Changing My State with Kings

I’m having a serious relationship with Mumford & Sons right now. It’s been going on for a couple of months. I think Chris knows. I keep singing along off key when I think he’s not in the room—only to realize he’s standing right next to me trying to ask me a question. It’s not at all surprising that I like a folksy/alternative group from the UK; try to contain your shock. Still, I find myself saying, “Yes. Exactly!” out loud, repeatedly as I walk around with my iPod plugged in.

Mumford & Sons recently released their second album, and it’s good. I, however, am obsessed with their first album, Sigh No More. Without doing a lot of review reading, I’m guessing most people agree the first and titular song is heavily influenced by Shakespeare—that rat bastard. Using actual lines from Much Ado about Nothing, kind of makes that critique a given. A quick interwebs search—I do like to have my own opinion after all—reveals a generic view about literary works as inspiration for this album. I get that. But I have to tell you: Every time I listen to this album I’m transported back to a college Shakespeare class—like for every single song. In my mind, each song evokes a Shakespeare play or sonnet.

Listen to “Awake My Soul”:

This song makes me think of Shakespeare’s sonnets on friendship. I’m of the opinion that his first 126 sonnets are about friendship—many are on the bandwagon with me, but I know not everyone is. Choose to disagree and we can have awesome Shakespeare rants on my blog! Do it! You know you want to. All the cool kids are having awesome Shakespeare rants. Really! 

Yes, yes. These boys are obviously strong in their religious faith as well; didn’t miss the obvious, promise. But a good song, like a good book and a good painting, has layers of meaning and plenty of room for listeners, readers, viewers to find their own way. It’s also up for a little critical analysis.   

Was that a really long way to go to tell you I’m writing about friends and friendship in this blog post? Listening to that particular song and thinking about Shakespeare’s sonnets led me to thoughts on friendship. That led me to the old adage, and also Harper Lee quotation below, about friendship:

“Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho’ can’t choose your family, an’ they’re still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge ‘em or not, and it makes you look right silly when you don’t.”

                                                                                                --To Kill a Mockingbird

Combine all of these thoughts and ideas and you get to the crux of my current dilemma. It’s not so much a dilemma as a question:  Can you really choose your friends? 

You think I’m just plain silly now, don’t you?  But, honestly, can you?  I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and walking through a list of my friends. Literally, I looked at each of my friends on facebook; and not quite so literal, when I left a school or a job, which friends stayed with me and which friends were probably just acquaintances? It gets tricky pretty quickly when you combine your literal and non-literal lists. Quite a few people show up in both my “just acquaintance” column and my “Facebook friend” column. Another dilemma; does social media clutter our lives with people who don’t need to be there? If you are tweety-twatting, the answer is yes. Of course you are. But then I’m a little biased. Although, truth be told, I’m wearing down on the Twitter-­is-all-bad front. Possibly—if you know how to be non-boring and monotonous—Twitter is a good place for you. Like if you are Steve Martin. I’ve actually almost joined Twitter to get his tweets. There is only one Steve Martin, so I think 90% of you are still just telling me the color of your couch (something I did in a Facebook status update just last week…dammit). Alright, one dilemma at a time, please:  Can you choose your friends anymore than you can choose your family? I just don’t think you can. I know I’m crazy, but I think I might also be right. 

I’m not saying our lives are pre-ordained or anything; but I do think, sometimes, people come into our lives when we need them or they need us. It’s happened too many times in my own life for me to chalk it up to coincidence. And those “just acquaintance” people I mentioned before sometimes turn out to be actual friends you just don’t need to talk to that frequently. You know these people. You run into them randomly after months or years without talking and you pick up like you’ve just had a conversation. It gets really weird when you compare notes and realize you’ve been living somewhat similar lives on opposite ends of the world—or, similar lives almost next door to each other. I tell you: this is why we invented cyber stalking. To keep track of the friends you don’t get to see often, but who’ve somehow managed to have a deep impact on your life. Just to make sure they’re doing OK, they got that career they’ve always wanted, wrote that novel, finally met the one; accomplished those things in life that brought out the true potential you always knew was there.

But did you choose that person to care about? Because that’s what friendship is to me.  That’s what Shakespeare is writing about in those sonnets and Mumford & Sons are singing about in those songs. You support your friends, you care about them, you listen when they talk and you share when they want to listen.

I am lucky enough to have a ridiculous amount of support in most things I attempt, and a fair number of true, devoted friends who listen to me babble (at best, bandy words about willy-nilly, really) without repercussions. There are at least 4 people I can say anything in the world to and they won’t hold it against me. There are a handful of others who support me, but call me on the carpet when I do or say something I shouldn’t. You need both kinds of people to survive. I truly believe this.

