On Creativity and Screwyness

I've been thinking lately about the phenomenon of creativity. If you are a creative person, you tend to live in the world of possibility. If you're like me, you think of scenarios all the time, involving imaginary or real people in your life. You also tend to ruminate; to go back and re-process things that have happened, trying to interpret or pull further implications from it and speculate on various symbolisms and possibilities and "what ifs."

Creativity has traditionally been linked to... let's face it. A lack of sanity.
I've worried about this myself. I've had a lot of people in my life--beloved figures of example--who were brilliant, and really struggling. One example that immediately comes to mind is a man who was great friends with our family. He sang with my dad often. Had a beautiful, fervent, inspiring voice... he sang, you listened. He could have made a big audience for himself with his voice, but never could quite get it together emotionally. He really struggled, and ended up taking his own life just a few years ago.

Maybe that's why so few people make it big artistically. You've got to have the combination--the brilliance AND the executive functioning.

It makes me wonder how many truly brilliant, inspiring people have been unable to reach the wide audience their skills deserved. I mean, this guy I"m talking about... the world would only have been better if more people could have been inspired by him. He certainly changed my life, and the lives of all he touched. I wish, I wish, more people could have been changed by him.

I think of people like Vincent Van Gogh, who was famously unstable, but so talented he broke through anyway. And we all benefit from his inspiration today. I think of Sylvia Plath, who wrote such catchy, beautiful, arresting words, and ended up a victim of her own brilliant mind.

I'm not anywhere close to as talented as these people I mention. And the mental burden I carry is also quite a bit lighter. But, let's face it... I'm still screwy.

Living in the not-real-world most of the time has consequences. You forget things you should remember. All the time. I have such a poor memory of my childhood, of events that occurred even three years ago. Often the best way for me to remember things is through writing about them--my creative talent--but when I'm not writing about them they are fuzzy, hazy, hard-to-grasp images, my memories.

IN real time, I live in a pretty fuzzy world, too. I'm made aware of this often... I drive very very cautiously because often if I don't, I get in trouble. Over-cautiousness is my defense against my own lack of connection to my surroundings. And still I fail occasionally.

Buildings that have stood on my daily routes suddenly bloom up into being on occasion... I realize, suddenly, that they're there. I didn't notice them before that. Conversations I have with people suddenly click with me days later... I realize what someone meant when they said such-and-such, and what they wanted from me. This can lead to interpersonal difficulties.

For crying out loud, I am, in fact, a bit screwy.

I struggled a lot as a teenager because lack of connection to surroundings, in real time, can lead to social problems. I had a few, forgiving, close friends, but mostly I was frightened of social interaction because I was constantly afraid I would offend people accidentally by responding in a way that didn't make sense to them, because i'd gotten the conversation wrong, or mistook a meaning. The other day in Relief Society, I misunderstood completely the instructor's question and puzzled her; when I responded that I'd mistaken her question, she took it for correction. Oh, this is my life.

I think this is why I make friends slowly. They have to put up with non-sequiturs, fuzzy logic, misunderstanding and eventually learn that I do have good intentions. I really treasure those relationships where this has come to pass.

I often feel that I"m navigating a river full of rapids, with everything around me slightly dimmed--noise, sense of touch, sight... I see through a bit of a dark glass. I'm very, very grateful for those who are willing to look past that and love me for who I mean to be.

Anyway. Creativity and screwyness. It's a thing. I would never give up my heart--writing, stories, memories, thoughts that branch out in crazy directions and connections that make me happy. But it does make life dangerous at times.

Anyway. This is a shout out to those of you who don't fully live in real-time, in the real-world--I feel you, my screwy brothas and sistas.

Writing Update and Request for Input

A few people have asked me how the novel writing's going. Those on facebook are aware of my querying and slew of rejections, seasoned by an occasional personal note from an editor telling me they enjoyed my pages but it's not from them, and also the very occasional request for pages.

I had a pretty big-time agent request my full, and then come back with, "I really enjoyed it. But it's too sweet and too YA for me and those I work with." In other words, (and in the words of a friend) "not enough sex or violence." I think. I think that's what she was saying.

At this point, I've finished (counting the current project) 5 manuscripts since Mile 21's publication. Two are LDS fiction novels that my current publisher, Cedar Fort, hasn't been able to find a place for. Two are fantasy novels that General agents haven't been willing to risk their resources on. So what I'm doing right now--I'm taking one of the fantasies (The "too sweet" one) back to LDS publishers, because I realized after that feedback, that an audience looking for fun fantasy but with a preference for clean literature is probably my best bet for that manuscript.

So, last week, I submitted it to Shadow Mountain. We'll see what comes of that.

Also, a few months ago I was contacted by Covenant Communications (another LDS publisher, not the one I worked with on Lightning Tree and Mile 21) that my manuscript Butterfly Years made it past a couple of tiers of evaluation and they'd sent it to their outside readers, and I ought to hear back in a few months. It's been a few months, so I anticipate I'll be hearing from them soon. If they want to publish it, I'll be ecstatic. I love that story. And while I'd like to take my writing outside of the niche of LDS fiction, I still love writing LDS fiction as well.

This is the life of a writer. You publish, you don't publish. You write something nobody wants, you write something else nobody wants, you keep trying until you hit a sweet spot of Market and Trends and Audience and someone is willing to take a chance on what you've written.

Anyway. I've written a few different types of fantasy stories. I started with my behemoth--the epic fantasy I've played with and written several versions of from the time I was fifteen or so. It ended up being 200,000 words, and I know it needs some editing, and I think I know how I can fix it. It got a couple requests for pages, and ultimately was passed on by my list of agents to submit to (about 120 long). Then I wrote something shorter, something fun and funnier and more commercial, and got the almost-break of that big agent as well as a couple requests and a lot of encouraging rejections. I had fun writing it, but ultimately, struggled. It was so silly and fluffy and honestly, while I love reading stuff like that, and I enjoyed writing it, I felt a bit sugared-out after finishing, if you know what I mean.

