Get Out of My Brain...Get BACK In My Brain

Hey there, Reader.

So. I finished my novel. You know this. I have Ideas for my next novel. There will be no missing memories. No dream sequences. There will be blood and action and angst and preplotting to map out the story so I don't have to rewrite it a billion times.

Fun!

Wait, no. Not fun.

I am an organizer. A list maker. I am maybe ever-so-slightly a control freak and I am definitely an overachiever. Therefore pre-plotting could potentially be the worst thing for me ever, because I will attempt to become the Best most Rigid and Perfect Pre-plotter in the history of plotting and my story will sag and wither and die a lonely color-coded death before the first chapter is over.

I cut myself off from writing and publishing advice blogs years ago when I felt like I was getting bitter about the process before I'd even begun. Now I'm getting sucked back in again because not only do I need a synopsis for my finished novel, I think I should draft one for the new novel as well. I think that might help me stay on target and not take quite so long to work out what the story is about.

But wandering the waist-high, tick-infested grass of writing advice blogs gives me the sads. It makes me scrunch of my face and go full on toddler, "NO! No no no!"

At the same time, the controlling, should-have-been-an-editor side of me is nodding at the screen and going, "Yes. Rules. These all make sense. I must print this out and highlight it with color-coded highlighters. I must memorize them. I must write my next book solely using these rules or else no one will like it."

Come back, Toddler Writer Side! Come back and scribble and scream and tell stories that make no sense but are somehow true.

Welcome to the Current State of My Brain

On my brain:
1. Fabulous betas are reading my novel (or will be soon)
2. Top Secret Job Stuff
3. World building for my WIP (more like WJS: Work Just Started)

What that looks like:

Randomness

Hello Dearest Reader,

I know I haven't posted regularly in forever. The reason is that I've been working hard on my novel. In fact, I might finish this week. It's actually possible. As you know, "finish" is a silly word. What I mean by "finish" is that I could get to the end of the 2nd draft. But I already know of at least one chapter that will need a diet and no doubt there will be plenty of continuity wrinkles to iron out.

Nevertheless, finish I shall, and very soon.

When I get immersed like this, it's like getting swept up in the tide. I don't have brain power for much else. Friends fall by the wayside, not to mention vacuuming or blogging. But then I get these manic thoughts in my head (too much alone time?) and I have this impulse to spew them on Facebook, but my more discreet twin frowns on that sort of thing, so I thought, I shall spew it here where no one, save you Dear Reader, will be forced to endure it.

So. Here are a smattering of random thoughts in my head:

I am super frustrated by Daniel Henney's career. He's American and grew up in Michigan BUT because he's half Korean he's found more success in South Korea starring in KDramas.

I know I've whined about this before but it still makes me want to bang my head against a wall because I watch him in these dramas and he just does not fit. He's SO obviously American. He sticks out like a sore thumb. A really really beautiful sore thumb. He's clearly charming (I've seen him interviewed), but his American attitude sometimes comes off as cocky when he tries to play a Korean role alongside Korean actors.

It infuriates me that he isn't a bigger star in the US because White is still the norm so unless a character is specifically Asian or Black or Latino etc, it goes to a White actor. Stupid stupid stupid. Stop depriving Americans of Daniel Henney. It's not fair.

I hate when I pay for something and am very specific about what I want and no one says, "That isn't possible because of this..." and no one says, "Actually it'll be more like this.." they just say "Okay, sure," and then I get SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY.

If you're wondering what prompted this, it's the fact that I took my muppet dog Bingley in for a haircut and told them I wanted it shorter but NOT shaved and...he is now shaved. I am probably (definitely) more upset about this than is warranted, but it's the principle of the thing.

If you want to really hear me sound off on this (and I mean, who WOULDN'T, amiright?), just ask me about my wedding bouquet. Go on, ASK ME.

Every spring when it gets hot enough to wear just a tee shirt and I start finding ticks, I have this freak out and I think, "NO! Stop. I can't. We have to just turn around and go back to February right now because I can't deal." It passes eventually but right now I'm just like TICKS ARE EVERYWHERE AND WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE.

