The Little Ones’ Perspective

Bringing a new young kittenish feline into a home that already had two fully-grown self-possessed cats, we followed the careful guidelines for introduction.

It was fascinating to watch how all involved navigated the situation.

The new cat, Nougat, was eager to make friends. But she learned very quickly that she must go slowly and carefully. The sheer difference in size necessitated thoughtfulness, and she is one smart kitty.

I noted how, when she needed to reach her food bowl or navigate to the other side of the room past the others, she moved in impossibly slow motion as to not trigger the big ones’ hunter/prey chase response. One such chase and one large claw making contact with her fur taught her this lesson.

She also does her best to avoid passing below uninspectable surfaces, where someone can pounce on her. She appears calm and contented with the others present only if she has a good escape route and sees us, her human protectors, from the corner of her eye.

This got me thinking about how it feels to be little, which got me thinking about writing for newer, smaller people—i.e. children.

Because this is pretty much how children feel all the time.

There are many kid-characters in books who are spunky, powerful, save humanity, and speak up when others don’t. I think these are inauthentic kids. They may serve some fantasies of grownups who wished they had done something back when, but these stories reek of falseness.

When “keeping the child in view,” as Dickens wrote, a good refresher would be to watch a kitten making her way into an established group of bigger guys who know their way around.

Go, Nougat. You can do it, girl.

My Only Addiction

It’s too easy to look down on addicts. If you have never experienced such an affliction, you can feel smugly superior to the poor souls who allowed themselves to succumb. How pathetic they are, and how low they descend, risking everything for a fix.

I don’t seem to have the personality or misfortune to have had such challenges.

The first is a matter of propensity over which anyone can make decisions not to risk exposure. Long ago, at the age of five or six, I watched my nicotine-dependent father go out on a stormy, drenching rainy Friday night, hail a cab (expensive) to the outskirts of town, (Jerusalem) where the one and only small kiosk sold cigarettes on the Sabbath. He thought he had stashed an extra pack, but couldn’t find it.

It was a lesson in what not to do. No cigarettes, ever. Don’t want to have to haul that monkey on my back.

The second, the matter of luck, has to do with things that can happen and leave a person dependent. With two herniated discs in my lower back, I remember realizing how addiction to painkillers can start, and how understandable and insidious the process is.
That was two years plus ago. When my doctor prescribed narcotics, I never took them. I chose not to haul that monkey on my miserably aching back, either. But some folks don’t know what the doctor had given them before it’s too late, and the climb out of that hole is steep.

But I don’t feel superior, because I do have a sort of addiction, or maybe it’s closer to a dependence. Can you guess to what?

Yes, I can stop. I did without difficulty while pregnant. Twice.

And, NO, I don’t want to.

So there. Maybe this feeling of "I *need* my coffee" gives me a peek into addiction, and maybe what I really need is that insight and compassion in addition to the caffeine. Because smugness is unattractive and worse.

Oh, and one other thing--

Dear Author

So I woke up feeling frisky. I decided it was time to respond. This response is to the likes of which I (and every writer I know) had received at some point. In fact, a baffled colleague had just shared getting one to a manuscript for which I was privileged to be a beta reader. Sometimes it’s easier to go to bat for someone else whose work is as good as it gets, in my not humble enough opinion.

From my never-to-be-sent response, you can pretty much reconstruct the original rejection.

Dear Publishing Professional,

I thank you for reading my submission, and for saying you loved-loved-loved it. You needn’t have thanked me for offering, as you said, just the sort of work you are always looking for. I researched and made certain this is the sort of story you have worked on before, and are still looking for. I was most happy that you found it among the best you have seen, and shared this assessment with me. I noted with joy your delight at the relationship between the two protagonists, and the edge-of-one's-seat plot. Your comment on the beautiful phrasing and pacing was most rewarding, because I had worked diligently on both aspects.

Of course, I was saddened that you ended with having to pass on this story, because it is not a fit for your list. Mea culpa. I should have realized your list is made of poorly realized relationships, plodding plots and tired language. I now understand better why you needed to pass on this manuscript.

I will do my best to target next time.

Sincerely,

Author

Okay, steam blown and serenity restored.

‘Tis baffling, but there it is. All publishing professionals are beyond overworked and overwhelmed with less than wonderful offerings by the zillions. But variations of effusive letters that ended with a pass leave a writer with nothing to fix but existence itself.

And no, this particular rejection really was not one I got. But I did see it and it really did happen just now to someone else, and that someone else is going---.