So the next thing I wrote (my current project) I decided to do something more serious. Knowing fully it probably wouldn't easily be marketable, I decided to write a literary fantasy story along the lines of Madeline L'Engle. And I really enjoyed writing it. A lot. Man. This is the genre of my heart--fantasy that explores the human experience. But anyway, I doubt a lot of people will be requesting pages because it doesn't easily slide into any genre. IT's got 17 year old characters, it's basically a hero's journey, and it's pretty introspective and kind of unusual. Most of the story is two characters on a boat fighting their way through an Alice-In-Wonderland type scenario. SO while I enjoyed writing it, I'm pretty sure not many people will be reading it. I'll still submit, of course, and try. But not a lot of high hopes there.

And that's OK.

I needed it. It was palate-clarifying, if that makes any sense. After trying so hard to write stuff that appeals to an audience, I needed to write something for myself to remind myself I love to write and why I'm a writer.

But now it's time to try something commercial again. I need to find exactly the right sort of story. Something that will appeal immediately to editors and agents and strikes the right chord in the market right now. I'm just not sure what that is. SO I'll be doing a bit of research before I choose my next story.

To that end, I'm going to ask. Those of you who love reading fantasy. What do you think is missing in the market right now? What do you wish you could read, or read more of, that isn't out there? What do you like most about what *is* out there right now? Let me know. The thing about writing is, writing itself is just a joy. So whatever I end up writing, sugary or spicy or serious or fluff, I might as well be writing what people want to be reading.

Moments

This weekend, my last baby was blessed, and my first son was baptized.

We were given a paper to write on, to put in books for baptism memories.

All I felt today, seeing my wonderful eight year old son who still impulsively gives me kisses on the cheek, who can't stop talking about MineCraft and electronics kits, who can't keep his hands off his baby sister because he loves her so much, who has theories about the way the world and all its parts work, who says the most hilarious things in all seriousness so I have to stifle chuckles, but who still smiles at me when I accidentally let one go... seeing my son be baptized...

I felt that feeling you get when you know you're experiencing that perfect moment and you wish there was a way to capture it--more than a picture or a movie, but a moment you can immerse yourself in and come back to any time you want.

Moments.

Today little Fern was blessed. The men who blessed her were all people who loved her, who loved the priesthood.

I love the priesthood.

That's what I felt today, seeing my son get baptized and my daughter get blessed.

California Adventures day 3&4: The Captain and the Cowboy and random graveyard stalking

California Adventures, day 1

So yesterday I left my home and half my family behind in Idaho, to travel to the mysterious and magical place of my childhood. I have my four youngest with me, while the four older stayed behind with Jeff. I'm here to watch my two little sisters while my parents journey to China for the last time to adopt a daughter. I'm also here to introduce my children to the fairtyales of my childhood:


the grocery store of yore, at the edge of the ponderosa groves

Where milk is twice as delicious, so it has to be twice as expensive.

The garden full of mystical asian pines and small, quiet pools where there are no goldfish because Herons feel right at home coming to steal them

And parks have three-story slides that adults are hesitant to utilize, even with the goading of their offspring

And creeks are populated with squirrels which are likely to be capable of speech

and there are gremlins

and giant things.

I'm also here to do some family history. My mother's the first convert, and so a lot of the history is oral, or in jumbled piles in boxes. I brought my scanner and my laptop. I'm transcribing and scanning.

I'm also planning on visiting a few places--a graveyard an hour away in Wheatland where my grandmother and grandfather are buried and one three hours away in Sonora, where some of my ancestors are buried.

My mother has never been there to see them. I don't even know if they're there for sure.


There are some family history mysteries to solve. I don't know the name of my great, great, great, great grandmother Silveira-Pereira. She and her husband perished in a shipwreck off the coast of Maine in 1839, a year where there were lots of terrible storms during the early winter months, and many ships wrecked and many people died. I am going to the county library in the place where the Silvers settled a hundred and fifty years ago. I've heard there's a lot of information there on the family. Nobody's gone there to investigate. That I know about, at least. It's possible that a name is written somewhere on a stray piece of paper, or on a record. That is my goal this trip--find the name of my four-greats grandmother. THey were the generation that immigrated from Portugal... the next step after finding her, would be to go over there, to the Azores Islands. A job for my brother, probably-- he served a Portuguese-speaking mission in Brazil.

While I was writing this, my four year old daughter went outside to play. For some unknown reason (mostly because she is my daughter) she decided to remove her shoes. She just stepped on a digger pine cone and cut her foot. Can I claim her as the ninth generation of californians, now that the red dirt of my childhood is literally in her veins?

Waiting.

My writing goals have gotten me pretty far this year. I made a resolution to start writing 2000 words a day in January, and since then I've completed one manuscript at around 100,000 words and am about two thirds through another, which will probably end up being 200000 words. I'm glad... these are both stories I love, and have had weighing on the back burner for a while. I feel like I have one more I have to "get off my plate" before moving on to fresh, new, stuff.

But I don't know where any of them are going, is the problem. My publisher, Cedar Fort, turned down my most recent manuscript, a historical fiction, because they said that it did not have enough of a hook and tension through the beginning. So I re-sent it out to a bunch of readers, and have tweaked a bunch of stuff.

And i sent it somewhere else.

There's not a lot of places you can send an LDS fiction manuscript. So I'm kind of waiting to see what happens... what comes next will determine some pretty big writing-career-y decisions, I think.

But I sort of trust the Heavenly Father is in this. I can feel him in this. So I'm not worried, just... waiting.

(Cue Inigo Montoya: "I hate waiting.")

It's at moments like these that you have to remember you're writing because you love it, not because you have an audience. Hooray for writing, I love it. Now, hopefully there's an audience somewhere, too.

I'm going to have a few more poems published, and I'm entering some short fiction stuff in contests, and I'm helping a friend with his biography. I'm reading and reviewing LDS literature on A Motley Vision. Those things also keep me going and motivated (and busy.)

But yeah... I hate waiting.

How to Weather Hard Winters

One of my favorite books ever, like in my list of "top five", is The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

I've read that she originally titled it "the Hard Winter," but her publisher had her change it, because he felt it was too harsh, the concept of "hard" vs "long."

As many of you know, the stories Ingalls wrote were autobiographical; what we'd call "creative nonfiction," nowadays, though she is such an accomplished writer, they read like novels. This particular section of Ingalls life-story stands apart from the others in the "Little House" series because it depicts a very difficult time for her family and for her little town. In The Long Winter we read about what it is like to go through near-starvation, death of exposure, being isolated on the Dakota prairie, during a wild and terrible time, from every help except for what the settlers in their little town could provide each other.