When I was a kid I convinced my mom to buy me a tape (a freaking cassette tape, you guys) of new age music from one of those preview machines that sells thunderstorm recordings and Celtic music CDs. I loved it. In fact I had this entire story in my head about what was happening while I listened to it.

I found the tape recently but...it's a tape. So I searched the internet. In no time I found the same album and was able to download it as mp3s. Thank you, Internet. It's now my official Getting to the End of This Draft soundtrack. Want to listen?

All right, that's all. I need more coffee and more concentration. But then, who doesn't?

Home is Where Your Books Are

Last night I finally did it: I opened up all of our boxes of books. They've been locked away for over a year and finally—FINALLY!—they're free again.

You may be wondering why I waited for a full week and a half considering I've been wailing about my books for months and months. I waited because, well, I've been busy and exhausted. Also we don't have bookshelves yet. I'm still holding out an unrealistic hope for built-in bookshelves that we can maybe save up for or something.

I know. Unrealistic. Leave me to my fantasies, please.

Last night I knew I just had to see them all. Touch them. Flip through them. I marched upstairs with scissors clutched in my hand and started tearing the boxes open. I had no idea where things were because Curt packed them this time around. It was like Christmas.

And it was like seeing old friends after a long time apart.

No, it was like seeing myself in a mirror for the first time in months and remembering features that I'd forgotten were there.

Maybe this is what will make my house feel truly like home: Our books.

And happily, I finally found the book of poems that my parents gave me for Christmas years ago, which has the poem I was trying to remember nearly a year ago, and talked about in this post. The book is called A Poem a Day, edited by Karen McCosker and Nicholas Albery and published by Steerforth Press.

The poem I was looking for is called Fall by Laure-Anne Bosselaar (that link is to her website, if you want to learn more about her).

Fall
Laure-Anne Bosslaar

So it's today, and in the chokecherry this year:
the first leaves turn ochre, there, by the gate.

I grab the sweater you left on a chair, wrap it
around my shoulders, and — as I did for days last year

until I couldn't keep up with the season — I pick
every single rusting leaf, each fading flower

and hide them in my apron pocket: their crush
clandestine against my belly. It's a simple gift

for you — for us — such an easy thing to do
for a few more days of summer.


Sometimes I'm surprised by the poems I fell in love with when I was only thirteen or so.
 
I hope this poem sends you into the weekend with a quiet sense of bittersweet beauty, which is what I love most about fall: that is will end, as everything must end. Winter always comes eventually. But for a little while, it is the most glorious, most achingly alive time of the year.

This...is Awkward

Odin's Ravens! I haven't had time (truly, have not had any time at all) to work on my revisions in...well, I think possibly FOUR AND A HALF WEEKS and...yeah, it turns out that's a long freaking time.

There goes my Master Plan to read the entire manuscript through and make overarching revisions as I go. Hmmm. I hope I don't have to read through from the beginning. I suppose I could start implementing the previous revisions on the computer (all handwritten at the moment), and that would refresh my memory.

Or I could forge ahead, pretending that I remember everything perfectly well and just act like the 4.5 week gap never happened.

OR I could reread the manuscript up to the point where I left off (....goes to check what page number I'm on)...uh that would be 145 pages. And then once I reread those pages I could maybe get back to actual revising.

I don't know, you guys. I mean, it's really really hot in my apartment and none of the campus buildings are open on the weekends during the summer and I'm currently carless so I'm stuck here and I think the heat is frying my brain.

I was so close...and now I feel so far. I'm not complaining! I mean, life has been exciting lately. And different, which, well, I was really in need of something Different. It's just too bad I can't be in two places at once.

If only I could conjure up some iced coffee to fortify myself in this trying time. An icy Blue Moon will have to do.

Hiding in the Library

Shhhh. Reader, we are in the library. Or rather I'M in the library but then, a part of you must be here as well in order for us to be having this whispered conversation.

We must be quiet.

I'm currently hunched at a computer kiosk. Please note I do not own a phone of any notable intelligence nor a working laptop in the state of Maine, so I have to use a kiosk in order to contact the Outside World.

