Topic B: Allergic reactions are just like the flu only worse
My daughter is allergic to penicillin derivatives, and since she’s had a bilateral ear infection she was on Amoxicillin. It was her first time. It didn’t quite do in the infection, so she got another round.
That’s when she swelled up at all her joints and developed a rash from head to toe… the day before we were supposed to fly to California. The doctor wasn’t that concerned, but warned us that we would need to take it easy.
I didn’t realize that by take it easy she meant the kid wouldn’t be able to walk. So we got to pack the daughter around but only to places with stroller access or that we were dying to see (and by dying I mean lug a 35 pound kid to).
But California provided the perfect reason to stay indoors: it rained.
Now, I know that most people think rain isn’t a great thing when on vacation, but I beg to differ. The ocean is a fickle beast, and a storm blue sea is a treat to someone from the desert. We had a great—if somewhat less than normal mountain climbing—vacation.
I hope everyone else had a great Spring Break if you get one, or just enjoyed the beginnings of spring (where are my daffodils, I put in my order last November when I planted a ton…).
I got tagged by the fabulous Carrie for a number of things, but one of them was a set of questions. Among the questions was one that I’ve been thinking about making a whole post about, so I took it as a sign from the universe to write that post (be warned, this is long).
The question: What would the soundtrack be to your WIP?
The reason I’ve been thinking about doing a post on this is that there is something that bugs me: characters who reset. You see it all the time in sitcoms, there is a status quo and all the stories make sure that characters get back to that. That’s why the theme song to shows like Seinfeld and Friends stay the same. They don’t need to change.
I don’t write like that.
There are some cases where it’s just fine to reset, but I’m seeing an increasing trend of the reset in YA fiction, and that kind of bothers me. I guess I’m sort of an old fuddy duddy, but when it comes to characters, I’m a big fan of consequences (no, no: BIG FAN). I sort of believe that if you chase down the ultimate evil and barely survive fighting off the horrible wizard of darkness, you’re gonna be a little messed up in the head. You will have seen and done things that have left you scarred. If your faith in the world has been shattered, that’s going to affect the way you handle things in the future. Just look at any person who says something along the lines of “I had a really bad break up.” They just aren’t the same. My concern is that there aren’t nearly as many consequences for many of our hero’s actions leading me to question if we are beginning to dumb YA down. (Yeah, I know what y’all are thinking: “Rena, some people never *stopped* dumbing down YA.” A problem for another post, I’m sure.)
There are many who would say (Awesome Agent Kristen among them) that the difference between YA and MG is the reset. If you can bring your characters back to being a kid at the end of the novel, then it resets and you are in a MG novel. If your characters get to the end and they are scarred and see the world as adults, even though they are still teenagers, that’s YA.
The reason I’m a fuddy duddy is because I believe in consequences. If you decide to face the evil, you will not come back the same. If you win at any cost, you will be paying off that cost for a long time. This is what I refer to as the Frodo effect. Frodo carried the ring, but it screwed him up. It left him damaged and warped, and by the end of it all, he couldn’t handle living in the real world anymore, hence his trip into the West.
Tolkien was a veteran of WWI. He knew all about the scars of fighting the good fight, and finding out that even if it was the right thing, it may not have been a good thing. Actions have consequences. It’s as truthful as the fact that mass bends reality, causing such incredible phenomena as gravity (yeah, I totally went nerdy on you there).
Wait, Rena, you said this was about soundtracks!
That’s exactly what I’m talking about. See I wrote a story, and the soundtrack to that story was a fantastical, whimsical piece that I’ve linked to in my blog in the past.
This song is lighthearted. Yeah, it’s intense, but when the S#!7 goes down, it’s awesome and in the same tone (note, I prefer the full orchestra version, but it’s not easy to link to.), light, whimsical, mischievous. It’s absolutely perfect for the First Book of an old WIP that’s back in the queue to become a WIP again in the future.
But when my poor MC got to the end of that experience, Piano Fantasy couldn’t be her soundtrack anymore. She was hurt and upset. When I sent out chapters of the second book, my Mom commented that she was worried about my MC, that she might not have enough friends, that she was isolating herself. “I just want to give her a hug.” And Piano Fantasy isn’t the song for someone who just needs a hug. In short, the tone had changed, a lot. My MC had changed.
The soundtrack for book two of that series would definitely go to Through the Gates by Celldweller (I have some eclectic tastes, just bare with me).
