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.

2000 word update

I am doing ok with my 2000 word goal, except for a couple things: when the kids are sick, it all goes out the window. Also, DavyJones is keeping me up at night and there have been a few mornings where I just couldn't manage it. And... Saturdays have fallen off the table. Now that it's summer. I forget how insanely busy Saturdays are during summer. Especially with the yard, and play practices, and other summer activities... and finishing the greenhouse. Which I will post about soon.

Still, right now I'm at 96,000 words with my LDS contemporary novel, and about 85,000 words of my fantasy. The LDS novel is almost finished. I can feel it winding to a close. The fantasy... maybe we're at the halfway point. I was right--it is an epic fantasy. Hooooow to get an agent to read it, when it's my first book? I guess I have to market to agents who deal in epic fantasy? Are there such things for people other than Robert Jordan?


Anyway. Thoughts. You could send some my direction, too... I'd welcome input.

Goals are sometimes very very hard

This blog has become a semi self-documentary on my recovery. I'm not sure why that is. I think I know why, actually. I used to put blogging and journaling aside in times of turmoil, because I have this strange relationship with the concept of honesty--I feel like if I'm writing only about the things in my life/events that are happy and funny and impersonal, I'm not being honest. ANd others who are struggling will come read about my life and feel miserable because they'll be like, why is HER life so perfect? I must be a crappy person to have to go through so much stuff.

I admit a small, immature part of me feels that way in the presence of people who seem to always be living happy little lives full of scrapbooky stuff.

In the past (before this last year or so) I would deal with that sort of dissonance (what do I blog about when I'm going through significant struggles) by leaving the blog alone and not writing at all. But that made me feel bad, too. I love writing on here. And I don't want there to be giant gaps on here in my childrens' development, in my life. So here we go, writing about everything. I guess.

I've gotten some judgy comments on a couple posts. I guess that happens when you open yourself up by writing about personal stuff. There's a facebook meme that goes: don't want to be judged? Then stop putting your personal crap all over facebook.

Well, I feel like putting my personal crap (enough to be real, but not so much that I feel like I'm sharing things that I can't come back from emotionally if people criticize) on the internet actually helps me, because I think of myself ten years ago, and how it would have helped that girl to be reading about someone's recovery. It makes me feel like there might be a purpose to all this.

So in my last couple of personal-crap posts, I talked about how I'm trying to open myself up and trust.

It's really hard. What I *want* to do right now (particularly walking into church meetings) is to sit by myself and glare at people. So instead of doing this

my heart seems sometimes to be pulling me in the direction of this.

some things have happened that really haven't helped. I won't talk about them here.

One thing I've realized lately is, I really, really do not trust easily. It is so hard. It's like weight lifting--I have to actively force myself not to assume things. My mind bends itself into a hundred twisty assumptions whenever something makes me insecure in an interaction with another person. My struggle is, I worry all the time that I'm offending others accidentally. I have to actively work to unbend those thoughts. Sometimes I need to do that without even asking questions or clarifying. A person I'm talking to lately said it like this: take everything at face value. Don't read anything into what people say or do. Yes, sometimes that will come back to bite you. But what sort of life is happier: a life where your'e always assuming you've hurt others all the time and being right a fraction of the time, or assuming you're at peace with everyone, that people are fine with you, and being wrong a fraction of the time?

It's a powerful concept.

One that is sometimes very difficult to apply in real life.

I feel like I'm a person who really has been mostly knotted up tight inside--so tight, I did not even know what I felt for a while. And now, I'm still unknotting. I probably do seem quite spiny to people at times right now. But I am doing my best, and so I need to forgive myself for that. You can only do so much at once.

We've had several weeks of sickness in our house. I love my children, and am grateful I get to be the one to help them. It is also exhausting. To me (I am coming to realize) the most exhausting thing in the world is to feel stuck and unable to do things. Like clean, or finish projects, or continue to plug away at projects. I got a total of 4,000 words in last week--I have to remind myself that I was taking care of a sick baby, so that is OK. My time was legitimately spent. It is OK that I spent hours on end looking into my baby's face and enjoying some down time. Maybe I *need* down time and that is why my family got sick. I don't know. Heavenly Father has a funny way of making important things happen.

Goals are great. We need to forgive ourselves when we can't do it all at once. We need to remember that a destination is important, but the road is where we spend most of our time. And that is OK. And we need to have peace in the journey.

I'm Not the Only Crazy One

People often ask me how I am a mother of eight children and also a writer.

Last weekend, I got to meet lots of writers. Lots of them women. I sat at a table with four people--the head editor at Covenant Communications, her husband, and two younger women who were (as yet unpublished, but clearly, talented and motivated) writers. I didn't know anybody in the room, at least, not personally (a few I have communicated with online) because I have never been to a writer conference. In my life.

