End Already

Is there anything more pitiful than the end of June?
School's ending is long gone,
The fourth of July is invisible
until the calander is flipped,
And the hottest days of the summer
lay ahead in panting waiting;
The warm welcoming embrace of summer's start
Fades into a hazy clingyness
As memories of winter fade
And are no longer the juxtaposition we need.
No, the end of June is a tortuous time
With long days and hot nights
Lingering into eachother with seamless continuity,
When the crickets saw away at their legs
and the frogs gut and groan,
While we all look out windows longingly
Wondering when will July save us?
Will time ever speed back up?
Will June ever, finally, mercifully, end?

Ferberize

The soap suds are a shiny disco ball in the sink
I need you! My son cries
I need you! I cry
The soap spuds spin a shiny disco ball in the sink
I need you! He cries, he cries
I will always need you, I cry
Shh, the night breathes
You don't need eachother
The silence outside the house presses on my ears
I need you! My infant son cries
I have always needed you! I cry
The disco soap spins to a stop
I open the door
Mom!  I need you!  He cries
I need you!  I cry
We cry
Him back to sleep

Unexpected Places

I'm re-reading "The Tipping Point" by Malcom Gladwell.  This is my third time around.  Touted as a business or psychology read, it doesn't really shout: writing inspiration!  But for me, it is.  The concepts expressed here are helping shape my sci-fi world. 
I read a quote tonight that I wanted to share.  It's superb.  It was written by a psychologist named Walter Mischel  about how humans perceive each other:

When we observe a woman who seems hostile and fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve usually makes us choose between the two syndromes...  She must be a really castrating lady with a facade of passivity - or perhaps she is a warm, passive-dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness.  But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts and it is possible for the lady to be a hostile, fiercely independent, passive, dependent, feminine, aggressive, warm, castrating person all-in-one.  Of course which of these she is at any particular moment would not be random or capricious - it would depend on who she is with, when, how, and much, much more.  But each of these aspects of her self may be a quite genuine and real aspect of her total being.

This encompassing understanding of the female condition is such a relief I could almost cry.  This explanation should be tattooed on all men's forearms at birth. 

A Blog By Any Other Name...

The title of my blog is there to remind me that in writing, all things are possible.
In my continuing education writing class last year, my professor, Robert Liddell, told us that when writing fiction we can do anything we want; we can put a dragon in the room. But whatever we do, we just have to make the reader believe it.
Believability can't be faked.  Either your writing rings true or it doesn't.  For instance, J.K. Rowling has the talent to make me suspend disbelief and indulge in the magical world of Harry Potter.  Every reader truly believes that brooms can fly and Hogwarts is currently accepting students.  But on the flip side, a recent read by one of my favorite authors lacked that believability on many levels: the characters' conversations were forced, the plot was thin, etc.  It was almost as if all the pieces of a puzzle were forced together instead of finding the right fit.  The result was a jumbled sense of dissatisfaction.  
So I keep coming back to this lesson about believability: the dragon in the room. I can put him there, but I have to make you believe it.  
But as the title of my blog?  
I keep looking at the title and thinking I can do better.
First of all, it sounds very Chinese, which I am not.  So I worry that I will mislead all two of my wonderful readers.
And if it doesn't sound Chinese, it can come off as overtly fantasy.  I do love the fantasy genre, but I don't associate strongly with it.  If anything I am a science fiction fan.  Or, more realistically, just a fan of fun reads.  Dragons may be many things, but 'fun' does not top the list.
So, I should put something fun and science-fictiony in the room instead....  When I think of such a thing I will let you know.  Maybe there are some suggestions out there.
That means that until I come up with something better, I'm stuck in this room with this dragon who keeps reminding me to keep writing!  And don't be afraid: whatever I write about, it can't be as silly as him.

Why I Adore Stephenie Meyer (and her website!)

