My Muse

My muse holds a magician’s top hat in the spotlight,

busks on a street corner playing with fire,

pens sonnets in the corner of the coffeehouse.

He disappears in crowds as I arrive,

and I pursue him to no avail

through the trail of illusion, through lingering tones,

through words scattered in my path,

through his vital force imbued in the air like ozone.

My Loneliest Christmas

This is the Christmas story I seldom tell, of the time thirty years ago that I spent Christmas in an inpatient treatment facility for female sexual abuse. I was lucky to be in a facility with an outstanding program for women like me, and I credit them with turning my viewpoint from that of a victim to that as a survivor. There’s a big difference between the two.

Christmastime is not the time to have one’s husband (now ex) disclose that he had molested several children in his teens*. Especially when one is a sexual abuse survivor. Especially at Christmas. I spiraled into a depression, my promises to weather anything in my marriage warring with my promise not to stay married to a man who could relapse anytime and harm my young nieces. I was already estranged from my parents at that point; I had no support left except friends many, many miles away.

I had exhausted my long-distance friends with my anger and depression and suicidal ideations**. I had exhausted the crisis hotline worker with numerous calls on numerous sleepless evenings. My mentor/father figure and the crisis worker both urged me to seek inpatient treatment. Finally I listened.

I found a place where I could get treatment, a place called Brattleboro Retreat in Brattleboro, VT, one of two facilities my insurance could cover. I visited my PA to see if she could help me get insurance to cover the visit; she informed me that they wouldn’t pay unless they believed I was either suicidal or psychotic. I wasn’t psychotic, and we weren’t sure if I qualified for suicidal despite ideations to the effect, but she convinced the insurance company that I wasn’t suicidal yet, but I could very well be shortly. Insurance accepted me, and I scheduled my stay for the two weeks I had during Christmas break. This, the intake person at Brattleboro told me, was less than the recommended minimum of three weeks, but I knew I needed to get back to work on time to preserve my dignity.

I took the bus from Oneonta to Brattleboro carrying one suitcase as soon as winter break began. I looked out onto a grey, bleak winter which made me feel more bereft. I felt I had nothing, would not have anything ever again. I vaguely remembered the check-in procedure at the small front office, the mental status exam questions about hearing voices and whether the TV spoke especially to me.

My first impressions of the unit, my two-week home, was that of old wood in need of some refinishing, worn green carpet, in a comfortable stately boarding house in need of a little freshening up. I remember the room with bath I had to myself, the front central desk, and the white paneled doors with security alarms.

From the first day, I experienced Brattleboro as a combination of summer camp and boot camp, with my psyche being remade through stark honesty and challenge, meditation and self-soothing. Brattleboro Retreat’s program could be best described by this metaphor: You’re standing on a rickety floor, an unsafe floor, but it’s the only floor you’ve known. Suddenly, the floor is being torn out from under you plank by plank, and suddenly you find yourself falling, but then there’s a safety net catching you and tools to help build that floor up. But I cried a lot, mourning my lost relationship, feeling overwhelmed with the feelings coming up from my childhood abuse, taking the scorn of my new roommates too personally. I know now that they reacted to my academic language, my talking about recovery but not recovering, and to their own vulnerabilities which they tried to hide with tough talk while I wore mine like a suit.

On Christmas Eve, we played Jenga and Scrabble amongst the tinsel that decorated the windows, in a world of our own, as we were not allowed outside the campus until we’d earned outing privileges. Once or twice a resident acted out, using old broken strategies for dealing with feelings, and we would have group meetings to tell that resident how their actions made us feel as part of the protocol for dealing with destructive behaviors.

On Christmas, I felt lonelier than I ever had in my life, and I spent too much time on the unit’s one phone talking to my friend long-distance. But I journeyed down to the gift shop and bought myself a midnight blue sweatshirt with “Brattleboro” emblazoned across it in collegiate letters and a jar of good-smelling body cream. I rubbed the cream on myself after I soaked for a half-hour in the private tub I was allowed because I was neither an imminent suicide risk nor did I have an eating disorder.

