I’m back

Sorry I went missing for so long — I was doing some heavy reading through Apocalypse and editing it — it probably needs another edit. I was very focused.

Also, we had a blizzard here Sunday, and that plus the snow day that followed got me off my writing.

I have to go back to work today (I think) but it was nice to have Thanksgiving break as a writing retreat!

They Say You Can Go Home Again …

I have a tendency not to look back. When I leave a place, I know it will change and the people I knew will leave. It is the nature of life in academia, where most of the people you know are students who graduate and faculty who find themselves elsewhere.

I went to college at a huge university, University of Illinois, with its 40,000 students. I knew very few fellow students, and it was only when I found a core of like-minded people — a couple faculty members, a few students, a few townies — that I felt an attachment to people for the first time.

When I left Urbana-Champaign for Oneonta New York, I was alarmed at how small the city and the college were. Soon, however, I grew to enjoy the artistic quirkiness of the town, and I got to know people through coffeehouse culture. I had a network of friends — not close friends, but friends I occasionally spent time with, and some who kept me sane when my marriage broke up (for reasons I don’t talk about, but it was much more dramatic than “we grew apart”)

I left Oneonta after five years for a guy. (Not the guy I’m married to). I have always been a “bloom where I am planted” sort of person until I moved to Maryville, MO. After twenty years there, I have not really bloomed. I have grown into a crabbed, stunted plant in hardscrabble soil with little nourishment. I don’t know why I feel this way — Maryville is a college town. It has activities at the university, and my colleagues are quirky. But I have not felt nurtured nor safe here.

Actually, I do know the reason why — Maryville was the town where two underage girls thought they were creeping out to meet a dreamy high school football player at a party. They were plied with alcohol and passed out. One was raped by the dreamy high school football player, who was the grandson of a state legislator. The charges were dropped by the prosecuting attorney. You might have heard of the girl — her name was Daisy Coleman, and she was 14 or 15 at the time.

The fact that some people could say “You didn’t know the whole story” when the girl was clearly underage makes me feel like living in Maryville is one lurking trigger, even years later. Bad things may happen everywhere, but the level of support the young man got, the fact that Daisy’s family was driven out of town, the condescending coverage the local newspaper gave the protestors — Maryville turned from a difficult town to find nurture in to a burg swarming with ugly shadows.

But now, finding myself back in Oneonta, I am looking back. The town has changed; it’s a little bigger and a lot busier and the signs on the businesses on Main Street could use a little beautification. The college has gotten so many new buildings I hardly recognized it. But my favorite restaurants — Brooks BBQ and the Autumn Cafe — are still here, and there’s lots of coffeehouses (I’ve already found my favorite).

I would love to move back to Oneonta someday. I may never find it; the cost of housing is somewhat higher and we’re a one-income household so we don’t have much set back in savings. Oneonta had become home to me, just like Urbana-Champaign had, but maybe I can’t go home again.

Writing prompts and Storytelling Circle

I started a tradition among a group of friends when I was a graduate student in college called Storytelling Circle. We didn’t do it more than a half-dozen times, but the process created not only interesting stories (if a bit disjointed at times). but profound insights. I tried to write down one of the stories from memory, but the magic of the story was in the telling, and it didn’t seem as mystical as it did in the darkened chapel of Channing-Murray as the six of us sprawled on the floor in a circle facing each other.

I put the idea of the storytelling circle in a book, Apocalypse —

AAAGH! I can’t find my copy of Apocalypse!
Richard, thank goodness, says he has a copy of it. Let’s try this again …
(Half an hour of stubborn technology later — )

*******

That evening, after dinner, the residents set up a large semi-circle three rows deep facing the risers. David Beaumont sat in the facing seat, Allan’s walking stick in his hand.

“The rules of a storytelling circle are as follows. First of all, it’s not necessary to follow someone else’s story; you tell the story that’s within you. Second: When you feel you’re done with your section of the story, hand someone else the stick. Or if someone feels moved to speak, go up there and ask for the stick. Third: If someone hands you the story stick, you can either take it or pass it on. If you really don’t want the stick at all, you should probably sit outside the semicircle.

“I’ll start the story, as I’m in the hot seat.” Mr. Beaumont made a show of settling himself into the seat, then looked at those assembled. Most of the collective had attended. “Once upon a time, as people say, there was a woman, an average woman. She was neither beautiful nor homely, not tall nor short, not fat nor thin. She was, in all ways, ordinary, or so she said — Jeanne Marie Beaumont, you sit down right now!” David Beaumont chuckled and chided his daughter, who waggled a finger at her father, then sat down.

“Anyhow, before I was rudely interrupted by my impudent daughter … ” Mr. Beaumont, with his excellent timing, waited through the group’s laughter. “This ordinary woman had only one thing special about her — she could cook. She could cook fabulously. She could have been the chef at any fancy restaurant in Chicago, or even New York City.”

“Woo hoo, Mary!” hooted the kitchen crew to their leader. Mary ducked and smiled.

