read some Shakespeare and then get into some more of the classics...

Not to mention that I am considering joining a book club through the local library. Now that I am no longer in high school where I see my friends and close acquaintances every day, I am discovering that I don't socialize enough anymore. It's time for the ever-so-quiet Kaycee to get out there and meet new people; what better way than through a book club?

Any other books that every writer should read? If you come up with one, let me know! Perhaps some day I'll be able to read as much as I need to.