My experience of Brattleboro, looking out the large windows of the common space at the frozen river at night and Christmas lights in the distance, changed my life in ways I am still learning. It taught me how to mourn and let go, how to seek the light, how to see myself as a survivor rather than a victim. I am who I am because of Brattleboro, because of that lonely Christmas.

* It is entirely possible (and believed by several mutual friends) that my ex lied about his history of being an abuser for obscure reasons, but I can only go on what he told me at the time.

** At this point, I was probably also suffering from a rapid-cycling bipolar episode, but I had not been diagnosed yet.

What I’ve learned by using Submittable

When I went to Archon, a conference for writers in St. Louis, a few people advised me to start submitting shorter items, poetry and short stories, as the novel market has been so capricious. One person tipped me off to Submittable, a web page/app which helps writers identify potential publishers (literary journals, writers’ web pages, etc.) and streamlines the submission process.

What I’ve discovered from using Submittable:

1) Many journals have submission fees, so submitting in bulk can cost some money. The lowest fee I’ve seen is $5.00, the highest fee I’ve seen is $30. The more “literary” or exclusive the journal, the higher that fee.

2) There are a lot of themed calls for submissions — fantasy, horror, romance, cross-genre and more. Some of these offer a prompt — one of the ones I entered had the prompt “Catch up”.

3) I have a ten percent success rate, which has kept me from the despair about not finding an agent/publisher for my novels.

I get a lot of rejections for my work, but because there’s always more contests, and more hope, I feel better about trying.

On Christmas Music

I’m not tired of Christmas carols yet.

Given that it’s only Cyber Monday, a designation that seems odd given the online stores have been offering sales since Thanksgiving, I haven’t had too much exposure to Christmas carols this season.

But I have my favorite Christmas albums, Harry Simeone Chorale and Sinatra and Johnny Mathis, and — OMG, my husband just put Mantovani on (ok, Boomer)!

I have my new favorites, Pentatonix and Take Six, and — not “All I Want for Christmas is You”, which I’m tired of even though I haven’t heard it yet this season.

Throw in Benjamin Britton’s Ceremony of Carols and a bit of Handel’s Messiah, and my Christmas slate is filled with much music to listen to.

If you have Christmas favorites, please let me know in the comments!

Unusual Dreams of Christmas.

It would be a nice time to get obsessed with a story, while I’m waiting to hear back from potential developmental editors for Whose Hearts are Mountains, while I’m waiting for responses for things I’ve sent, while my last two weeks of school are easy and the festive season gives me ideas to play with.

I’m not getting any of those inspirations at the moment. “Silent Night” in Gaelic is playing on the stereo. The artificial fireplace is crackling and I can smell fake pine scent, and I wonder why these artificial remnants of a vital, pagan culture give me comfort. Would the real things give me more inspiration? I don’t know.

I admit that I have fantasies about Victorian-style Christmas Eves (note that in Victorian Christmas, decorations were put up Christmas eve and remained till January 6, the twelfth night of Christmas.) Of course, my fantasy soon takes me off into a decidedly pagan adventure with Father Christmas, finding a way to slip largesse and joy into people’s lives in the countryside. This might involve some invisible smuggling hunting of wild game for the table in a Robin Hood turn. Or modern ones, following an elusive busker through Chicago decorated for the holidays, a search for the treasure of knowing a talented soul.

For not being inspired, I sure feel inspired today.

Watching Black Friday

So we went to Black Friday at two of the commerce centers of the Kansas City area — Oak Park Mall in Olathe, KS, and the Plaza in Kansas City. People were shopping pretty civilly; Christmas music was not nearly in the air as much as I expected. There were lots of people to watch; we bought some clothes and an obnoxious jingle bell necklace for myself. It flashes red and green as well.