Currently, I’m spending most of my spare time trying to get the box store murder mystery manuscript to a completed second draft status so a call-me-on-the-carpet friend of mine can read it while she sits through her chemotherapy. This is proving to be a crazy task, as I keep breaking down whilst writing. It’s too close to home. My friend, in her seventies, has uterine cancer. This same friend was quite helpful when I was having my own uterus trauma and then went and contracted the disease herself. It’s a horrible sort of irony I still can’t quite wrap my head around. And there’s my guilt again, right on schedule. I shouldn’t be. I didn’t give her cancer. Feeling guilty just puts my ego into her disease, and I really have no place there. It is her fight and battle. But really? Seriously? Why do some people have so much on their plate? Why are the good ones not safe from horrible diseases? Why am I asking cliché questions there’s no good answer to?

When I’m overwhelmed with the writing and the tears, I do what anyone else would do, I turn to a friend and vent. I do it like everyday though. I vent to another friend every day. And for some reason, the friend I choose to vent to is the exact opposite of a 70-year-old woman: he’s a twenty something guy I can say anything to. I like the dichotomy; it’s somehow reassuring and sort of balancing. And, you know, good friends listen. Or read, as most of my venting/word vomit comes in the form of Facebook messenger chatter. So, yeah, if I were choosing my friends I’m not so sure I’d be spending most days worried about, caring about, thinking about and talking to an older woman and a younger man.   

In a nutshell: I think both Shakespeare and Mumford & Sons are trying to tell us you can’t actually choose your friends.

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts my self almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
   For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
   That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

I may not be able to choose my friends, but I can certainly thank them for their support and general awesomeness. I am one lucky girl who gets more than a little help from her friends.

HP Monday – Expelliarmus! An Extremely Close Read

Today I am mind-boggling obsessed with this one word: Expelliarmus. Why you ask? Well, we all recognize it as a word for one. I mean before 1998 it didn’t exist, did it? One day maybe a billion people will know what Tweety-Twatting is too, but will my made up word really have the same impact?

And that’s it right there. Reading book 5 I had this epiphany – one word sums it up. Expelliarmus. Words are ridiculously powerful things in our world and the wizarding world – words are a call to action and a cease and desist as well. If you have the right words you have power. And as simple as Expelliarmus is; it’s the most powerful thing in Harry’s arsenal – in Rowling’s arsenal really. Without Expelliarmus there would be no story, no books, no Harry. I mean, I know it’s no Avada Kedavra, but in the end (and I’m foreshadowing all the way to the very end here) it’s all that’s needed.

ONE WORD!!!!

I bring this up now because of the following passage found somewhere in the middle of the great vastness that is book 5:
“Right,” said Harry, when she had sat down again, “shall we get practicing then? I was thinking, the first thing we should do is Expelliarmus, you know, the Disarming Charm. I know it’s pretty basic but I’ve found it really useful – “
“Oh, please,” said Zacharias Smith, rolling his eyes and folding his arms. “I don’t think Expelliarmus is exactly going to help us against You-Know-Who, do you?”
“I’ve used it against him,” said Harry quietly. “It saved my life in June.”
Smith opened his mouth stupidly. The rest of the room was very quiet.

And then I really thought about all the times – past and in books yet to come – where this one simple charm is used. I’ll give you all a few minutes to think about it. YEAH, I KNOW!

This is how close of a read book 5 is for me this time. I know I complained about the weight and thickness of this daunting novel last week. If you read my blog or know me at all, you know I have a problem with many, many books needing another edit before they go to print. This is a different story for a different time, but basically this is a lot to do with the current economic crisis and the world of publishing; it doesn’t mean I have to like it. But this book is different. Rowling wrote a very long book, but every word and every action is perfectly placed. I’m not saying there aren’t plot holes, like Anna suggested last week – I really do think there are. But the writing itself is just so close – every sentence of dialogue exists for a reason and most scenes play for back story, foreshadowing and action all together. Expelliarmus is the key.

What do you think? Have I jumped off the deep end now? Is there another word, charm or counter-curse out there you think means more? Let us know what it is this week. Next week we’ll discuss the movie and why I just may like it more than the book…

Oh, and there was no Buffy this week, but I’m leaving you with a clip from another one of my geeky addictions. If you haven’t seen Doctor Who, I highly recommend this episode “The Shakespeare Code” from season 3. Hey, you already knew I had a small obsession with David Tennant; this should not be surprising at all.