Across the room to my left, by the window, someone  has set up a very neat work space. There's a printed stack of paper that one might take to be a manuscript if one were in the mood to make presumptions about other people's work spaces. There is also a moleskine notebook and a small coffee (perhaps because that was the only size available. I don't know, I am merely guessing.).

I'm sure the owner of said workspace is a very efficient worker. I'm sure that her revisions are going well--again, conjecture based on the printed out manuscript. I'm sure that she does not get distracted at computer kiosks, nor does she feel the need to hide in libraries lest she fall prey to the siren call that is the endless stream of k-dramas available on Netflix Instant.

Surely that girl, whomever she is, is getting a lot done. Or will, whenever she returns to her seat...

Go On, Girl, Brush Your Shoulders Off

I was in a good mood this morning. I finished The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and it was so good. I was in the afterglow of reading a really good, true book. Then I bumped into someone I know and this is more or less what happened:

PERSON I KNOW: Hey! What's going on with your book?

ME: I finished the draft!

PIK: (unfazed) I know.

ME: Oh.

PIK: So, any updates?

ME: On what?

PIK: On the book.

ME: Oh. No. I mean, I only finished it a few weeks ago.

PIK: So you still working that freelance job?

ME: (visibly deflating) No, that ended a...well, a while ago.

PIK: So what have you been doing then?

ME: (attempts to laugh) That's a good question! It's been tough. I finished my job and my draft so I've been trying to write other things, job search, figure out what to do next, you know...

PIK: (shakes head like he finds this cute and amusing) It's a good thing your husband has a good job to support your lifestyle.

ME: ::blinks::

PIK: Well, I'll see you later.

ME: ...

 
And by then I was thoroughly deflated and I haven't managed to puff myself back up just yet.

Why do people say these things? Why do they feel that they CAN say these things? Curt likes to point out, very helpfully, that we've moved twice for his career and even if I had managed to find a full time job in Vermont, I would have had to leave it so we could move to Maine. Even so, it bothers me. It makes me feel useless.

I tried to perk myself up by watching Neil Gaiman's commencement speech at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. His post on it is here. It's a great speech. He talks about how if you don't think you know how to do something, just pretend you ARE someone who knows how, and then act like they would.

So I tried to pretend I was someone who wasn't bothered by what other people thought or said. I tried to shake off the cold creeping doubt and the heavy press of guilt. I'm still waiting for it to kick in.

Maybe I need more practice at pretending.

[Edit, 5.22.12] I just wanted to add that the PIK is a nice person, who I'm sure meant no harm in what he said and would probably be mortified if he knew it had bummed me out. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm still trying to figure out how to not be deflated when someone says something that perfectly plays into my insecurities, whether they meant to be hurtful or they were just making conversation and happened to hit a nerve.

It's not easy but seeing as I can't control what other people say (or think!), I hope that one day I figure it out. The only variable I can control in this situation is myself.]

College Libraries Make Me Giddy

I just came back from the college library with a huge stack of books!!! I felt giddy walking across the quad with books stuffed in my bag and balanced on my hip.

I probably appreciated the library more than the average college coed, but even I didn't love it as an undergrad as much as I do now. I felt the same way when I was able to take books out at the Middlebury College library.

"You mean...I can TAKE THESE HOME WITH ME?"

Awesome. Also, for the curious, Middlebury has some really awesome books on fairy tales.

But fairies are not what I'm researching today. Today the books I'm reading look like this:

I love research. I especially love researching nonfiction to be used in fiction. That means I can take what I want and leave the rest—I don't have to write a paper on any of it!

Instead, I can write stories inspired by what I've read, which is an entirely different thing.

Research to a frightened gremlin is like a warm blanket, a cup of coffee, and a big slice of carrot cake. I'm going to gorge myself on facts until a bunch of fiction comes pouring out of my fingers...

What You Love Can Scare You

Reader, I'm scared. I sent off my finished draft. It's not Finished. It still needs work, but for now I've sent it away with its lunch and a little back pack. It will come home soon enough.

Now I should write something else. It's been a long time since I wrote anything else, thought about anything else. I should be happy!

I should feel free to spin stories like sugar. Stories that are too brittle and sharp and sweet. I could write them down and swallow them up and never think of them again, if I wanted.