Our mini-vacation is ending today; we’ll drive home and put up our Christmas decorations tomorrow. A lot of people I know put up their decorations pre-Thanksgiving because a well-publicized study said that people who put up their Christmas decorations earlier were happier. We decided that after Thanksgiving was early enough.

I didn’t come up with any new writing ideas over the break. I think I’m too tired to right now and should stick to my classes and grading till I get there.

Let me be the first to wish you a happy holiday, no matter what holiday you celebrate this season.

Thanksgiving on the Plaza

It’s (American) Thanksgiving morning and I am at a Starbucks on Country Club Plaza. Given the number of people here, I have to think that not everyone spends their holiday in the oft-touted multigenerational blowout meal followed by a gender-segregated tradition where men watch football and women do all the cleanup.

If I’d gone the childbearing route, I would likely be expected to host, as expressed in the song “Over the river and through the woods/to grandmother’s house we go”. The song also mentions a sleigh, a rather outmoded form of transportation involving a semi-sentient horse that knows the way. Trust me, if I were Grandma, we’d be going out to eat.

Richard and I are those kind of adults who live far away from their relatives and who will neither host nor journey to those traditional Thanksgiving feasts, so we go someplace nearby that’s determined to have Thanksgiving dinners for people like us. This year it’s Kansas City, where we’re staying in a bed and breakfast just off the Plaza and watching the Plaza lighting from the balcony. And watching people go crazy for Black Friday.

What am I thankful for? My quirky, unconventional life.

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Because our families are so far away and it’s no fun to cook for two and our house is too chaotic for guests (with now four cats, as Buddy has been shunning our house for brighter prospects with his buddy the black-and-white cat), my husband and I go somewhere fun and eat turkey there.

This year, we’re off for a couple days to a mini-holiday in Kansas City: Staying at a bed and breakfast on the Plaza, eating turkey at a restaurant in Waldo (all together: where’s Waldo?), knocking around and watching shoppers on Black Friday. The bed and breakfast — Southmoreland on the Plaza — promises to be a treat, with afternoon sherry and turndown chocolates.

I started dating my now-husband on Thanksgiving break in 2005. He got acquainted to my ritual of watching Black Friday shoppers rather than shopping (much cheaper, fewer hassles). I think that’s why we got married: he liked my quirk.

So this should be a pleasant break before going back to work (I’m a professor of human services) on Monday. But there’s only one week of work, then finals, then I’m off for Winter Break. That’s just strange.

Practicing my query synopsis for Whose Hearts are Mountains

Anna Schmidt, a shell-shocked anthropologist, searches cross-country for the origin of an elusive folk tale in the wilds of the former United States. She holds her own secrets as the daughter of the premier cryptologist of the era, on the run by her deceased stepfather’s urging. She finds tantalizing hints of the tale, threats to her life, and unlikely connections — and a threat against humanity that only she, with her knowledge of cryptology, can solve.

Writing and the Art of Concealment

Writing is like performing magic in a way —

Writing utilizes misdirection — sometimes a misinterpretation of facts, or an unreliable witness, or an ambiguity can draw the reader’s mind away from an early conclusion.

Sometimes the omission of one sentence can conceal the plot twist from the reader. Agatha Christie does this well in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, where the narrator leaves out important actions he has performed.

A hint should not be too obvious, too direct, too revealing. In effect, they’re like the baffling prophecy in Oedipus Rex, where we can’t see how Oedipus is going to kill his father and wed his mother until it unfolds.

At the same time, the misdirection can’t be an outright falsehood, unless that falsehood is in the hands of an unreliable narrator or witness. The writer cannot lie; the characters can lie, or misinterpret, or make mistakes.

I was reminded of this yesterday when editing Whose Hearts are Mountains, because my developmental editor noted that I made something too obvious to readers who would have read my other work. How to make it less obvious? At one place, keeping silent. At another, misdirecting. Making things less obvious at another.

I feel like a magician when I can do this, knowing that words are as concrete or wispy as I need them to be.