First of all, I loved Twilight!  It is an engrossing story that enchants me every time.  If nothing else, I would be enamored with Stephenie Meyer for producing such a wonderful book.
What drew me to Mrs. Meyer's website was Breaking Dawn.  A friend of mine had read the incomplete novel on Mrs. Meyer's site and recommended if to me.  So, during one night feeding where I needed to stay awake I fired up the itouch and navigated to http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/ and found the entire unpublished manuscript.  I was blown away on multiple levels.  I was thrilled that she had put this jewel online for free (the circumstances that got it there are unfortunate).  While reading the story I started browsing through other parts of her website, and I found unedited outtakes, insight into her writing process, and candid revelations about getting published.  Every new page on her site either entertained or enlightened me.
On her 'Twilight' page I found one of my biggest inspirations to date: Stephenie Meyer's bio.  In it she explains how she wrote Twilight in three months!  Suddenly writing a novel seemed possible!  It was reassuring to learn that she wrote the whole thing at night after she put her children to sleep (she even had a child that wasn't sleeping through the night yet!).  Hey! I thought, I have a child that doesn't sleep through the night!  Maybe I can still write novels too!  Granted, she actually went to school for this, and she was a stay at home mom, but I think I can get past my structural engineering degree and my 40 hour work week and find some time to write, too!
So far her website had entertained and inspired me.  As I read on, it educated me on the publishing process.  She also has links to sites that will help me when I start trying to get published in the future.  And finally, it impressed me.  Her site links to many fan sites, and there are so many resources for her fans to feel connected to her.  I think fan worship is an amazing and rare thing, especially for a writer of her caliber.
So for all of those reasons I fell for Mrs. Meyer like I had fallen for Twilight years before. She really is a treasure, and I highly recommend her website: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/

Any Means Necessary

I am disgusted when people talk on the phone while going to the bathroom.  The hygienic meltdown of the situation is alarming, and there is somehow a deterioration of decency at the same time.  It's like taking a hostage behind that stall door with you; some blindfolded innocent who learns too late that they are accompanying the speaker into the john.  I'm fairly certain that most people's response to the question: "care to join me on the can?" would be "no!"
Ah, that being said, I doubt you'd like to join me where I am now.  Shades drawn, sitting next to a completely full diaper genie, I am breast feeding my four-month old son.
The bulk of my writing these days is done while nursing or pumping.  These fifteen to sixty-minute intervals are the only chunks in my day where I can't clean the house, work from home, work out, sleep, or do any of the other multitudes of daily chores that don't really seem to fit in a 24-hour period.  When my son was first born I would read to him during day feedings, and use the itouch to watch reruns on Netflix at night feedings.  Then, around three months old, my boy would stop eating if I spoke; he decided we should chat instead, and he would rather babble back to me than eat.  As adorable as that was, increasing our hour-long feedings even further was impractical, and I had to stop reading to him.  I started reading to myself during feedings, and sometimes answering emails from the itouch.  A few weeks ago it dawned on me that I could spend this time writing, and just email myself any work I got done!  I started in earnest, mad at myself for not thinking of it earlier (there is a chance my husband thought of this.  I can't remember.  But, at least half of the advancements in my life are from him seeing the obvious when I cannot, so there's a fair chance he thought of this one, too).
Which brings me to today, tapping away a blog entry on my itouch; it is my 2"x4" Moleskine.  I bring the electronic device with me obsessively and charge it like a little lifeline.  I may have a meltdown if I ever misplace it.  I have two charging cords, just in case.
Honestly, the work I turn out on the itouch is inferior to the writing I produce in the cafe, but it's there.  Riddled with typos and never as compelling as what I produce during devoted writing time, at least I can lay out plots, create dialogue, and paint settings in imperfect ways; all of which are then available to me the next time I get the urge to conglomerate writing bits and edit, edit, edit!
Like I said, it's not perfect, but it's something.  Every day I can write.  It's my meditation; my release.  Anyone working full time with an infant who does not yet sleep through the night needs a release.  Strike that.  Everyone needs a release!  Writers and other artists need their mediums.  It chafes when we can't create.
I hope this encourages others to do as I do, and use any means necessary to write, anywhere, any time!  Except, perhaps, when you're on the toilet.

Why I write

The following is the result of a lightly-edited writing prompt from a recent "Let Us Out" Meeting:

I’ve always written.  I don’t remember not writing. 

I always had a journal, and I know I was writing stories to entertain myself by the time I was in high school.  I remember writing a teen romance that was about ten pages long.  I showed it to my best friend at the time to see what she thought.  Admittedly, the heroine was based loosely on me, but it wasn’t intended to be me.  In the story the heroine had a beautiful smile, and when she finished the story the first thing my friend said was: “you think your smile is contagious?” and then she went on to say that the piece just showed how full of myself I was.  I stopped showing people my short stories after that.

Then I met my husband about ten years later, and I started writing things to entertain him and some of our friends.  He told me I was good, and slowly I let myself believe it.  And now I’m writing because I’ve lost so many years of story-telling just because some jealous bitch told me I was self-centered (I was, but to hell with her), and I’m not going to waste any more time. 

But mostly I write because I keep making up stories and I want to tell them.  There isn’t a week that goes by where I’m not scribbling ideas on a scrap of paper on my nightstand.  I can’t stand to think how many awesome ideas I’ve lost by just saying “I’ll remember that in the morning” and then I don’t.