Instead, I haven't written anything. I've agonized and felt misplaced and dull.

I know that to break this spell, all I have to do is write.

"Write anything!" Curt tells me, with an encouraging smile. "Write about the Hoohobbin Clan. Write about Fluffy. Write about all the characters who never get stories of their own. Just for fun. You can show them to me. I'll read them."

Yes, I think. Of course. Just write—for fun. FUN and nothing more. It's so simple! I nod in agreement.

And then when Curt leaves, I draw sketches and mutter to myself and wring my hands and wash the dishes and do anything I can think of except to write.

The chubby unicorn, the unicorn girl, and me.

Today I won't hide. Today I have a writing prompt from a friend. I'm thinking about going over to the Unicorn Garden for inspiration.

It's strange how the things you love most can also scare you the most.

The End...For Now

So...guess what????

I finished my young adult rewrite draft of The Charmed Bracelet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do you know what that means?? That's right! It's time for a....

 

Now I've sent it off to my amazing beta reader to see what she thinks.

Which reminds me, let's bring back one of my old Jem images from a while ago...

Right now I'm kind of nervous about what my beta aka Synergy will say. Will she like it?? Will I have to rewrite the whole thing all over again? Will she say that the ending is kind of squishy?

Only time will tell.

I just want to say a huge, hug-filled thank you to everyone who encouraged me and cheered me on while I stumbled through this rewrite. It feels a little odd saying thank you, since my work is hardly over, but even so: THANK YOU!

There have been so many people who asked me how it was going or expressed impatience (feigned or genuine—it doesn't matter) over when they could read it. There have been people who emailed me or commented here at just the right time, and there was even a Magical Fairy Godfriend who sent a package in my moment of greatest need.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I wish I could throw a party and all of you could come and I could serve ginger jack cookies and hot spiced cider and we could dance under the stars until the sun came up!

But for now, I've got a pint of oatmeal cookie ice cream, some pink champagne, and three more episodes of Spring Waltz calling to me...

We Wants Our Rewards!

You guys, finishing this book is hard. Yes, I'm whining. To make it even more annoying, I'm whining in a halfhearted way because even whining feels like something that is too hard and unfair right now.

Things are a little mixed up right now and I've got ample excuses for why my brain isn't very good at focusing on untangling plot points. 

But I know there's no better time than now.

Also, when I finish, then I get my rewards! And I really really want my rewards. What are they? I'm so glad you asked!

Rewards:
1. Spring Waltz marathon. I'm three episodes from the end and I'm not allowed to watch until my novel is done. UNFAIR WORLD!

2. Pint of Ben & Jerry's Oatmeal Cookie Chunk, which is my favorite flavor and was recently brought back from retirement so, you know, maybe the Mayans were wrong about the world ending this year.

3. Bottle of cheap pink champagne. I have extremely fond feelings towards cheap champagne because when my college's English department didn't bother organizing a end of thesis party for me and  my fellow creative writing majors, we organized one ourselves and of course it involved the cheapest champagne imaginable.

You know what cheap pink champagne tastes like to me? Success. Giddy, bubbly, pink success.

As you can see, these rewards are pretty awesome. So I better figure out how this final Scene works itself out so I can binge on fizz and ice cream while watching Korean TV before reading books for three weeks straight*.

READING BENDER. I can't wait.

*By three weeks, I mean one week of straight reading followed by short story writing because I can't not write for long. And sometimes if I read too much I start to feel like I'm disappearing.

A Word From the Gremlins

Anyone who has ever tried to create anything has met the gremlins in some form or another. They are little slimy, clinging creatures that don't want you to succeed. They show up at just the right moment to tear you down. They like to rub their long-nailed hands together and snicker and bite at your knuckles.

I hadn't seen them in a while but that was before I went home for a week and visited my old elementary school and bragged to everyone that I was almost finished with my novel. "Oh! How wonderful!" said my kindergarten teacher. "We are so proud of you!" said the reading specialist, who is friends with my mom and a staunch supporter of my early attempts at children's picture books.

I smiled and smiled but inside I felt sick. I must have known that the gremlins were coming.