Still, we're ever hopeful, and waiting for some love. C'mon, it's almost Valentine's Day

Writing Trough the Hard & Dry Patches

There is a  of video showing Ellen DeGeneres crying at the intro to her (otherwise upbeat) talk show, saying that “today is a bad day.” She tells her audience that she’s been asked how she can go on when she’s sad.

Some days, some weeks, some months, are just like that. The show must go on.  Ellen did.

For us, functioning on a less glamourous plane, this state is still familiar. What to do when there is no contract, no deadline set, and no external reason to go on? Creative folks have all encountered this. I sure have.

I've heard writers tell others to go for a walk, or set a manuscript aside for a time, or do something nice for themselves. Some swear by chocolate. Coffee works better for me. But then, I start my good days with it anyway.

Some think talk therapy is part of the answer, and there are therapists who specialize in plowing through and out of creative dry spells. I never had the budget for such, but I wouldn’t hesitate if I had.

There’s a third way, and it’s the only one that has worked for me. I call it “write anyway.” I have also told progeny, when they hit a wall, that you only know how to get out of a ditch by actually climbing out, a.k.a. doing it.

Something about grinding the wheels and suspending the critic inside (and the sabotaging voices outside) while creating, has been therapeutic for me.

It doesn’t actually matter that the results are not golden, the process is.

You’re back in it, and the stalled engine is starting to rev up.

 Vroom--- vroom, go!

Was I LUCKY?

In the middle of June, I was a victim of crime.

It happened like this:

Before eight, still in my nightgown, the doorbell rang. I peeked through the curtain in my room to see a tall, burly, African American man, wearing a dark hoodie and holding a brick in his hand. I realize it reads like a bad-dude cliche, but I tell it as it was. I went to get DH up from his downstairs office. Something about the doorbell ringer felt “wrong,” somehow. 

Before DH had a chance to even stand up, BOOM! —a loud thud, the house shook, and the door upstairs was kicked-in.

I, always leery of guns, said, “he’s IN,”  and then I added, “get the gun!”

 DH managed to get his gun and run upstairs as loudly as he could. I heard a scuttle. I called 911. I let them know it was ongoing.

I was too scared to go upstairs, but when DH came down they had run away. (I only saw one, but DH confronted two.) The first was in our bedroom, and ran out with “something.” Only after the police arrived (within minutes) I realized the burglar had taken my pocket book.

They escaped in a car that was waiting for them downstairs, a Subaru-like gold or gray SUV with a sunroof.

I have alerted the bank, and the credit bureaus, and something called ChexSystems. (This last one recommended by my bank.) All accounts were closed. As they took all my seeing glasses, (those were in my pocketbook) I couldn’t drive until I had an exam and glasses made. My address book with many addresses that I still wonder how to retrieve, was also in the robbers’ possession. Not that they can get much from it. Some of the people in it are not living anymore. It was that old.

Weeks later, we were notified by a check-cashing service that someone tried to cash one of my (by then canceled and account closed) checks. They provided a phone number where someone pretending to be me said she indeed wrote that check. They have the crook on camera. The police have a detective on the case.

These criminals are not just brutes, they’re not very smart. In the end they got nothing they could use.

I have had friends and neighbors tell me we were lucky. It could have been so much worse. That brick could have been used to bash my head. They could have gotten more stuff. They could have had a gun.

So why do I feel so unlucky?

Too many people are victims. As I shared the story with dear friends, they opened up about their brushes with brutality. We made jokes about the difference between outlaws and in-laws. You know, the first burst in and leave quickly, the second burst in and… you get it.

Suggestion: do not tell crime victims they were lucky. It is well-meant, but let time convey this, seeping in as all experiences that awaken us will do.

The physical damage is relatively light. The emotional will take time to absorb. It took me almost two months to write this post.

Harnessing Feelings for Creative Projects

Ever get the feeling that nothing you do, or can do, really matters?

I’m thinking of something different from futility. It’s not that anything anyone does will not make a substantial difference. Other people seem effective and even powerful. It’s the sense that your own endeavors don’t amount to “a hill of beans,” to quote an old colloquial expression, made famous by the movie Casablanca.

Another word for this feeling is helplessness.

 

It may be the primary feeling of childhood, and one of the major themes of children’s literature. It occurred to me that rather than wallow, I could use it when I write.

A younger voice is never more effective than when we harness these feelings and work them into a story.

While our protagonists solve their problems, we solve ours. A writer’s main problem often amounts to the lack of a compelling and authentic narrative voice.

From voice comes character, and from character comes a plot. That’s a lot of birds hit with one sling. Yes, I chose an expression that connotes power to end this post.

Now go get ‘em.