The Story I Never Wrote

I almost wrote a novel in my twenties. The idea came to me in one long dream I had while sick with a kidney infection. (Note: fevers are great for giving ideas. Margaret Mitchell purportedly wrote Gone with the Wind while out with the flu.) I could only remember snippets, but the bare bones of the dream became this:

The fall of the US began with attacks on universities by blue-collar mobs fronted by mysterious benefactors (“Blue-Collar Wars,” 2012-2015)
The Blue-Collar Wars developed into factional fighting. Occasionally, a faction would develop or steal weapons, and much burning and looting occurred, so there’s a breakdown of infrastructure, and sone limited radioactivity in places.
Because infrastructures, industries, and social structures have been disrupted, the wars (more a free-for-all) eventually splinter the US into several chaotic states.
The Religious Right and the White Supremacy Movement have melded into the Free White State, which takes up much of the Pacific Northwest. Some “states” have become distrustful and insular. Some states with severe shortages of basic necessities have become feral lands. The desert areas are said to be where people go when they wouldn’t be allowed to live anywhere else*.
The protagonist was a young assistant professor of Anthropology** who was traumatized in the attack on her university, the first attack of the Blue-Collar Wars. Shell-shocked and having just lost her parents to murder six months before, she decides the only thing she has to live for is research, so she clears out her bank account, outfits herself, and leaves campus even as the buildings burn. (An interesting note: One item in her safety deposit box is a passport, birth certificate, and social security card under another name).
The protagonist wanders around, researching emerging urban legends. She’s hypothesized that the tales would resemble “Mad Max meets King Arthur”, which they do for the most part. However, there’s another thread she keeps hearing, from people who were shown kindness from people of compassion and love, who seemed to shine just a little when you looked just right …

Yes, elves. Not in the Keebler variety, and less tight-assed than the Tolkien variety, but perhaps if some of them didn’t sail to the west because they liked humans too much …

Don’t worry, more happens.

Yes, there was a plot — in my head. There were several scenes written, mostly about a relationship from meet-dire emergency to pledging undying love. Those are still the fun ones to write, especially if there’s awkwardness around the whole thing. Only about five people have read any of it; one of my friends nicknamed the idea “Dirty Commie Gypsy Elves in the Desert”, and I’ve called it that, rather sardonically, ever since.

I never wrote this story. I felt overwhelmed by the potential of plot holes. I didn’t know enough about living off the land, hydroponics and aquaponics, or desert climate to describe the habitats of the Folk. I wasn’t sure whether the forces outlined above would be enough to topple the US (now I’m afraid that they are).

Most of all, I didn’t think my ideas were worthy of exploring.

And I didn’t write a novel for almost 30 more years.

Think of the time I wasted.

**********

* Yeah, I know, Mad Max. The Postman. But it makes sense.

** Not an insertion. I was an undergrad in a foods-related career path.

… and then, you edit

The process of writing flows for the most part — guided more or less by character and plot, fueled by coffee, words flow on the page, glowing with the aura of imminent birth. Then, the author peeks at their newborn and realizes that newborns are soggy, messy creatures.

Everyone has to edit. I made a mistake with my first book or two by thinking I didn’t need to edit. After all, I’m freakish when it comes to words — I learned to read when I was three years old (almost simultaneously with learning to speak), read the Journal of the American Medical Association in the doctor’s waiting room at age 10, things like that.

I learned that I needed to edit. This humbled me greatly.

Editing is not just proofreading, although proofreading is important. Spellcheck will never be enough — a student of mine once discussed “Elf Defense” in a final paper. It had passed spellcheck. I still giggle when I think about it, with pictures of “Legend of Zelda” dancing in my head.

Editing, in reality, includes:

Reading for flow: Does the narrative lag? Drag? Does it contain holes that characters could fall into? Conversely, does the narrative speed along, leaving the reader behind?

Reading for character: Are the characters consistent? Are inconsistencies explained? Will the reader get to know the characters? Identify with them?

Reading for word choice: Too many passive verbs? Awkward phrases? Hilarious double-meanings or mental pictures?

Reading for plot: Are there plot holes? Impossibly convoluted trails from A to Z? Is the plot dramatic enough or funny enough or whatever enough?