They are hovering around me right now, hunched heavy on my shoulders and pawing at my feet. They say things like:

 "What's the POINT of finishing? No one is going to read it anyway."

"This story has probably already been written, only better and in less time than it's taking you. You should just go buy that book and read it."

"It's taken you longer to write one decent book than most people take to write three and you're STILL not done. Why bother finishing now??"

"You thought it was good the last time you wrote the story and then you rewrote the entire thing. What makes you think this time will be any different?"

"If you finish and it still isn't any good, you should give up. Get a full time job and never look back. So, maybe it's best if you don't finish. Then you never have to quit you can just say you are taking time off of writing to earn more money."

"You don't deserve this."

I still don't know if I deserve this or not but I'm going to finish. I have to finish. I swear I'm about 20 pages from the end, but suddenly I'm trudging through the Swamp of Sadness and every step, every word, has to be wrung out of me.



"You have to try. You have to care."

Vanquished: Chapter 30

I just wrote 1,500 words. Not bad for working between the hours of 2:00 and 5:00 AM.

This calls for a sleepy Minako image instead of my usually peppy Sailor Venus

She was going to say "Huzzah" but she fell asleep. I'm off to do the same.

Waving as I Pass

1. Last night I scrolled to a fresh, blank page of my novel and typed, "Chapter 30" at the top.

This could be the last chapter. It will more likely be the penultimate (Vocab word!). What matters most is that it is, without a doubt, the final scene. Big things are about to go down. I'm scared and excited and hopped up on coffee.

And I feel...I feel...I feel happy of myself.



2. When I'm stalling on writing, I play around with possible titles. The Charmed Bracelet seems too gender-specific to me. I am a little hesitant to share other ideas here, though. Blogging can be odd in that way. Should I share? Do you want me to do?

Is anybody listening to me?



3. Here's something to make you think: another beautiful, provocative, and uplifting post from Terri Windling

4. Here's something to make you laugh: Lindy West rewatches Titanic for Jezebel, with hilarious results. Seriously, I wish I'd written this.

5. Here's something to make you go awwww: The Daily Puppy

6. Here's something you might not know: Farmers' Almanac Full Moon Names

7. And, lastly, something to make you go faint (hint: it's Daniel Henny)

Thumbs up, everybody! Rock and roll!

Totoro!

It's another beautiful day!

I'm writing and making steady if not exactly swift progress on my novel. My goal is to get to the final scene or place or whatever you want to call it, by the end of the week. Of course a lot will need to happen at that place but the characters won't be traveling anywhere else before the story ends. I find that I work in chunks by location, for some reason.

Probably because of the lovely weather, I'm having a Totoro kind of day! I'm listening to "The Wind Forest" by Mari Fujiwara (originally composed by Joe Hisaishi for "My Neighbor Totoro") on a loop while I write.


In that spirit, here are some Totoro images I gathered from the internet:

A still from the movie

Wallpaper designed by flyindreams (source)

Totoro and friends print by Munieca (for sale here)

"Totoro Noir" by Ppdm (source)

Totoro by Azertip (source)

Several images from the Totoro Forest Project

If you find yourself in a Totoro mood as well, then the first thing you should do is go for a walk!

But once you've come home again and had a snack, check out the gallery of images from the Totoro Forest Project, which was a fundraiser/ auction in 2008-2009  to support the non-profit organization, "Totoro No Furusato National Fund." You can learn more about the project here.

Writing is Lonely

Reader, it has occurred to me that I am lonely. Really really lonely.

I'm tired of feeling like my writing is supposed to be both my super fulfilling job and my fun weekend activity. I've decided that just because I'm not thrilled to spend Friday evening or Saturday afternoon writing—not because I chose to but because I have nothing else to do—doesn't make me any less of a writer.

I think it just makes me human.

I know writers are always talking about how they fantasize about being all alone, in a Rapunzel-like tower far away where they could just write and write and write in blissful solitude.

I don't think anyone really wants this. Being alone is lonely. Trust me. And I don't write just because I love words, I write because I want to share stories with other people. Otherwise I would just spend the rest of my life reading.