Therefore, we read of bravery. Sacrifice. Blind, dogged courage. I have two favorite parts of the story. The first is when Almanzo Wilder goes with a friend into the wilderness, under threat of deadly blizzards, to find food for the citizens in the town. The second is more relevant to what I'm writing about today: when Pa goes into the Wilder boys' store and offers a quarter for some grain he's savvy enough to know is hidden in their walls. He doesn't ask. But he also doesn't fight for it. He goes in, quietly, humbly, and tells them to fill his bucket with wheat for a quarter, so his family can eat for another few days.

Laura is the able-bodied member of her family. The Ingallses didn't have any sons, and so often it is her, going out with her father and helping him with the necessary tasks. She works hard to help her family survive.

And they do. In the end, the train gets through because of spring melt and the help of hordes of men shoveling off the tracks, and they get their Christmas turkey several months late. This story sends a very clear message--to survive, you need to pull together. You need to support each other. The very best and the very worst sides of human nature come out when people are fighting to survive. And those who make it are those who support and serve each other and accept service in return. Pa was a proud man, but he went into the Wilder boys' store with a quarter and an empty bucket because he had children to feed. Almanzo was going to get through the winter just fine, but he went off into the dangerous wilderness to find more food because he knew he would not be able to watch his friends starve around him.

....


I think back on some hard times of my own. I think one of my biggest failings has been my inability to ask for or receive service. It is a matter of pride. Some of us have pride that involves comparison to others' appearances, possessions, residences, professions etc. That has never been my problem. I personally wouldn't mind living in a cardboard box on the side of the road if I had to, if my family were still happy and healthy and well fed. Some of my friends could attest to that... I have a mild (or not so mild) obsession with tents and camping and backpacking. What I love is the simplicity of carrying all that you need with you. Not needing much at all to get by. I've been very blessed, however, not to have to live that way as a necessity. Perhaps my perspective would be different if I did.

However that is also my problem and my own personal brand of unrighteous pride--that sense of simplicity, of being able to get by on my own; priding myself in independence from others. I have struggled, in my life, to accept service because I feel frightened at the thought of not being able to get by on my own. Of having to depend on others. What if they fail me? And what if I can't give them anything back in return? Does that make me a broken, incapable person who always takes but never gives? Does it make me selfish and self-centered, that people serve me?

I have, however, gone through seasons in my life just like that hard winter the Ingallses weathered, where accepting help was necessary to my survival emotionally, physically, etc. And I wouldn't have been able to accept it even then, if it weren't for Loli.

for Loli's sake, I accepted a lot of things.

After everything fell apart and I found myself a divorced single parent, full-time student, part-time employee, I realized I literally could not do it on my own. I needed, for instance, someone to watch her while I finished my degree, and while I earned the money necessary to feed, house, and clothe us. And even then, I didn't make enough money to do so on my own. My parents bought a condo, which I lived in, rent-free, for two years.

During this time, I had a difficult schedule--get up at 4:45, drive Loli to Santaquin (because it was the only childcare we both felt comfortable with), get to work by 5:45, work with dozens of women struggling with tragedy, emotional upheaval, overwhelming anxiety and depression until 6pm, drive back to Santaquin by 6:45, get home by 7:30, play with Loli for an hour and give her dinner, get her to bed by 9. That was three to four days of my week.

The other days I spent trying to take care of the "everything else", taking care of my little girl and focusing on her during the time I had with her and also on bills, car maintenance, cleaning, shopping for groceries, and, eventually, dating my husband.

I look back on those years and the feeling I get from them is just.... emergency. I was constantly high-strung, constantly putting out fires. Like when our only car broke and the shop told us it was a new head-gasket (turned out they were trying to get money... I took it somewhere else and they bled an air bubble out of the radiator for free), and I was at work trying to focus on my job while trying not to worry about transportation and trying not to worry about Loli and how she was doing and whether she was being treated right and whether she was eating and whether I was spending enough time with her.... you get the picture.

I look back on my own "hard winter" and wonder what it says about me.

I learned how to accept a little bit of help and service--the stuff I had to accept for bare survival. I wasn't, however, always the best employee. I was too stressed out. Stressed to the max. And in an environment where everyone is professional... where maybe a few are enduring their own "hard winters" but everyone keeps it all to themselves... it's not quite the same, I don't think. It's not a community pulling together. It's a few people floundering to themselves in a mass of humanity all trying to figure out how to be best at what they're doing.

I didn't do as well as I could have. Well, the thing is, I did as well as I *could* have, in the situation. But people I worked with didn't get the "best" me, if that makes sense. And neither did Loli.

I look back on those experiences and wonder how I could have functioned better. I think it would have involved going to people for help instead of staying stubbornly independent and to myself. The Lori Hacking story broke during that time. And I was feeling some very strong fears, angers, and grieving. What if I had gone to my supervisor and talked to her, instead of staying behind the nursing station all day and isolating and not talking to anyone, including the patients I was supposed to be helping? What if, instead of presenting a hard, blank face to the world and keeping a wall between myself and others, I was being honest and open and vulnerable. Like "here is what I have to do this week. Just so you know." And then letting people talk back about their own stuff, and commiserating, and strategizing together... that is the stuff of which friendships are made. Of which functional, supportive communities are made.

The thing is, it has been a hard journey for me to be able to be open that way. I think my problem is, if something difficult is going on in my life, my default is to blame myself for it, to believe that I deserve it. So I feel shame, and keep it to myself. I am working on that.

I have realized, however, that some people also do not welcome vulnerability. They would rather stay in their shells and struggle alone. They feel threatened by others' sharing.

And some want to serve, and not be served in return. To them (and to me, I'll admit it) being served is giving up too much control. When someone does something for you, what might be their motive? What do they expect from you in return?

You can think of it that way, or you can see it as a symbol of something much more powerful and important. We are all the vessels of God's grace for each other. Sometime, at some point in your life, you will go through a season (more likely multiple seasons) of needing the service of others. You can either accept it and be whole, or push it away and struggle and not be as whole as God would like you to be.

In order to be strong enough to serve others, you need to accept service yourself. That is the beautiful, (sometimes, it feels like, horrible, but really, like anything really difficult, it's redeeming), truth to it all.