Ramblings from a Sleep Deprived Writer

Or, how I’m really not writing my novel right now, but still pretending I am…

I’ve written myself into this very strange place. I’m not sure how I got here or how I’ll get out, but I’m here right now and I feel I must continue on. I think it would be easier if I’d written Tea – my protagonist – into the corner, but it turns out it’s actually me. No, I’m not my protagonist; but I am the writer and have borrowed from my past – and present – for this novel. It took me about 8,000 words before I had to borrow from my past (although in retrospect, I did it in the first 1,000 without realizing it).

Tea is 17 and the novel takes place the summer between her junior and senior year of high school. Alas, I don’t really remember high school that much. Not that anything bad happened to me there; in fact I’m pretty sure I enjoyed it, but apparently I’m older than the hills or something and high school memories are fading fast – almost as fast as that cliché.

This is what I do when I get stuck in my story and need some younger-than-my-current-age interaction and dialogue. I write down a memory from when I WAS that age and then go back and re-write it to show what’s happening – instead of just telling it. I add dialogue and descriptions and honestly make up a lot of the stuff that probably never really happened; because that’s what writers do after all. And then once it is all done I can usually pick right up in my story, maybe using a line, description or small idea from my recent, made up memory and plug it into the action. So far, this scenario has been working out well. It means I don’t stop writing when I’m stuck and I can use some of the overlooked memories for later characters and novels.

There is a side effect as well, the more I write about the experiences I had in high school, the more I remember them. Entire conversations come flooding back into almost perfect clarity – things I wore, things I thought, things I never told people. It’s honestly bizarre, especially reliving these escapades from my adult view point – which has changed quite a bit since high school. I’ve thought about people I haven’t thought about in…I’m counting on my fingers, hold on…15 years or so. When did I get so old?

The problem: Here I sit, writing away, on my own personal journey, forgetting all about Tea and her teammates trying to solve a murder in their grocery store, those poor people. They haven’t figured out who the real killer is which means John is rotting away in jail after confessing to a crime he didn’t commit…all while I’m worried about who I’ve forgotten from high school. I know I’m making this sound like high school doesn’t matter – which is silly because the large majority of my readers ARE high school students or teachers – but I have a point about high school, I promise.

About halfway through one such writing exercise I remembered someone I haven’t thought about in years. Someone who IS very similar to one of the characters in my story – apparently I’ve subconsciously written in a friend from high school. Then I realized I never thought of him as a friend when we were in high school, but I think of him that way now. Not because I talk to him now (as far as I know, we haven’t talked since the late ‘90s) and our relationship is that much stronger, but because we actually WERE friends in high school. Just by remembering all of the time we spent together, all of the things we shared, and some of the conversations we had, my adult self realizes we were fairly close for a time.

I don’t really keep in touch with many friends from high school – the ones I actually realized before today were friends I mean – oh, many of them are now facebook friends, but that doesn’t really count, does it? Anyway, most of these people friended me (and if any of you are reading this, I’m glad you did). If you know me at all you know my two closest friends have been my closest friends since the second grade, making today’s writing epiphany a little odd. Here is another paradox – I don’t necessarily consider those two friends high school friends – Amy, Stacy and I transcend all of that somehow. Sure we knew each other in high school but we each did our own thing – some of our friends overlapped and we spent a ton of time together outside of school – but that’s never been who we are.

I thought about this guy – who I now realize was a friend in high school – and I suddenly wanted to know what he was doing now, as an adult. I wanted to see what adulthood had changed or nurtured in him. If, like me, looking back on his high school experience illuminated some part of his adult character: Is high school a time to remember and learn from, or do we all just start to forget about it after our mid twenties? Of course it didn’t just stop with one person. I’d just finished writing out a memory involving four people by name, am I in contact with any of those people now? No, I’m not. So what are they all doing? I guess this is why classmates.com exists – possibly even twitter – don’t hold your breath, I’m not joining either of those social networks anytime soon. Twitter is just a bad Doctor Who episode waiting to happen!

I did some digging on my preferred social networks and found out a lot of interesting stuff in under an hour. This is both cool and creepy (see previous Dr Who comment). I’m not sure I want someone sitting around wondering about me and then finding out everything they need to know just by clicking a button. Obviously I must be OK with it to a point or I wouldn’t have a blog, but still! See how I’ve not only written myself into a corner but I’ve completely stopped working on my novel today.

And what did I discover in the end? I told you I had a point, way to keep reading. I’m not really sure if this is a big reveal or not, but I discovered I like writing YA and mid-grade because I DO think it matters. I’m hoping kids and students will get something out of their current situations, maybe get a leg up on where I was at your age; and I’m hoping adults will remember something meaningful they’ve forgotten from their childhood or teen years. Maybe we all have a forgotten friend or teacher who helped shape our adult selves and reading one of my books will plant a seed in your subconscious; a seed I hope grows into a beautiful memory.

Or, if you aren’t as sappy as I am, then here’s some startling facts I learned in my hour of research on high school classmates – maybe this will inspire you.