Swap out writing for reading in that Rapunzel tower fantasy and it starts to make a lot more sense to me. Then again, whenever I finished a book I would want to talk about it with someone. Isn't that the second best part of reading a book? So even reading in total solitude doesn't appeal to me all that much.

The point is: we need people. At least, I do. Maybe it's partially because I'm a twin. There's never been a moment in my life when I was totally alone. I'm happiest in a room or house full of people. It's best if they mostly leave me alone. I just want them near me. But I don't have that right now.

So, what am I going to do about it?

Well, I'm not just going to mope around. I'm not exactly sure what to do, but I'm going to start giving some things a try. For starters I joined the Maine Writers and Publishers Association and I reached out to a poster on the MWPA forum who is looking to start a SciFi/Fantasy writers collective.

It's not easy to put yourself out there but considering that no one has come knocking on my door in the last eight months since I moved to Maine asking to be my friend, I really don't have any other choice.

Here's to small victories on a rainy Friday afternoon. And here's to remembering that sometimes the problem isn't what we're doing or where we're going, it's something else entirely. Like loneliness. Naming the problem is a powerful thing. The first step towards conquering it.

Hair, Henney...Holla!

(Re: the title of this post, I couldn't come up with another "h" word. So holla back, Reader!)

There are lots of things knocking around in my head today. I'll just try and touch on a couple because I'm running late and it's so beautiful out today and I keep getting distracted. That's my little public service announcement to say that these idea cookies are not fully baked so please eat with caution.

This is all going to revolve around issues of race and storytelling, I'll just say that upfront.

Thought 1: Daniel Henney's Career:
So on Saturday I was writing all day and when I needed a break I decided to watch a Korean show called Spring Waltz because one of the stars is my beloved Daniel Henney and also it is streaming on Netflix. I was so excited. I honestly don't get all crushy on stars that often. I really need to know the person's personality before I can truly find them attractive.

Daniel Henney is my one major exception. He is...gorgeous. His charm oozes out of every photo. It's insane how beautiful he is.

"Oh, hey. My name is Daniel."

 

Anyway, I'm watching this show and I find that I don't really like Daniel in it all that much. I like the other male lead better (who, as it so happens, is ALSO SUPER HOT). And, come to think of it, in the Korean movie I watched in chunks on YouTube (a testament to my Daniel Devotion), I didn't really like Daniel all that much either despite him being the original motivation for me watching it at all.

Dear. Lord.

 

I think I know what my problem is: Daniel is AMERICAN. And it's so obvious. He really is American. For those of you who don't know, Daniel was born in Michigan to a Korean American mother and British American father. Yet despite a few blips in the US (aka him being the only good thing about Wolverine), his career is firmly entrenched in South Korea.

But he is American. He is completely and totally American. It's so obvious to me. In the few Korean shows/ movies in which I've seen him, he always seems inexplicably out of place. He seems SO cocky, arrogant even. Yet in interviews and photos he is nothing but irresistibly charming.

And I think the reason is that he should be cast as the lead in American films, playing an American. Of course, that is unlikely to happen right now because unless a character is written to be Asian American, a Caucasian gets cast. White is the default. And it sucks. It's not fair, it's stupid, it's narrow-minded, and it's depriving women across the country from more Daniel Henney.

When will casting directors start casting minorities in non-racially specific roles?? I wish they'd start yesterday.


Thought 2: Diversity in YA


There is an ongoing dialogue regarding race and stories, particularly in YA at the moment.

[Ello Oh blogged about it yesterday, click here to catch up on the conversation]

Basically what this boils down to is there is not enough diversity in YA (we'll narrow the field to YA for the sake of sanity), whether in the characters themselves or in the way non-racially-specific characters are depicted, that being white. And then of course there's cover whitewashing, when books specifically featuring nonwhite protagonists STILL end up with a cover image that depicts a Caucasian person instead.

Cover whitewashing is the simplest issue because it's just blatantly stupid. There's no argument here in favor of whitewashing. This is a problem that needs to change but it WILL change, as long as you and me and him keep speaking out against it.

It's the lack of diversity that gets more complicated. One of the suggested solutions to this knotted mess is that white writers include more racially diverse characters in their books. Great. Awesome! I want to do this. I AM doing this. I don't feel the need to advertise it because it seems pretty simple and natural to me.