“Our cook, let’s call her Sheila, thought this wasn’t a very handy skill if one wanted to, say, change the world. And she wanted to change the world. Or at least her little corner of it. Because — “

David Beaumont stood up slowly, then stepped off the riser and walked around and around the semicircle a few times. He handed the stick to Larry Lindenwood, and sat in Larry’s seat after Larry vacated it. Dr. Lindenwood stepped up the riser and settled himself.

“Everyone, deep down, wants to change the world. It’s the nature of man. Everyone wants to remake the world in their own image. That image might be fascist or capitalist or communitarian, green or materialistic. In Sheila’s case, however, she wanted to — “ Dr. Lindenwood stood up and reached over to give the stick to Celestine Eisner, who stepped up to the chair in her dancing gait.

“Sheila wanted to make the world beautiful. She put a lot of time into thinking about what a beautiful world would look like. After all, some people think steel skyscrapers are beautiful while others think forests are beautiful, and some people think that Picasso’s beagle in Chicago is beautiful even though some people think it’s a rusty piece of scrap metal. So what did it mean to have a beautiful world? After much thinking and thinking and thinking, she decided — “ Celestine skipped over to give the stick to Micah Infofer, the nine-year-old son of Sarah and Brock. Micah ran up to the stage and plumped himself down in the folding chair.

“Sheila decided that beautiful meant color! Why did barns have to be red when they could be purple? Why weren’t there any red-and-white striped houses? Shouldn’t trees have colored streamers hanging from them? She was really getting into this, and then she thought — “ Micah ran back to his mother and handed her the stick.

Sarah Inhofer strolled to the chair, stick in hand, and sat down. “Sheila, as we’ve said before, was a cook. She didn’t know how to paint a house purple or put colored streamers in trees, even though she could see in her mind what they looked like. She could, however, make incredibly pretty cookies. She could make cookies that looked just like flowers, or bunnies, or all sorts of amazing things. So that is what she did. Violet bunnies and blue roses and polka-dotted cats and plaid tulips and … all sorts of amazingly pretty things. She sold them at a lemonade stand to try to make money toward making the world even prettier. One day …” Sarah abruptly stood up and walked toward Larry Rogers.

“Aw, no, lady,” Larry groaned as she approached him.

“You don’t want to play?” Sarah put her hands on her hips.

“Well, okay.” Larry Rogers took the stick and clomped up to the chair. “One day, there was this guy, let’s call him Steve — “

“Larry?” Stephan Olasz glared at Larry. “Be careful what you say.”

“Sure, buddy,” Larry grinned ferally. “No problem. Steve stopped by the lemonade stand and looked at Sheila’s pretty cookies. ‘Hey, those are really pretty cookies, ma’am,’ Steve said. ‘I think I’ve got some sheep that would go good with those cookies.’

“’Mutton and cookies?’ Sheila asked. ‘Eww.’” Much of the room agreed vocally with Sheila’s assessment.

“’Naw, Sheila, I’ve got rainbow sheep. They’d look great in the same corner of the world as your cookies.’

“’Ohh,’ Sheila responded. ‘We need more things in the world than cookies and sheep. We need purple barns and red and white striped houses and trees with streamers tied to them.’”

“’I got some friends,” Steve said.

“’Really? You have friends?’ Sheila marveled.” Stephen stood up and glared at Larry again. ”I guess it’s my time to hand off the stick — “ Larry ambled down and handed the stick to Ty Gordon. Ty unfolded his lanky limbs and sauntered up to the chair, then chuckled as he sat down.

“Well,” Ty began, then paused. For a long time. When the laughter subsided, Ty began again. “Everyone knows you can’t save the world with two people. Or perhaps you can, because Sheila’s lemonade stand brought together quite a few people. Builders who built purple barns and striped houses, people who tied streamers in trees, and even farmers who raised violet bunnies. The polka-dotted cats moved in on their own volition, because cats do that. Enough people who did enough different things that they could make their corner of the world colorful. And so they did — “ Ty leapt out of t
he chair and handed the stick to Luke Dunstan, who peered curiously at it, then stepped ceremoniously up to the chair and sat down.

“However,” Luke said ominously, “some people are jealous of those blessed by creativity. One such person was a man named — hmm … “ Luke paused, because Archetypes struggled to create.

“There’s already a Steve, so —“ He stood up, and strode over to Adam, who took the stick with a fey grin and glided up to the chair.

“There was a man called Zhengfu,” Adam began as Allan commented, “Did you look that up in the Chinese dictionary?” Adam looked down his nose at Allan, then smiled and winked at him, the smile transforming his Asian features into something quite lovely. “Zhengfu felt threatened by anything he could not understand, and he could not understand this town — for it had grown into a town — that had exploded in a riot of color and music — yes, they held impromptu accordion concerts on festoon-strewn street corners and classical concerts in the park under the trees. Even the cats held concerts, and avant-garde aficionados attended their concerts. But Zhengfu thought to himself — “ Adam grinned at everyone, and then swiftly delivered the stick to Allan. “Your turn, sweetheart,” he whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

Allan sauntered up to the chair, sat down, and paused for a moment. “I must stop Christmas from coming! But how?” Much of the room howled with laughter, although most of the Archetypes and Nephilim seemed puzzled at this. Adam and Lilith laughed loudest, because they had been on the run Earthside for millennia and had caught on to popular culture catchphrases.