Time may help you with the process of editing. I know that when I have a newborn book in my hands, I can’t admit anything wrong with it. I’ve discovered if I let it sit for three months, I pick it up and can’t find anything right with it.

You may not be able to do all these types of editing yourself. If you’re so accustomed to your writing that you can’t see inconsistency in your characters, you may need other people’s help to edit. Remember that editors aren’t cheerleaders — but they are the ones who help you grow.

******
To the person from France: I’m pretty sure you’re not Emmanuel Macron …

Divergence — Trauma and Fairy Tales

“No amount of something you don’t need will substitute for something you do need.” — Bernard Poduska

I wrote the following essay to explore why I felt jealous of Grace, my current protagonist. Because she has been strongly focused on developing her musical talent, adolescence was something she had little time for. However, on her adventures, she has to deal with Ichirou, who is about her age, and Greg, who is a few years older. She’s definitely starting to notice the opposite sex as I write. And I got jealous of her:
*****

I suspect everyone has a fairy tale of their own writing that they hug to themselves, as a spell against trauma. The existence of the fairy tale fills that hole in their heart that the terror tore out of them, the recitation of that fairy tale to themselves chains and locks the dungeon door so their demon can’t escape. Moreover, if they could live their fairy tale to the end, the demon would be slain and the hole in their heart would be healed.

The fairy tales are as varied as the people who hold them and the trauma they’ve suffered. But they include this one word, as an incantation: “If …”

If the prince would fall in love with me, it would take away the terror and pain of my adolescence. That is my fairy tale.

My adolescence resembled Stephen King’s “Carrie”, without the ability to torch my tormentors. One of the acts perpetrated against me obliterated my innocence and stunted my adolescent development. I was thirteen at the time. I had all the crushes a typical teen girl entertained, but shame at even thinking of men as men shrouded my reverie.

Hence the fairy tale — if the prince would fall in love with me, I might be normal …

But no amount of something I don’t need will substitute for something I do need. The prince will never be enough, because only in fantasy does the prince truly understand the extent of damage
I suffered, and understanding is the key to the fairy tale. The prince can only interact with me at the current moment, and I am married, no longer that adolescent who needed healing. The hole in my heart will be there, will always be there, although it doesn’t ache as much as before.

The reality of life beyond the fairy tale is that everyone has a hurt that their fairy tale will never fix.

Food Part 2: Ichirou and Grace Discuss Vegetarianism

This post goes out to Lanetta, who gives me many things to think about in the comments. (Yes, you too, dear readers, can use the comments section to ask questions, make observations, or even just say hi!)
Yesterday Lanetta observed that Ichirou (a vegetarian) and Grace (the protagonist and omnivore) would inevitably have a discussion about Ichirou’s vegetarianism, and that we could develop the two’s personalities (and their friendship) through the conversation. I’m going to give this conversation a try:

We sat crosslegged on the floor of the cabin — rather, I sat crosslegged, while Ichirou sat seiza, I think just to show off. Ayana handed us each a bowl of steaming ramen soup. I noticed flat green pieces of what I suspected was seaweed and bits of soft white tofu. Ayana had also put a handful of snow peas and one of spinach, a much more elaborate ramen than I’d had before.

“Do Japanese people really eat ramen?” I asked as I took the spoon and tried to capture the noodles.

“Cut the noodles,” Ayana instructed. “I didn’t think to ask my accomplice to get chopsticks when he outfitted this place for me.” Ayana moved to the couch and put her bowl on the coffee table.

I didn’t tell her the secret Greg had asked me to keep, that I had met him when she hadn’t. “So how would I eat this with chopsticks?”

Ichirou took his spoon and held it parallel to the bowl he held in his other hand. With a smile, he pantomimed bringing noodles up to his mouth using chopsticks — and slurped loudly and long.

“That’s so impolite!” I shouted, slopping a little broth on my lap. “That’s your fault, you know.”

Ayana hid what I expected to be a smirk behind her hand. “It’s not impolite if you’re Japanese.”

I turned my attention back to Ichirou, who grimaced at his spoon. “Ichirou, why are you a vegetarian?”

“Lacto-ovo-vegetarian,” he shot back.

“Ok, then. Why are you a lacto-ovo-vegetarian?” I turned to my bowl and fished out a piece of silky, mild tofu.