Interestingly enough, I do not and have not specified the race of my protagonist, Maggie. I want her to be a mashup, a mutt. I don't want to define her. Will I be penalized for that?


Thought 3: The Dangerous Language of Hair

What I find myself struggling with often is HOW to suggest that a character is not white without being super awkward like "She looked Asian American." Um, that's weird and distracting. But I could say, "he had glossy black hair and pale skin," and be describing an Asian American. Then again, the character could just be a white person with black hair, like my husband.

Sometimes I think this is the problem, too. That people jump to the assumption that a character is white unless it's otherwise specified but then they get uncomfortable when told the character's race. And the thing is, my characters who are racially diverse are diverse just BECAUSE. There's no better reason for it than I pictured them that way. That's okay, isn't it? Shouldn't that be encouraged?

So what do you do? And more importantly to me, how do you describe the hair?

I have a character in my novel who has an afro. I picture her very much like this actress, Yara Shahidi.

Actress Yara Shahidi with her beautiful hair

My character has what you might describe as "nappy hair." But can I say that in my story? Nappy can be seen as a negative word. You can read a brief, interesting article about the history of the word by a professor of Sociology at Boston College here.

But IS there another word to describe that type of hair? Kinky doesn't seem like an appropriate word either. If there's no language to describe it, then how can we talk and write about it, even in a positive way, just to say, this is what a character looks like?

***
Pertinent Side Story: the other night in kickboxing class, I was complimenting a fellow kickboxer on her gorgeous curly hair. It's usually straight. Of course she has to straighten it. She looks like she's either part African American or maybe Dominican. She has that texture in her hair. Anyway, I complimented her on the curls (She had it pulled up with a purple headband to work out. If the headband had been gold, she seriously would have looked like a goddess. Effortlessly beautiful).

She mentioned that she usually straightens it and that straightening can last a week, which didn't faze me at all but she hastened to add a little defensively, "My hair's not like your hair. Your hair gets oily after a couple days but mine gets too dry if I wash it too much."

I didn't know how to respond. Of course I knew this already. I also know that I am half Italian, half mishmash European and my hair can go at least three days without being washed as long as I don't go for a run while my twin sister has to wash hers every night. So personally I was a little frustrated that she assumed all Caucasian hair was the same. I was also sad that she felt she had to explain herself, as if I was going to assume that she was dirty for not washing her hair as often as some girls with finer hair.
***

Anyway all this has been knocking around my head because I want to know what words describe hair textures that are acceptable? Nnedi Okorafor uses words like dada to describe dreads in her books and other descriptive terms for other types of African hair. But those are African words. I can't use that, can I? No one would know what I was talking about.

ARE there any safe words for hair? Hair is so tangled (PUN INTENDED high five!) in racial ideas of beauty. Maybe if we had the words to identify the beautiful differences, it would be a step in the right direction. It would certainly make it easier for me as a writer to tell readers that I picture a certain character as African American or South Asian or whatever.

And while we're on the subject, is "almond eyes" enough of a hint that a character is Asian? Is it insulting? Because one of my main characters is half Japanese and I want him to be pictured that way. But what are the words I can use and should use?

It's easy to get so scared of using the wrong words, that I don't want to use any at all. But you know what happens then?

Then everyone will assume that Adder and Anise and King Azuralious are all white. And they aren't. They just aren't.

Unspooling

The ongoing problem with my novel has been that I knew where the story was going to end but not how it would get there or why or how long it would take.

Just a couple of weeks ago I was visiting a friend and she asked how the writing was going. I thought I had made some really great headway, and started babbling about the plot. On and on. Finally she just nodded and said brightly, "Well, I think it's great you don't know what's going to happen!"

Hmm. It didn't sound so great to me. I had just come so far in the last few days! I had fleshed out so much! Had she been listening to all the complex ways in which I was trying to work everything out? Or about all of my half-baked ideas?? Apparently not. If she had, surely she would have been more impressed.

Right?

RIGHT??