And how do you think someone feels about you after they serve you? Let me tell you from experience. They love you more. ANd they love you in a way that is Godly--they love you as someone they have served. It's a sort of love that runs deep, that infuses your relationship with forgiveness and mercy and longsuffering.

As anyone who has read the LIttle House series knows, Almanzo Wilder eventually married Laura. And I have wondered... how much of that feeling, that warmth he had for her that lead him to court her, came from the incident of filling her father's empty bucket?

Adoption and emotional integration.

So, I haven't done any adoption posts lately. Mostly that is because, as adjustment continues, the issues are less and less salient, and less noticeably adoption-related. Meaning, everything has filtered down and melded and become "the things my kids and my family work on together," and it is not often something we think about anymore, "this is because of the adoption. These are struggles related to that."

I have been thinking about adoption lately, however. Because of some things in my personal life, and also this clip posted recently on Facebook.



Helen Doss--the story she wrote of her family and their experiences. I read it over and over again as a child. My mother did, as well. I am certain it is a major influence in my decision to adopt--I grew up thinking of adoption as not only normal, but delightful and wonderful. Her family--all happy, so big and colorful and wonderful. I wanted that.

My mother did too. And now, however many years later, I have two Ethiopian daughters and two (soon to be three) Chinese sisters. I wonder how many families have come to be because of Helen Doss.

Adoption is hard. It's interesting, looking back on all the posts I have written over the last five years, remembering various stages, struggles, frustrations and heartaches.

First we went through teaching kids not to hurt each other, health concerns that were difficult and sometimes nasty (Lice, Ringworm, Giardia which I caught from MayMay while pregnant with Hazel, aftereffects of severe malnutrition and other things).

After that, though, it was all emotional. And I'd argue, much harder than the physical. Our adoption was wonderful--we didn't have any of the issues adoptive parents worry so much about, like sexual abuse or attachment disorders. And our girls are good, good girls.

But I am an introvert. New people are hard.

I love kids. A lot. Honestly. And I don't mind babysitting other peoples' kids. Before the adoption, however, watching others' kids was always a very stressful experience. It was painful. It's like, having someone in my house who wasn't my own kid, I was on eggshells all the time. I didn't feel like I could be me, have my time, do the things i'd normally do... I felt like I had to be a "perfect mom" or "perfect babysitter" for the sake of another person's child.

that's sort of how it felt for me for the first.... oh. Two years. Like I was babysitting. It was very stressful. The introvert in me shrunk away from interaction with these girls for quite a while. I forced myself to overcompensate... so they ended up getting even more attention than my biological kids for a while. In the effort to counter my own tendencies, I ended up becoming...

well. A better mom. More attentive. Paying more attention to detail. Not just falling into the ruts of my own past experiences, parenting and being parented. (Not saying I didn't have good parents, I did. I just am glad I have a fresh canvas to paint on, if that makes sense... I can make different kinds of mistakes and have different strengths, and not just feel compelled out of habit to do it a certain way.)

But let's just say. It has taken a really, really long time... that last stage of adjustment, so that everybody feels like they belong. So that I feel nothing but gladness that all my kids are around me and nobody's missing. So that I don't automatically react, emotionally, with more harshness when it's one of my adopted kids being unkind to one of my bio kids.

I think everybody is different. There are people who immediately mesh with new people...who can become best friends right away. There are also people who are natural adopters. You know them--the people who have a satellite of those who call them "mom" or "dad" because they fill that role for a lot of people. There's this lady who was on a billboard in Utah for several years--she fostered 112 children.

I'm not like that. I'm an introvert. My relationships form slowly, solidify slowly, and because of some of my experiences, trust and security is something that comes with agonizing slowness.

I think these last two years have been the final stage for me, for Jeff, emotionally. I was so glad when school got out this year. I feel so much peace when I'm in my living room, sitting on the couch, looking at all of my kids gathered around me. We are a family. Irrevocably. Emotionally, everybody is mine and I am theirs.

I think that, looking back on the process, I am very glad to Have MayMay and Bella in my life. I'm not sure, if I'd been able to look at it from the other side, knowing how hard it would be emotionally, that I would have been brave enough to go forward. Thinking about adopting again, my insides kinda twist up into knots.

But I am so glad I have Bella and MayMay. I am so grateful I have them. The thought of not having them is incomprehensible, and heartbreaking. I love all my children.

I know that adoption is never an issue you leave behind--for the rest of their lives, I will be talking my girls through the reality of their adoption. And reassuring them of my love for them.

And there will always be times I want to run away and go camping for a week. But that's just life, as a mother of lots of small children. It's not because of adoption.

Yesterday I went on a bike ride. Bella asked to come. I thought for a minute--my bike rides are solitary. My time. But I realized, suddenly.... I don't feel threatened at the idea of her coming. My time is her time, too, because she is mine. WE rode out to the canal and sat there for a while, completely silent, throwing stuff in and watching it float. And we rode silently back home. It was just the being together--us. And it was OK. Knowing myself, it amazes me that that was even possible.

Greenhouse Update & You Aren't What People Say You Are (redux)

I put up a post yesterday that I soon afterward took down. It detailed some struggles I've been having lately. I took it down because I worried that, even with making things vague, it'd end up being spread around and someone would find out and be upset, or others would assume I wrote about them. But I do want to repost one thing from what I posted, and that is, you can only control what you give, not what people take. You can do your absolute best to convey love, kindness, sincerity and someone could still take offense, if they choose to.

I am a kind, generous, creative, fun, nice, intelligent, loyal and good person. Nothing that somebody does, or says about me, will change that. The end.

Ok. Anyway. The greenhouse stuff is starting up again. Now that the ground is thawed, we can work on mortaring our cinderblocks. Jeffrey borrowed a cement drill from a nice ward member and put in rebar, and we're stacking the cinderblocks and mortaring. We're hoping to have the whole south side done, and the east side dug up, by the time our friends Dave and Courtney get here on Fourth of July weekend, and then Dave and Jeff can have some fun guy time putting together the east wall, which is smaller and hopefully will go faster because Jeff will have a routine down.