This particular group, LDS Storymakers, is made up of those who write LDS fiction, but also those who are LDS who write general fiction. Brandon Sanderson was there.

I told these girls, who I had never met, that I'd never gone to a writer conference before because I keep having babies. And immediately they nodded, and one kind of rolled her eyes and said, "yeah, a lot of our sessions this conference were interrupted by crying babies." And the other said, "I mostly felt sorry for them, because they paid to go, and they're not getting anything out of it." And the first replied, "Yeah. Babies are more important. They should come first."

It was interesting... here I was, sitting at a table with them, holding my baby at this fancy dinner where I had won an award for my writing. And here they were saying things about how babies should come first and it made me think. Is my baby coming first?

Well, yeah. He was there with me. He was seeing everything I was seeing, enjoying everything I was enjoying (arguably even the food, since he gets that secondhand.) (Haha. Sorry if that grossed you out.)

Does being a writer mean I'm putting my children second?

Quite often, this is the sight I see while I am plugging away in the morning, trying to get 2000 words in.

Do you see the edge of my laptop, there?

My babies learn to nurse while I am also typing. My kids learn to wait about ten seconds after they ask a question for me to set the laptop aside (temporarily) and answer it. They learn to be quiet upstairs during a key two hours of the morning. They can be there, they just have to be quiet. Loud means go outside. Fresh air is good for kids.

I don't just type at the exclusion of my family. I will type, and answer a question, type and help with a math problem, type and take a break to change a baby's diaper. Type and take a moment to lean back, stretch, sigh and ask for a hug.

Then I finish, put the laptop away (unless I'm also writing a quick blog) (like right now) and focus on tasks like cleaning, cuddling with my toddlers, making meals. And driving people places.

At this particular conference, two mothers were honored. One came to the front leaning on a cane, hugely pregnant, clearly exhausted. She talked about how, after she signed a contract with Deseret Book for her second novel, her husband was immediately called as Bishop, and her kids were put in Year-Round school. She talked about how she struggled, and thought about the ramifications of breaking her contract. And how, in the end, she prayed, and asked for help. And Got it. Heavenly Father blessed her endeavor because it was worthy of blessing. Therefore, consecrated. Therefore, acceptable in His sight.

The other was Rachel Ann Nunes. You've heard of her, I'm sure. If you've read any LDS fiction at all you have. She has written dozens of books, and she stated, up at the pulpit, that many of them were written with a child on her lap. I am sure she's been criticized plenty of times in her life for putting her family "Second." In fact, she talked about it. I guess my question for those people (generally other women) who would criticize her would be, have you ever read a book by Julie Ann Nunes? Did you enjoy it? Did it contribute something to your life, or the life of your daughters?

One of the presenters talked about how many people (particularly mothers) might say, "I can do this later. I can do this when...." (the babies are older. The kids are in school. The kids are out of the house). But some just do it. And I think it is a personal choice... one that you pray about. I have often felt worried that I was sacrificing something I shouldn't be... that my books should be helping support our family, at least, if I am going to make this "sacrifice." I recieved some inspiration recently that has made me completely rethink that mindset... writing is a blessing. My writing blesses others, it blesses myself, and also blesses my family. My kids know who I am, and my daughters then form their own aspirations. They see me accomplishing goals and they know that they can do it, too.

And they are all writers. They see it as a normal part of life. My kids will sit down at a computer and spend hours typing stories. It amazes me to see, so directly, how my own example filters down into my kids.

I felt, watching these women speak, very proud to be able to count myself among those who have written novels with babies nursing and toddlers in their laps.

I am not the only crazy one. That picture above is my favorite sight in the world. Both of them.

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.

On the Pain of Hope

I think that Heavenly Father is very merciful. Obviously, He is. But I mean this in a way that I don't often hear about preached over the pulpit. I think often Heavenly Father shows mercy by protecting us from ourselves. From our weaknesses, when we aren't yet capable of resolving them. I don't know about you, but it would be tortuous for me to know of a weakness I have, and to not be able to fix it. I think often Heavenly Father has kept me in check so that my weaknesses don't become destructive... until I am ready to resolve them, and then he allows them to become destructive so that I will want to resolve them.

I think that includes the wounds that come from things we don't cause ourselves... the hurts we carry because of the poor choices of those around us.

And... even deeper... the ways our own weaknesses contributed (however slightly) to the hurts.

In my case, it was a weakness of self-esteem. I felt something, with my first husband, when we started dating, that I had never felt before--acceptance. And a knowledge that (at least one person on this earth) thought I was a wonderful person. I latched on to that immediately and clung. It was such a better place than the one I was coming from, where (and this is not necessarily the fault of my family... in childhood and teenagerhood, your perception is often skewed. And often when there is trauma involved, you end up with a completely inaccurate picture of your life) I felt like I was a pretty terrible person--unattractive, unlikable, awkward, embarrassing. Gross.