It worried me. I'd been rewriting this novel since last January. I should have known by now how it ends. But I didn't. Like I said, I knew where it ended. I knew the major players. And my brain kept tossing in random suggestions like, "You should bring back someone from earlier in the novel!" And I'd say, "Why?" And my brain would just shrug and make a snide comment about how I wasn't doing my share of the work.

Weeks and weeks ago, my beta had kindly and accurately accused me of stalling. She pointed out that I was slowing down because I was afraid of the ending. She was right.

Just yesterday I announced to Curt that I was going to set a deadline and then I was going to chart out word goals and corresponding rewards because I had lost that sense of urgency, that feeling that there was anyone, anywhere, who cared at all about this story being told.

I was beginning to wonder if I still cared.

And then, last night while I was lying in bed and unable to sleep, I had an idea.

It began with a somewhat inconvenient obstacle for Maggie & Co. but it was snappy and it made me smile in the dark. I wrote some perfect (they are always perfect in the dark with no paper proof) sentences in my head and when I finally acknowledged that I wasn't going to remember all of this in the morning, I got up and wrote it down. I had a couple more ideas. Great!

I came back to bed with the notebook—just in case.

The ideas kept coming. I didn't want to turn on the light or get up again, so I wrote in the dark, just a few words per page in the hopes that I'd be able to read it all in the morning.

But it all just kept unspooling, like a shining gold ribbon revealing itself to me, at last. I have read interviews wherein writers talk about The Unspooling, a moment when everything comes together and it all makes sense and you feel a sense of calm and rightness.

Of course, that sort of writing magic never happened to me. So I had filed it under Possible Evidence to Prove I am Not Meant to Be a Writer and forgot about it.

Last night, The Unspooling finally happened to me.

I feel really good. So good that I almost don't want to open my notebook and realize that the sparkling brilliance I wrote last night is in fact a handful of rough ideas that are going to require months of work to polish into something that shines.

Even so, it really did feel like magic.

For once in the last several months, I stopped beating myself up for being slow, or lazy, or easily distracted.

 Illustration by Edward Gorey

Just this once, in the middle of a snowstorm last night, beneath a pink sky in a creaking old house, I thought to myself, "Maybe I was just spinning straw all this time and finally—FINALLY—I've figured out how to make gold."

3 AM and Dog Analogies

I've been up since 3 AM.

Since I was wide awake and not even particularly comfortable in bed (it's a cosmic rule that your bed is only truly comfortable after 8 AM when you typically have to get up), I thought maybe...MAYBE my subconscious was just really amped about writing and that I should brave the cold to let it do its thing.

Apparently my subconscious is a lot like a dog that thinks it has to be let out in the middle of a sleet storm in the middle of the night to poop.

You drag yourself out of bed, you stumble to the door, you let it out.

Then you stand, shivering in your threadbare pajamas and you comfort yourself by thinking how you are a good, responsible dog owner.

Your dog waits and looks at you and waits and sniffs the air and looks at you and paws at some mud. The look on its face says, "Why did you bring me out here again?" It does not go to the bathroom.

Malachy, winner of the 2012 Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. Doesn't that face just say, "Let me out and see how long it takes. I dare you."

Finally it trots back inside like, "False alarm! See, this is really funny. You're going to laugh when I tell you. Okay? So, I thought I had to go but it turns out I just enjoy making you stand outside in the cold. Hey, I don't judge you for the TV shows you watch, so don't judge me. And also, just a heads up: a few hours from now when you've finally managed to fall back asleep about fifteen minutes before your alarm goes off, I'll be down here pooping all over the floor."


Thanks for nothing, Subconscious.

Page 200

 I hit page 200 tonight in the revision of TCB!!!


 I thought I was only on 199, but I was just going through everything again and tweaking sentences, and saving obsessively (you know, like you do), and I realized that I'm at the end of page 200.

That is LEGIT.

Revisions have felt absolutely painful these last few chapters. Rivendell Hell has been more than  a match for me. But at long last, Maggie the Protagonist is rested and fed. She has acquired knowledge and traveling companions. Together they have united towards a common goal.

I am very happy to report that it's closing time in Rivendell Hell. The characters don't have to go home (in fact, some of them can't until this quest is over), but they CANNOT stay here. Not one page longer.

Can I get a HUZZAH up in here?