“Well …” He set his bowl down, unfolded his now lanky body and wandered back into the tiny kitchen area. He returned with three forks, and handed one to each of us. He sat back on the floor, this time crosslegged. “I’m vegetarian because animals’ fates shouldn’t be decided by whether they’re cute, majestic, or malevolent. They just are, and they have just as much right to be as I do.”

“Oh,” I said, at a loss for words. “But we’re higher on the food chain, aren’t they?”

“We decided we were at the top of the food chain.” I saw Ichirou’s jaw set, which changed his face from darling to — interesting.

“But — what would you do if there was nothing to eat but meat and you were starving?” I blurted out.

“I would eat the meat because I had no choice.” He set down his half-empty bowl; I had abandoned mine a few minutes before.

“But you wouldn’t be a veg — a lacto-ovo-vegetarian — anymore,” I prodded.

“Vegetarianism has nothing to do with what I can’t do, only what I am willing to do.” He picked up his bowl and began to eat again. His deep brown eyes glanced up at me and in that moment I couldn’t remember why I thought him so young.

Food and your Story

Seasoned writers often recommend that, if you want to enrich the scene you’re writing, you include food, What can food do for a story?

Sometimes food drives the plot — the poisoned glass of elderberry wine in “Arsenic and Old Lace”, for example, or the cookbook in the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man”.

Sometimes the food drives the theme — for example, the lavish descriptions of food in “The Hunger Games”, or the lavish presentations of chocolate in the movie “Chocolat”.

Sometimes the food develops the characters — the residents of the ecocollective “Barn Swallows’ Dance” in my Gaia series eat mostly vegetarian diets they’ve grown and raised themselves.

Sometimes the food sets the mood — if a character picks at his food, we know him to be upset or distracted; if he gobbles the food, he’s rushed or famished.

Sometimes the food simply engages the senses in its descriptions. A character eats freshly fried, breaded cheddar cheese curds — are you hungry yet?

So let’s play with this: You have a character, female, college age. She hasn’t been able to eat for several hours, because she has been involved in a clandestine operation to stop the bad guys who wish to hijack a large political event. The action she and her group have taken has been marginally successful, and the group chooses a restaurant to eat at. She feels ambivalent about what she has done, because she has had to exercise the secret power she dislikes having. What will she eat, and how will she eat it? Will she gobble the food? Savor it? Eat it mechanically, not really tasting it?

How will this differ from her co-conspirator, a college-age Japanese man who practices vegetarianism and feels compelled to use his secret power to fix the world?

Utopian Musings

When the front passed through last night, and the air cooled, I slept …

In my dream, Richard and I drove into a town with colorful old buildings, showcase windows cluttered with the wares sold inside. It was like the small town I grew up in, except the wicked decrepitude of my home town had been replaced by benevolent wisdom.

Richard dropped me off at what looked to be a coffeehouse to write, while he consulted a mechanic to check out a noise the car made. I stepped inside the coffeehouse, and found myself in a large space with worn wood floors, weavings and carvings and peacock-hued jewelry. A table toward the center displayed baked goods, paper plates, and plastic forks. I had expected the goodies to be behind the counter for sale, but people walked up to the table freely after they’d bought coffee.

“We’re having a party,” a tiny woman with white hair and glasses smiled, brandishing a fork. “Please, join us.”

I’m sure I hesitated, and a middle-aged man with white-blond hair said behind me, “No, really. You’re welcome.” I felt welcome — I had never felt welcome anyplace, any time in my life.

Richard walked in. “Richard, we have to find a way to live here. This is where I was meant to be.”

**************

In this current age, we hold utopia suspect. Dystopia sells, because it speaks to our mood. Dystopia helps us say, “See? Those are my scars, the ones I hold secret. This is my damage.” We all are damaged, we all need to speak our damage, but we walk through life feeling we have no home.

We mistrust utopia. To be that loved, to feel true communion, bears risks — what if they disappoint me? What if they change their mind, what if they quit loving me? In reality, everyone we love disappoints us and changes their mind because they’re as human as we are. But utopia is the moment where we find ourselves loved, frozen in time.