After that, we'll be doing outside insulation and the plan right now is cement-board siding, though I need to look into that more... I'm not sure if i like it or not. Jeff's really great at building things well, functional. I'm the one who's a bit more picky about appearance. I don't want a utilitarian greenhouse, I want a *beautiful* greenhouse. Suggestions for siding are welcome. Our house is currently light grey and white.


After that, we'll be able to (yay :) :) ) start on the INSIDE. Setting up watering first, I think. Then the floor, which will be landscape fabric covered with flagstone& swept, pressed sand. We have a ton of white flagstones lying around; we're repurposing them for inside the greenhouse (and, eventually, a walkway around the greenhouse and a patio).

After the floor is in, we can get going on square foot beds. And a greens tower (lettuces, kale, spinach, collards and dandelions) (yes, dandelions) and an herb tower. And also starting to grow cool mosses and creeping thymes in between the flagstones.


So that's where we are right now. We generally have about four hours of time on Saturdays that we can use for projects. Lately it's been completely eaten up in getting our ginormous jungle mown. So Jeff may need to take a day off work to finish the greenhouse. We spent the last three Saturdays getting all of the acre we call yard so it's inches-long stubble instead of a frenzy of dandelions and bushy alfalfa, but you know, weeds grow. We'll have to start again next Saturday.

The Journey of Rewrite

This is the manuscript (untouched since I got it back from Deseret Book and Covenant and Cedar Fort... see, the rubber band's still around it) I set aside about five years ago. It is titled Butterfly Years.

I wrote Lightning Tree right after that, and learned about how plots are important. But Jeffrey actually really loved this manuscript. It's probably his favorite.

I have a plan in my mind of what to write. I decided, three Chabert novels. But also rewrite all the manuscripts I'd already written, now that I know how to write. Zoommates, a novel about BYU and a group of roommates, became Mile 21, in a very, very loose sense. By Rewrite, I mean, change the story, change the characters, and retain a small piece of the original concept.

With Butterfly Years, I have changed the main character's gender, personality, situation and motive. I retained one character, with some minor adjustments, and completely revamped the plot and storyline, but not the trajectory.

This story required a whole lot of research. I had to re-do a majority of it, but I've gotten to a point in the story where I can re-use a lot. And it is a blessing. I pulled out the old manuscript this morning. ANd I realized, I really, really love this story. I loved it in its original form, too.

There's the old and the new.

Writing really is a wonderful journey.

2000-Word goal (and general writing) update

I thought I'd write another update on how things are going with the 2000 word goal. I will say this: I have missed a few days. When our friends the Lovelesses came to visit, I did not write. And a couple days when DavyJones kept me up nearly all night with his cluster feeding, I did not write the next day.

And yeah. There were a couple days where I was feeling pretty cruddy and to comfort myself I just cleaned and hugged my babies. I'd say I've not written... maybe seven days or so, out of the three months since I started this regime. I am pleased to say that, at this point, three months in (almost exactly, I started on the 26th of january) I am 58,000 words into my epic fantasy manuscript and about 70,000 words into my LDS Contemporary manuscript.

I didn't realize until just now how much more of the Contemporary LDS I have written. I think it's because the way my days are set up, I'm supposed to write the fantasy on Saturday, and (predictably) I have missed more Saturdays.

I feel like I'm almost at the "race to the finish" stage with the contemporary fiction. I think, about 2/3 through. The fantasy... I feel like I may be nearing the halfway mark.

So overall, I'm kind of on target, and i can only attribute that to the fact that I tend to go over with word count each day. How does it feel to be doing a NaNoWriMo equivalent each month?

Well, I'm doing it, and my kids aren't dead, and I'm not yet insane.

No, actually... it has been wonderful. It feels wonderful to be pushing myself like this. I get more done, and my story flows better because I am writing it in bigger (and I think, more natural) chunks. About half a chapter per writing session, I think. That works well for the way scenes tend to shift/things tend to go for me. And I have a sense of power... I can do this. It's not that hard. WHen I'm done writing two at once, guess what? I could write one novel in a matter of months. It makes me feel so much more secure as a writer... this is a habit I can develop and it can make it so that I could meet rigorous deadlines. It is developing me as a writer.

The big piece of news for the week, however, is that tomorrow I will be headed to the Whitney Gala. I have never attended a writing conference, and here I am going to this fancy dinner thing where they give out awards, and the reason why I am going is because my novel Mile 21 is one of the Whitney Finalists, in the General Fiction category. I'm really not expecting to win, but I am going to the dinner just in case I do, because it would be kind of rude not to be there if I won. It's sort of like when I won first place the countywide poetry contest when I was a senior in high school, and happened to ditch class the day my Creative Writing teacher announced the winners. (I was ditching so I could finish reading Heart of Darkness for my AP English class that day.) (Yeah, I know it's no excuse.)

Anyway. I'm pretty nervous to go. I haven't actually met most of these writer people I interact with so frequently online. And I am not used to eating with fancy forks, or wearing fancy dresses... and I'm not sure what to expect. I'm trying to think of it as a big adventure, and a getaway for me and Jeff, and I'm focusing my mind on the food, which should be delicious.

It will be great.

Oh, and one of my poems was on Psaltery and Lyre today, and another was on there last month. I need to write more poetry. I don't make enough time for it. It really does help me write with more grace and spareness, though... and I love it. It is the center of my heart.

I'm behind on reviews. I still need to read the rest of Braden Bell's most recent, Luminescence, and then write up my usual combination of review and rambling essay about it for A Motley Vision blog.

Also, I need to finish helping my critique group friend, George, trim down his fantasy manuscript.

Now I'm starting to feel guilty...

Anyway. Yeah. Writing. Good stuff.

On Coming Out of One's Shell

I have always found that analogy disturbing, because what is a shelled creature like when it is out of its shell?

Yeah. Soft... unprotected... generally a bit ugly. And they're not *supposed* to come out of their shells all that often. It's a pretty lousy analogy.

I want to sort of think/write about two topics that seem related to this whole shell-shelling concept. The first is:

Why is it so hard?

I think my biggest motivation in trying to approach others is connection. And also, relationships. And also, to be more approachable myself, because I'd like people to feel safe coming to me in person, not just on the internet, if they need help. I'd like for people to feel safe talking to me if they need someone to talk to. I have been through a lot! It is comforting to me, that I can use what I have been through to help others. It gives the whole lame experience purpose. On the interface of the internet I am approached regularly by people who have gone through stuff. I share my thoughts about going through divorce, or tragedy, or a spouse's pornography addiction or struggles with priesthood or whatever. And, of course, about writing.