Startling facts about people Mariah went to high school with:

• At least 12 are now teachers – two in our old high school.


• At least 8 were, or still are, professional athletes or college/pro coaches (this is utterly ridiculous, apparently I went to Jock High)


• At least 10 are in bands – from garage bands to Harry Connick Jr.’s orchestra and everywhere in between (I was in the marching band, so this number is probably higher – but I stopped counting at 10. I can go see at least 5 of these people in upcoming concerts; I’m on the fence about this).


• 8 are – or soon will be – medical doctors. With another 5 earning PhDs in some other field. (Some of these are married to each other – you are all making way too much money!)


• 1 is a magician.


• 1 is an actress in movies and television shows I’ve bet you’ve seen. She’s also a stage actress in NYC.


• 1 had his house torn down and rebuilt by the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team – it was the season premiere house this season.


• 1 ran for the Mayor of Bloomington in the last election. It’s not a small town – alas, he did not win.


• 1 is working for some government agency or embassy (The fact that I found this out on-line means I hope she’s not a field agent and our national security is a little stronger that that).


• 1 is an Army Ranger (on-line did not tell me where he is stationed so a little more at ease about this whole national security thing).


• At least 2 others are published authors (one of those is published in Welsh, which is an entirely different language with lots of double letters, and therefore gets extra kudos from me. Way to go Chris!)


• 4 are social workers.


• 3 are pilots.


• 3 are currently trying to adopt (my fingers are crossed for you Morgan!).


• 5 are expats currently living abroad at least semi-permanently (Yes, this includes the guy published in Welsh. I think you have to live in Wales to understand the language, let alone write in it).


• At least 4 others have blogs (You guessed it; one of those blogs is at least partly in Welsh).


• 1 – ME – discovered if my husband and I do have any children they can be duo-citizens because he is a British expat living in the US (this makes me happy, but does not mean I will be having those babies any time soon – no breath holding again. And yes, I looked that up in the hour allotted as well!)


• 10 people married their high school sweethearts (Scary. I don’t remember that many people from high school, I can’t imagine finding marriage love there).


• 1 – ME again – just sheepishly realized that she a) really fell in love for the first time her senior year of high school and b) met her husband her senior year of high school and c) a & b are two different guys.


• At least 6 people are no longer with us (I’m sure this number is higher – social networking is not really a good tool for things like death, cancer and other life taking illnesses. We really try to be happy and upbeat while we network on the internet).


• I stopped counting marriages, divorces and babies – I’m guessing these match national statistics.
  
  

And that was just in an hour, imagine what three hours would produce! I’m done with my ramblings, I’m going back to write some more about Teagan and her SuperMug exploits. I’ll tell you what – her character arc just got a whole lot bigger!

New Motto for a New Blog

I received a facebook message from a friend recently asking for a critique on her writing. She included a poem in her text for me to look at. The message came with a warning: “I’m insecure about my writing and tend to shut down when discussing it, but I trust your voice and value your opinion”.

Although I do think I was treading on thin ice when I responded with my critique – and I would like to state right here in my blog that it was an amazing poem that paints a moving picture – what struck me more than even her writing sample was that simple warning phrase, “I tend to shut down when discussing my writing”.

Amen sister! We all shut down to a point; bearing your soul is NEVER easy and I think it’s what stops many potential writers from following through. Heck, it still stops me in my tracks almost every day. A writer needs to get used to rejection – because it WILL happen – but I can’t think of a better way to start my blog. And again to that friend out there who may be reading this: Please, please, please keep on writing. Work through the pain and fear to find the exhilaration of painting that perfect word picture. It’s SO worth it!

I do feel like I’ve been forced to blog. I’m not complaining; it’s something I’ve thought about doing for awhile, but freelancers need to post musings so editors can check out their style. A pitch can only take you so far in today’s social networking society - and so here I am blogging. Soon I’ll be forced to tweet too; and then what will I do?! Those who know me know I refer to all things Twitter as “tweety-twatting” and I hate it. If you really want to know the minutia of my existence then this probably isn’t the blog for you. And may I suggest you get a life while you’re at it…seriously…right now. Stop reading this.

For everyone else, this is where you can find the ramblings of a freelance writer, novelist and avid reader. I learned a life lesson three months ago when I lost my day job; instead of taking the lackluster jobs my old company offered, I decided to turn to my passions to make a living. I will no longer use the office job as an excuse for my unfulfilled dreams and ambitions! I will no longer (or less seldom) shut down when someone rejects my writing – or gives it a scathing critique!

I’ve honestly never been happier and I’d like to share those lessons with anyone who will listen – or read – them. Write. Read. Live. It really is that simple.