*************
(You’re damned right I’m going to use this in my writing.

Nocturne

The FEMA app on my phone announces that the three-day heat advisory has expired. The air outside hangs heavily. I feel its weight in my chest, as if it has settled in my soul.

Too much time to myself, too much time to think. Too many heavy questions — why does my childhood self walk through my dreams? What does she search for?

I wrote this song twenty years ago. Why does it repeat over and over?
To dance naked in this pool of light
is all the moment requires of me —
eyes closed, as if I were alone
but I know you are there, almost —
almost close enough to feel,
almost close enough to touch;
my hand reaches out to touch your face
and touches air — you are not close enough …

Why do the fleeting moments when we know we’re loved fade and leave us doubting again?
Why have we all been wounded?

When the cold front moves in tonight, it may rain or even hail. Perhaps that will clear the air.

Kansas City, 2065

Sometimes, I worry about climate change, and fear we have come to the point of no return. I deal with this in a distinctly Buddhist way, telling myself it is what it is, as I have limited control over climate.

However, that doesn’t mean I cannot change the future in my books:

Berkeley, a time traveler hiding in the parched Chaos of Kansas City 2065, sends his protege Ian Akimoto back to 2015, purportedly to protect Berkeley’s former protege, Kat Pleskovich. Kat, the top daredevil in the game Voyager, doesn’t trust this enigma from the future, but when he warns her during a sabotaged Voyageurs stunt called “jumping time”, Ian gives her the chance she needs to survive. After several attempts on their lives, Kat and Ian, with the help of Berkeley, deduce that Harold Martin and Wanda Smith, Kat’s friends, are behind the attempted murders. With the help of Berkeley and Kat’s estranged mother, Agnes Faa Pleskovich, they discover that the archived notes of the Voyageur’s files reveal a pattern among the daredevil deaths. Then, when Berkeley sets them to deciphering Time Physics, a tome that Ian’s deceased parents wrote, Kat and Ian discover a plot that runs from 1930’s Kansas City to the environmental devastation of 2065, and a possible way to reverse it …

Yes, this is a magic solution to climate change — find its historical roots and keep it from happening. But the story allowed me to explore a ten-year drought and its effects — monocultures of adaptive but noxious giant hogweed in empty lots; bombed and burned-out buildings from civic unrest; lawlessness and evidence that the rich hole themselves away in bunkers hoarding water. It also gave me the opportunity to create consistent rules for time jumping and changing the future and develop underground subcultures for the Travellers (in this case time travelers) and Voyageurs (daredevil time travelers).

If only the reality was this easy to fix.

The Nature of Poetry

Did I mention that Josh Young — one of my characters — taught me to write better poetry? Given that Josh doesn’t exist except for pages in a book and in my mind, this would seem impossible. But when I wrote Josh, I created him as a talented English major who got teased in grade school because he was too beautiful, and who has grown into a formidable young man with mystical leanings. (Whether he is still beautiful or not, I expect, depends on personal preference, but his girlfriend/wife Jeanne thinks so.)
Josh, as an avid student of English literature and composition, learned about the same things I learned in that poetry class in college, but he took them more seriously. He identified as a poet, so he understood metaphor and developed the ability to distill his thoughts in the purest way possible. I, on the other hand, wrote entirely out of emotions, and my poems are of three sorts: “There’s this guy, I’m so blue, and I’m so blue because there’s this guy”. (My husband would argue this is still the case, bless him.)

When I wrote Josh’s poems in “Gaia’s Voice”, I had to write as Josh. In reality, that meant pulling up all those technical things I learned in my poetry class (long LONG ago), and pull Josh’s thoughts through that process. In my imagination, it looked more like this:

Josh stood over my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him approaching me, and I blamed my hearing as much as I credited his Aikido training. “Have you thought of holding back your passion?” he inquired as he read the words over my shoulder on the screen.

“Holding back?” I asked dumbly. I defined myself, if by nothing else, by my passion. I highlighted a block of text to delete it —

“No. Don’t deny the passion. Channel it. Play with it. Hint about it. Concentrate it like a laser beam and zap someone with it at the end of the poem.” I turned around to see him push that unruly lock of black hair out of his eyes.

I stared at my words on the screen. They made “How do I love thee” sound coy. They bludgeoned, they overwhelmed. They didn’t tease the way first love would. They did not capture Josh’s feelings. Moreover, they did not capture mine.