I was talking with a friend the other day about why it is so hard to approach people, or to feel like we've done a good job when approached by people for help. Why we tend to think back on conversations and rehash everything and beat ourselves up.... Why, even if we know someone in our acquaintance has gone through something difficult or could use some friendship, it is so hard to reach out. I think it's a few things combined.

First of all, Shyness. Shyness, I think, is partly a fear of rejection, and partly being easily overwhelmed in new, or confusing, or complicated social situations. Also worry about offending others. I think that last one is the biggest for me. I worry constantly that I have inadvertently offended or hurt people or made their lives harder because of my interactions with them.

The second is empathy. When you are capable of feeling for others, you want to help them. Partly because you are feeling for them, and partly because it's just important--people who are struggling need to be helped by people who feel for them. You are suffering with them (a much smaller degree than what they're suffering, but still.) It is very hard to watch someone I know struggle. At church especially.

I think that the combination of shyness and empathy KILLS. You want so badly to reach out, so you do, and then after you do, you beat yourself up over everything you did or said and basically come to the conclusion that you've made someone's life harder, not easier, by your interference. It's tough. And yes, I realize that this negative way of thinking needs to be ferociously challenged.

The second thing I wanted to address on the topic of newly-unshelledness:

Being hurt.

I have been pretty badly hurt. I can now freely admit that without feeling shame. Just because you've been hurt does not mean you brought it on yourself. Also, it's OK to talk about it. It's something to know about me, as a relationship develops deeper. It's sharing--it's OK. And one huge revelation I've had lately is...

ALMOST EVERYBODY has been hurt. At some point, by some thing. It really is true that we are all fighting invisible battles.

I have been thinking lately that a lot of the strife that occurs between people (who are nice and trying to do what is right) has to do with these hurts and nicks to our self worth, and how we interpret the world through the facets we are left with. Honestly. I think that people often think that they are the only ones who struggle. I know I get that way at times. And so they're struggling, and someone says something to them in a not-quite-perfect way, or accidentally forgets to do or say something exactly right, and because they're in that difficult place it's an extra painful thing.

When someone hurts us, how do we react?

In the past, it has been a struggle for me to even admit when I've been hurt, but boy have I reacted anyway :) with anger, accusations, sometimes giving someone the cold shoulder for a bit. I stew and stew and stew and wonder and cry and struggle. And yes, part of that is because I was significantly hurt, and it affected my trust in people to a severe degree. Part of it is also because, newly-deshelled, I have been extra sensitive and soft and injurable.

But I was thinking the other day. A phrase has been repeating in my mind and soul lately--being a soft place to land. We all make mistakes, every one of us. Usually by accident, but sometimes even on purpose. Some times we do things we know aren't perfect, that might hurt another person. What if, instead of reacting angrily and defensively to others' imperfect moments, we became a soft place for each other to land? What if we sought understanding, exercised empathy, and saw the other person's nicks and hurts, and recognized that the person who hurt us is most likely coming from a place of pain or confusion or worry just like our pains, confusions, and worries.

What if we all did that?

Wouldn't the world be so much easier to live in? What if people helped instead of calling the city? And if a person calls the city, what if I responded by thinking about how, to go through the trouble of calling the city, my weeds must have bothered someone quite a bit. And for some reason they felt unable to approach me about it. So maybe I should prioritize their removal and not stew over it. Maybe the person who called had a really bad day and my weeds were a last straw, and maybe they're regretting what they did right now. (Sorry to use a real life example, it's one I've spent a lot of unproductive time being hurt and angry about.)

What if, when someone *really* hurts you (and it's okay to feel pain, to retreat, and to remove some trust in those situations, but) what if you could come out of your pain and realize someone else's?

How would I feel about someone that I was really mean to, who immediately forgave me and was even nice to me, and acted like they were my friend anyway? I would trust them, that's how I would feel.

I want people to trust me. And I want to trust others.

I'm working on it.

Change of Projects, Change of Pace.

Lately I have felt worried about my writing career. LDS literature is what I've had published so far. It's what I have written that has been accepted and sent out there into the world to be read by people. And now people are kind of niche-ing me. Or starting to. I've had interviews lately on Modern Mormon Men and Motley Vision and Mormon Artist, and in each of these interviews I have been asked why I chose Mormon Lit as my venue. Well, it sort of chose me. That's what I've published so far.

Lately I have thought, well then, I need to make that my focus. I'll write three more LDS stories and give them over to my publisher. But when I'm done with those, I'm going another direction.

My feelings have changed suddenly. I have been editing two manuscripts. One of them is my sister's. One is a friend's. Both are fantasy.

See, my first love? It's fantasy.

Fantasy is what I breathed growing up. And it wasn't just writing, it was games in the backyard about fairies and monkey people and hags and good and evil and poor kids with magical abilities and rich people with lots of jewels, orphans with royal birthmarks, people who make their clothing out of flower petals.

Growing up, fantasy was my favorite. The Book of Three, the Black Cauldron. Dealing with Dragons. The Alanna books. The Ordinary Princess. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Stolen Lake. And all those scholastic or apple paperbacks about wishes that come true or dragons hatching from eggs or teachers being aliens. So, I have written and lived in fantasy from the time I was too small to really be writing yet.

Up until I started writing seriously, with more focus and intent, giving myself a word count and everything, my less-than-serious forays into novel writing (three abandoned chapters, five abandoned chapters, sketchbook full of maps and character descriptions and drawings of characters and places and people, ideas that accumulated in word documents and then got scattered and lost because there were so very many word documents containing ideas) was all fantasy.

Today I got a great idea about how to start the fantasy novel I have been rewriting for the last fifteen years. I did my most recent rewrite of it after Lightning Tree, and Cedar Fort rejected it due to some content. I would have gone on to submit it elsewhere if I didn't know it still needed a lot of work (including the content Cedar Fort objected to. I'm still not sure how necessary it is to my story. Trying to decide.) But today, I got an idea that I think will solve all of that. You have to start a novel at the correct point in the story--that was my problem. I started it in the wrong place.