“I’ll explain it to you later,” Lilith reassured her father, Luke.

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Just as Allan handed the stick to Alan Sutton, Eric stood up. “I don’t want to alarm anyone,” he said in his dry basso voice, “but I just saw about five people with guns approach the gate.”

Writing as Therapy

“I tell my story over and over in my head, over and over to my readers, struggling to make sense of it …”

— The Repentance of Nicholas, Lauren Leach-Steffens

I wrote the story from which this quote was taken some twenty-five years ago. The story was a Gothic tale of heinous deeds, sacrifice and redemption, or that’s what I told myself. In reality, the story was about an unreliable narrator who survived an attack by an incubus and suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, falling in love with her attacker in the aftermath. This scenario happens all the time, and is part of the reason it’s so hard to leave one’s abuser. It mirrored what I was experiencing at the time, and my denial. I will not post the story here because it glorifies Stockholm Syndrome.

Writing therapy, however, has legitimacy. Psychology uses the tool extensively as a therapeutic tool, although they utilize it more as writing sprints (short exercises) and journaling. However, it’s not a large leap from that to working out events and feelings in a journal to fictionalizing them, either directly or symbolically, through specific scenes and general themes.

Writing as therapy can yield bad results. There’s an often derided phenomenon called the Mary Sue/Marty Stu story in fan fiction, where someone inserts their fantasy of competence, fame, and winning the (insert desired gender of love interest here) into an existent world. It reads predictably ridiculously, defying characterization of other members — after all, they’re props for the fabulous main character — plot, and logic. (Note that many women in fanfic and science fiction have had their legitimate works derided as “Mary Sue” simply because others can’t imagine female characters as anything but the prize. I’m not talking about that.) For a glimpse of Marty Stu, watch the first movie in the Star Trek reboot. Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk takes over the Enterprise when he should have been smacked into a high-security military prison for trespassing, and the fun (?) begins. Every little thing he does, as they say, is magic. Credulity is stretched thin.

My favorite theme in my writing is therapeutic: ordinary heroes can save the world from the Apocalypse. I guess I write pre-Apocalyptic fiction. This likely comes from being a tween/teen during the Reagan Administration, where our president joked about bombing Russia on a hot mic and Russia and the US stockpiled weapons to up the threat. (To my Russian reader: If you’re old enough to remember, you remember this differently. That’s okay.) During that time I had near-constant nightmares where I was separated from my family as the sirens raged, and the only place I could find to shelter was a toilet stall. Because I have a sick sense of humor, think: flush and cover. I didn’t realize where this theme came from until this morning because the subconscious is a wonderful thing.

The therapy we do in writing is transformational. We create solutions, or wishes, or a worst-case scenario that moves people to act. We heal ourselves, heal our readers, and tell our story, over and over, struggling to make sense of it.

An excerpt from what I’m editing today …

“The Triumvirate,” Luke stated, “expect us to be scared. Conversely, they expect us to be arrogant to cover our fear. We should communicate neither.”

“But wouldn’t fear cause them to under-prepare for the battle because they think we’re pushovers?” Stephanie Rogers, a member of the telepathic women’s rugby team, inquired.

“I suspect they will be underprepared no matter what,” Luke grinned savagely. “They believe themselves to have superior weapons — strength, transportation and teleportation abilities, near immortality and quick healing. The Nephilim have similar characteristics, but are less difficult to kill – or injure in this case. The Triumvirate expect us to conduct typical human warfare — with guns, which would fail us; with edged weapons, which they consider themselves better at, with martial arts, which some of them have mastered. They have not fought a battle against subterfuge.

“I fear, though, that if we send a cringing, cowering message, we ourselves will take it to heart and create our own fear, and they will win.”

“So, we send them the type of message we’re good at sending?” Ilsa asked. “Calm, strong, sure of our convictions?”

“I think that’s a good way to start,” Luke nodded. “How should we address them?”

“‘Dear assholes,’” Allan Chang intoned.

“Ah, no,” Alan Sutton replied.

“How about ’To our adversaries,’” Raina Prince suggested.

“Although I like that, we are not an adversarial people. In an ideal situation, we would seek to find unity with them.” Ilsa stood up. “How do we address them in that sense?”

“Dear Triumvirate,” Addie Majors stood up and answered. “We regret that you have chosen this action. We will be ready to face you on the appointed day.”

“We should be ready at any moment, though,” Luke said. “But we don’t tell them that, of course.”

“Frankly,” Dan Lance stated, “this sounds like a perfect message. Short, sweet, to the point. Not overly aggressive nor overly passive.”

Sarah Kinder jumped in. “I agree. That’s the message I would like to send.”

In the end, the collective entrusted Luke to send the simple message.