“Poetry captures an experience, not a speech,” Josh noted. Then, just as quickly as he had appeared, he walked off into the white existence of my imagination.

I wrote a fun section of my Work in Progress yesterday I wanted to share. To give a little background, A shadowy group called Second World Renewal have chased Grace and Ichirou, prodigies in viola and art prospectively, and Ichirou’s chaperone Ayana, across Poland. The three have boarded a ferry from Gdynia, Poland to Nynahshamn, Sweden as an attempt to get to their home countries. As they boarded the ferry, Grace noticed the porter resembled one of Second World Renewal’s hired muscle. Because Ayana brushes off Grace’s fear, Grace suspects Ayana is in league with the group.

Ayana sends Grace and Ichirou off to the disco while she claims to set a trap for the group’s thug. Having no choice, they dress up and go to the disco, where Grace gives in to her fatalism in a .

Let me know what struck you, what questions you would ask.

*****

Music blared in the disco, enough that I thought I saw the walls move. A few people sat at the bar tables and even fewer danced. The blue lights — can lighting, neon accents — rendered the clientele almost anonymous and the wooden tables and chairs and walls a greasy black. The performer, dwarfed against his equipment, hit knobs and slides and created loops of sound that slid against each other. The couple that slow-danced when everyone else on the floor couldn’t figure out whether to dance fast or slow took the anonymity offered to start locking lips. I wondered what that would be like …

Ichirou and I finally sat at the edge of the disco. We sat silently, not watching the performer, not looking at each other. I thought about Stockholm Syndrome and whether I could truly escape Second World Renewal’s plot and why they wanted me in the first place, given I wasn’t a real prodigy like Ichirou, and if I would survive to get my first kiss —

Tears overcame me.

Ichirou reached for my hand.

I yelped — “Don’t do that, you little pervo —“

A tall man wearing a crew uniform stopped by our table. “Is there a problem?” he asked in a low pleasant voice. That was all I could discern of him given the lurid blue lighting.

“No,” I gulped. “Everything’s okay. I’m just babysitting and — “

“You decided to bring your charge to the disco?” the white-uniformed man chuckled.

“Well, I …” Ichirou had turned away with his arms crossed as I spoke.

“It’s okay. Just so you don’t let him drink any alcohol.” His face bent close to mine, and I saw freckles, dark eyebrows, and a thin nose.

“We’re not drinking,” I shrugged. As far as I was concerned, Ichirou wasn’t drinking. I myself considered trying Sex on the Beach if I was about to lose my freedom to Ivanov’s goons.

“Why not? You have a chaperone.” He shared a significant look with Ichirou, of all things, and Ichirou nodded. “May I get you something to drink?”

“Sure, if you’re not going to drop a roofie in it.”

The man nodded thoughtfully. “It’s hard not to worry about that, isn’t it? I assure you, nobody’s going to tamper with this drink. What would you like?”

“Sex on the Beach,” I mumbled.

“I couldn’t hear that,” the crew member grinned.

“She wants Sex on the Beach,” Ichirou chirped. I laid my head on the table, hoping the blue lighting hid my flaming cheeks.

“Ok, one Sex on the Beach for the lady, and for you?” I heard the crew member ask Ichirou.

“I’m fine with mineral water. Sparkling if you have it,” Ichirou replied. And do they have any vegetarian food?”

“Lacto-vegetarian?”

“Lacto-ovo-vegetarian,” Ichirou corrected. “I don’t want her drinking on an empty stomach.”

“You’ll make a fine salaryman someday.” I saw the crew member wander off as I lifted my head. If I survived this trip, not even I would believe the story.

“Please, no, not a salaryman,” Ichirou breathed when the crewman had walked out of earshot.

“What’s a salaryman?” I queried.

“The stereotypical Japanese man. Works in a company, lives for the company, spends more time drinking with his co-workers than with his family. Dies of overwork.”

“Oh.” I wondered if being a salaryman would be better or worse than being a kidnapped prodigy.

The anonymous crew member interrupted my thoughts wielding a tray. “Here you go,” as he handed me an icy drink off his tray.

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“You take care of her, all right?” The crew member pulled out a phone, scrutinized the screen, and trotted quickly out of the disco.