I also realized that I was writing the story like it was a YA fantasy. This story is an epic fantasy. Totally different. For one thing, an epic fantasy can be longer, so I don't have to think "Okay, how do I tell this entire story in the space of 350 pages." And for another, it's kind of expected that in epic fantasy you meet a lot of people and go a lot of places.

Try telling an epic fantasy in the space allotted to a YA novel. If you're a fantastic writer, you might be able to do it. I'm betting H.G. Wells could do it. I'm not a fantastic writer yet, however. I'm just a pretty-ok writer.

Anyway, I got this idea for a starting point, and the idea just boiled over in my head. And I felt, today, more excited than I have felt about writing in a while.

I kind of need to write this one, maybe. Next. Not after my butterfly story about the guy who ages out of the singles' ward and the third in my planned trio of Historical LDS novels. I've been saying that to myself for a while in the same way you say to yourself, salad first, then dinner, then you can have your dessert. But the thing is, if it's what I love to write most, and it's what's taking over my brain right now, why am I making myself do other stuff?

I am niche-ing myself and drying myself out as a writer. And I'm feeling discouraged because while the audience for LDS fiction is very loyal and wonderful, it's not very big. I can't go ahead and tell all my Facebook friends, "buy my book, you'll love it!" Because some of them wouldn't. I have tons of friends who love fantasy, and a smaller number of friends who love Mormon fiction. Not even most of my Mormon friends read Mormon Fiction.

And while I do love Mormon fiction, in fact, love it enough to write it even though I know I won't find a big audience, my first love really is Fantasy. And man, I need to get back into it.

So. Plans changed, I think. I'm going to launch myself back into the deep-blue of fantasy. I'm going to draw pictures and maps. I'm going to think about amazing places and impossible people and the mysteries of the universe. And then when I've finished this story, I'll probably enjoy going back to the funny, close dearness of an LDS contemporary fiction story or the driving curiosity and deep, aching issues and mysteries of an LDS Historical Fiction.

Am I allowed to do that? Write everything? Will that confuse people?

I don't know. I'm just writing what I need to write... sorry if that's confusing.

Stuff I'm Learning About Writing: Start Slowly?

I just finished final draft edits on a manuscript and sent it to my publisher. I think, after finishing a novel, the temptation to "take a break from writing" is very high, simply because you've just exerted a lot of teary, bloody, sweaty writing effort and you feel you need a break. One trick I've learned is, instead of taking a break from writing altogether, which has some risks (writer's block, stagnation, habits dying)I take a "break" by working on something else; something vastly different. Maybe not even a novel--maybe poems. Or maybe (as is the case right now time for me) working over someone else's manuscript.

This manuscript has sat in the dockets for over a year. I owe this guy one because he took one of my manuscripts and meticulously went through and commented on every page, sometimes every paragraph. Now, if you're a new writer, you might not see the gift that this truly is--for someone to go over you manuscript and say every single thing they feel could be improved. It can feel soul-crushing if you're just barely footing it into the whole serious writing thing, because writing at that stage takes so much motivation, and really, you just need lots of encouragement. But after you've written for a while (and particularly, after you've been published and realize how very unsympathetic at times an audience can be) you see the treasure of a close, good critique.

Anyway. I've been returning the favor, taking it two chapters a day with his manuscript. And after that, I have my sister Caitlin's to look at. It's been a refreshing change that surprisingly (or not surprisingly) has motivated me to start unwinding some spring-growth on my next two stories. Outlining one, and slowly coming up with events, characters, and conversations for another. And you know what I've realized?

It's really, really great to go into a new story slowly. Giving myself time to get to know the characters. Allowing myself to stop short after just a paragraph (because I *am* still getting a quota of writing in by reviewing his manuscript, and don't have to feel guilty or worried about stopping and stagnating.) Being able to just stop because I'm not sure I know what comes next, or what "feels right" for a character, and not being threatened at the idea of completely rethinking things and revamping all the pages I've written so far so that a character evolves before the story gets to that 70-page mark where my stories usually gel and then having to go back and re-work 70 pages-- it's been a nice thing.

Some people say that the end of a story is the hardest part to write. I would disagree, possibly violently (if I tended to be the sort of person who disagrees violently.) The beginning of the story is where you get to know your characters, where you start your plot threads. If you start in a wrong place, you can sometimes discover this way further into a story than you'd like. And it takes a while to get a really solidly great thing going. No matter how good a writer you are, I'd argue that actually writing, that process, is what starts the real development of a story. Which means... you're writing it *as* it's solidifying and becoming better. Which means you may need to revamp, revamp and revamp at the beginning of the story. OFten, for me, the beginning has periods of time where I feel like I'm working reaaaally, really hard to get up a hill. Then you get some momentum going, and it clicks, and things start to run smoothly. You've hit the track and things glide, and eventually, seem to go faster than you can even keep up with. But just like breaking a path in snow is far more difficult if you're at the head of the line, breaking that path at the beginning of a story is sometimes discouraging. Dogged determination and 1100 words a day has sometimes been the only thing to get me over the hump.

But right now.... it's actually a very good feeling. Hammering away 1100 words a day can take a toll on writer's morale. I still love that routine, I still feel very accomplished and powerful and happy when doing so, but feeling "fresh" and "new" and all that. It's something I need in my writing career right now. Forget all the worries about copies sold, marketing, what Cedar Fort will think of this next manuscript I've slaved over and... just play. Savor details. Savor creating characters. These things, they are the love in it all, the thing that makes it delicious and something I could never leave behind or cut out of my life.

So that might be my new thing. I'm going to start slowly this time and see just how much better it works. Maybe I won't have to slice apart 70 pages at the beginning of my story this time. That would be VERY refreshing.

Update on our Attached Greenhouse (we are excited.)

So, the funny thing is, when we got that notice from the city I talked about a couple of greenhouse posts ago, I knew it had to have come from someone in the neighborhood/area who read this blog. Because somehow, the city had gotten word that we were building a "greenhouse," only they were told it was going to be a freestanding greenhouse. Since Jeff & I don't generally talk a whole lot about our plans with people, the only real place I could think that someone would know we were building one would be if they read this blog. So I know now that people in this city, people I know, read this. Thus, being more careful about posts, being more aware of peoples' privacy.