Another weakness that contributed to the things that happened was my saving-people complex. My ex husband was lonely. He'd had personal tragedy. He got depressed about where his life was headed. And Nobody Else saw what a wonderful person he was and appreciated that... they all judged him as weird or awkward or unattractive (and thus the spiral of over-identification, leading to some unhealthy co-dependence, which lead me to impulsively ask for and agree to an engagement that kept me from dating my first year away at college, and kept me from examining the relationship too closely when I should have noticed several red flags.)

These weaknesses of mine are things I can apply to my current relationships. That's the nice thing. I know how they lead to my pain (very slightly, because it was still my ex husband's decisions that destroyed our marriage and cut through my life--codependence does not deserve unfaithfulness, deception and attempted murder)and to some bad decisions and some difficulty in my relationships.

But before I could see and acknowledge these things, I had to feel like I *didn't* cause what happened to me. And know that for a fact. And that took a lot of loving counsel (counsel that I had cut myself off from before, because bad experiences with priesthood leadership and therapists and husbands had made me distrustful and afraid).

Right now I have a good friend going through this. Going through the experience of trauma and difficulty and scary things happening that aren't his fault, and his bishop is, for whatever reason, unable to support him the way he needs. He has been blogging about it lately, and I have been reading his posts with a breaking heart.

Who knows why this bishop is unable to support my friend. It may be that the situation taps into some of the bishop's own traumas (as was the case with my difficult experience). It may be that this bishop is not meant to help my friend--he is meant to help the other person in the situation, and my friend (being spiritually strong, capable of emotional self-reflection, and also being supported by many others)is trusted by Heavenly Father to be OK and to be able to handle not being supported by his bishop for now. It may be that this bishop is not paying attention to some spiritual promptings he should be, and is just being a judgmental person who has already decided my friend is bad (and in that case, we still need to forgive. Because a bishop is like any other person--imperfect. And as members of the church we are expected to support and love imperfect leaders. And be that soft place to land in the face of others' imperfection.)

But what to tell my friend right now, while he is struggling with the terrible feelings that come when you struggle, but feel unsupported by those who you've always looked up to as a safe place to go--a place for compassion in times of trouble and turmoil, a place where you trust to be judged fairly, helped and loved.

I feel like I am watching him be put through everything I went through, and took ten years to recover from. And it hurts. Like watching someone pull wings off a butterfly. Sorry for the sappy analogy.

Heavenly Father has added another layer of recovery for me, right now, that apparently I am ready for (?) and that is the knowledge that what happened to me, happens. To people. It wasn't an isolated event, it happens sometimes and it will happen to those that I love.

And it is my job to use the empathy I have to help, instead of shrinking away and making it an addition to my own hurt and trauma. I need to have a strong heart about this and reach out. And be the example of someone who has healed from this sort of pain, and become stronger in my testimony and compassion because of it.

Lately, things have been hard for me at church. Whenever you're given a calling where you're supposed to coordinate the efforts of several people and coordinate those overall efforts with several different organizations, all coordinating the efforts of lots of people, you are going to end up making people upset. And one thing that has been very hard for me is trusting people I am not close to. For a while, I was trying (unconsciously) to resolve that by *becoming* close to people, but that wasn't the answer.

The answer is, Heavenly Father expects me to trust. As a default. Until I learn someone is untrustworthy, I am supposed to trust.

Which feels, after what I have experienced, kind of crazy and dangerous. But really, it's not. Really, it's the only way to heal.

I need to be willing to put myself out there, and be disappointed at times. I need to have hope, and deal with the pain that comes when that hope is disappointed, and then *continue* to hope and to be willing to be disappointed. Because nobody is perfect, and if we just shut people out because they show their lack of perfection, because they've hurt us, well then, that's *us* judging and causing others the same sort of pain we struggled so long to recover from.

In this church (and in this world), we can either all go around letting our rough edges cut each other to pieces, or we can be that willing, soft place to land, and provide safe, healing places for others.

We can either let our difficulties harden us, so that we blind ourselves to others' needs, using the excuse that they might (or have) hurt us to justify our blinders, or we can let our difficulties soften us... give us greater empathy, understanding, and a willingness to look inward so we can correct ourselves and resolve not to be a source of pain to others.

There's a scripture about that somewhere. I found it once, and haven't been able to find it again... if you know it, please post it in the comments.

Anyway. Hope can be the most painful thing. But without it, what do we have? If we shrink from the pain of hope, we end up putting ourselves in a place of darkness. We trap ourselves. We shut out everything that gives purpose to life... and I'd call that depression: that feeling of purposelessness. Lack of hope.

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.