I have worried that people will think this is going to be an ugly monstrosity. I don't blame them because, hey. Look at our place! So many weeds. WE used strawbales to insulate our walls last winter, and then Jeff pulled them away from the walls & then never found time to go put them in the horse shed thingie. My kids scatter stuff everywhere. Just like they do inside. And it's harder to remember to ask them to tidy up in the backyard because I don't see it all that often, to be honest. And it doesn't help that all the garbage blows over from the highschool. I have dealt with that by paying my kids to pick it up, a penny a piece, and generally we've been able to keep the area looking OKish, but. You know. Our place is currently kind of the neighborhood disaster. I have goals about changing that this next spring, but who knows if they can happen depending on finances, how well the new baby fares etc.

Anyway, I can see how someone who is familiar with our place might be like, "a greenhouse? Right. It's going to look cobbled together and terrible."

Well, and it's funny because our friend Dave thought the same thing, when we were initially describing our plans to him. Though he didn't tell us this until a couple days ago when Jeff showed him the progress we've made. He gave us a compliment that was also a bit of a dig--"Wow. It actually looks good! From the way you guys were describing it, I was thinking it'd be kind of trashy looking." (Not offended, Dave. It made Jeff laugh. But only because we know you love us!!)

The thing is, when we do stuff, we want to do it right. For Jeff, that means planning meticulously, gathering the precise measurements, the exact pieces, and then (for me) an important thing is finding a period of time when we can work on it until it's finished. I hate half-done projects. They are usually messy, obstructive to routine and space, and not very nice to look at. So... yeah. When we do stuff, and slowly, little by little, we'll do stuff, people will hopefully get an idea of us as a family that really does want their place to look nice, and be a credit to the neighborhood.

Having said all that. Here's where we're at now for the outside (about 3/4 done with plywood, window framing, etc):

We're going to have to leave it plywood until spring, when we'll put insulation and cement board on the outside. Also we'll be mortaring the cinderblock then; right now it's just stacked.

We'll be painting the cement board probably the same color as the rest of the house, with another complimentary for windowframes etc. I'm trying to decide if we do the other color in white, kind of like the rest of the house, or if we go a darker grey to make a nice, pretty contrast. And I'm planning on hanging flower basket planters all along the beams, and planting some red flowers in each. That combination of grey and red is just very pretty. I've seen it done before.

We also plan on taking some of those white flagstones our friends the builders of our house put in a long winding path throughout the yard, and repurposing them to create a path along the house, along the periphery of the greenhouse, and then out to a white flagstone patio/barbecue pit. We're also planning on coldframes along the south (so the path would go around those, too). Overall, I'm pretty certain it will end up looking very nice. Which actually is quite important to me :)

Here's where we're at for the inside:

I am kind of swooning over the amount of space. Our plan for the south side is 4X4 square foot garden beds up against the window side, for sun and warm loving plants such as tomatoes, squashes, peppers and herbs. I plan on hanging strawberry pots/baskets on the inside from every post as well... lots. I love strawberries and want to grow a wide variety.

There will be a path of dark flagstones or pavers (which we will have to buy) for along the house-side wall, so we can walk and have access to everything. We plan on setting it all on sand (with landscape fabric underneath to prevent weeds growing up through, though we don't have many weeds inside anyway because it's graded gravel.) I plan on growing nice mosses in between the flagstones/pavers. It should be quite beautiful. Then as we wrap around toward the east (that corner there you see) we'll probably change to either trees planted in the ground or trees aboveground in giant pots, plus lots of multi-level pots, on stands or hanging, containing bush-berries and fruits or other edible plants that like a great deal of sun. Then as we come around to the east, where there's still good sun but not as much, and it won't be as warm, we'll have a few more square-foot beds with the colder winter vegetables. Then in the very north corner (jeff hasn't built yet) we have a pair of French doors off of the house that open into the greenhouse. We're planning on making that area a sort of indoor solarium/patio, with nice wicker chairs or cast-iron chairs or something more solarium-like, and probably a fountain and a little pot-pool with some stones and maybe a few fishes.

And possibly on that wall of the house, we'll hang one of those pallet-gardens, or a couple, with shade-loving plants like ferns, etc.

Underneath will be more of the dark flagstone pavers on sand, with mosses or elfin thyme growing between the cracks.

In a word, when we get done, it will be wonderful.

SO, back to right now: we've almost got it all enclosed. Jeff is also working on making it airtight--closing in the space between wall and rafter, etc. It's still pretty drafty; we haven't insulated, there are places for the air to get in quite easily, and we haven't even closed off the entire thing yet--the north side's just an open frame, and Jeff hung a tarp to close off the enclosed space to give himself a warm area to work in during the day. But guess what? Even with just that, the nighttime temperatures inside the greenhouse have measured 20 degrees higher than outside temperatures. And during the day:

It's already warmer outside in the greenhouse than it is inside our house!

Think of how it'll be once we get it all enclosed, insulated, caulked if we need to. We may actually need to vent heat inside the house during the day to make sure things don't get too hot for the plants.

Jeff and I have a plan, too, to keep things warm at night (though hopefully it'll be less of a problem than we currently anticipate)--we're going to create curtains of insulation that can drop down over the windows once the temperature inside the greenhouse gets too low. Jeff loves smart-home techology; he'd like to set it up to work automatically with thermometers that gauge temperature, so that when the air at night starts to get below a certain temp, these thick, insulation curtains slide down over the windows and in the morning, when the sensors pick up that the outside temperature is warm enough, they can slide back up. And we can get our sun and warmth at night, too, so we can grow things like...


tomatoes. the holy grail of vegetables. Which I have never been able to make work to well here in an outside garden, even during the summer. The season is just too short.

Well actually, honestly Eggplants are the holy grail. I couldn't even get those to grow in Utah.

It's possible we can use the same system of heated water tubing that warms our concrete floor inside the house, to heat the garden beds as well. Run several loops of the hosing under the bed, keep the soil warm at night. There are lots of options. I want vines of tomatoes swinging from my ceilings year round. Did you know they get really long if they can grow all the time? And they keep producing, too.

It will be amazing. It's Jeff's & my christmas present to each other this year... he's been building all christmas break and I think he's really enjoying it a lot. I'm enjoying seeing it go up, and seeing our dream become a reality.