She was isolated, and having a hard time relating to the people who used to be her friends. How could she talk about things like dating boys and painting nails when she had basically committed murder? She was having a hard time coping, and then things got worse. The world kept pounding on her door, and she barely managed to scrape by. We had a “happy” ending, or at least that particular problem was solved. For the second book, my MC was in what I refer to as survival mode. Yes, she took initiative, she didn’t just take it as it came. She fought, but she wasn’t entirely pleased to do so. She wasn’t reactive, but she was still fighting against the reality of the situation. It’s sort of like falling down and fighting against the effects of gravity rather than tucking into a roll. You’re already falling and nothing can change it. That was book two.
For book three, things got worse.
See, I’ve noticed something in my life. Life just keeps throwing stuff at you. When you think things are gonna get better, sometimes they get worse. A lot worse. Pretty much the choices are roll over and take it, or do something about it (this is why writing fantasy is awesome; in the real world, the shit you might get handed can be stuff like cancer, and there’s only so much fighting that can be done. In fantasy, our shit is orcs trying to overrun a castle—metaphorical cancer, sure, but less complicated and no chemo).
The thing is, it took me a long time to realize that fighting back was an option. Laying down and taking it is easy, just roll over and let the waves of life crash over you. I would always tell myself that I would stand up after this wave was done with me. But there was always another wave, a bigger wave. At some point, I just stood up. That’s what the third book was all about, standing up in the face of adversity. The soundtrack for the third book is Just Like You Imagined by Nine Inch Nails. It is hard, unrelenting, and driving (many of you may recognize it as the trailer music to 300).
My point? (other than thanks for reading this far?) The choices of our characters should have a long lasting effect on them. They shouldn’t be able to just shake off things like saving the world, or killing the bad guy. They will carry these deeds in their heads and on their bodies for years to come. In short, as much as people hate to let it happen, characters change. They need to. The wayward farm boy in Star Wars is not the same person as the Jedi Knight. He just isn’t (though John Williams did give them very similar soundtracks). It is their growth that is interesting.
Right, so I posted that my computer had moved into glitchy land? Well, yesterday I posted for IWSG, pulled down my lecture for the day, and Shazam! 52,000 event logs. My computer took a nose dive. It couldn't function, I had a cascading damage through the registry key which very nearly put my computer under for good.
I did not get to read IWSG posts.
So after some computer voodoo (and a new reg key cleaner), I'm back up. And holy cow, I'd forgotten how awesome my computer was when I first got it. It's like having a new computer without having to transfer all my files over.
In short, sorry I'm late to the party people, but I'm getting back on track.
It’s time to purge our hearts of all our worries and anxieties. Be sure to join Alex and hop around to other blogs.
So, I’ve pretty much stripped bare already, so it seems like there shouldn’t be anything left for me to worry about.
Yeah, right.
See, in my brain there is this little person. For the record, this little person isn’t small of stature, just small of everything else: honor, logic, wellbeing, pretty much everything. This little person sits around and dreams up more stuff for me to be worried about, and no matter how hard I try, I always manage to keep him in a job. *Shakes fist at little voice.*
It is ridiculous that I worry, but it is especially ridiculous that I worry that I might be a fraud. Yeah, I might be a complete faker who can barely keep my life together, how can I possibly be a writer? How can anything I say or write possible be of any use to anyone? I can’t get to the grocery store on a regular basis, how can my mere words be meaningful? I can’t manage to get my WIP off the ground, why should anyone care what I have to say?
And worse, right now, I don’t even have a functional manuscript. Want to feel like a real loser? Go check out a bunch of agent judged contests where the rules are “For a finished manuscript only” and not have a manuscript finished. It makes me feel like a fake, a fraud, a hanger on in an awesome community--undeserving--because I don’t have a manuscript. I haven't put the time into my writing. I've been doing all these other things, important sure, but still not writing. But I am a real writer! I know I’ve finished six novels and I have nothing to show for any of them, but really, really soon, I’ll have a seventh. And all those other novels were just crap anyway, this one is THE ONE, so hold on there contest, I’ll be a real writer with a real manuscript in just a few months.
Then the realization sinks in. No, I won’t have a real manuscript in just a couple months. I’ll have a first draft. I’m looking at half a year to a full year before I have a “finished” manuscript. That’s forever in writer years. I know what the problem is, it’s easy to spot if I could just step back and look.
That voice. That evil little voice in my head dreaming up things for me to worry about. Like will my book be relevant in a year? In three years? Even if it does get published (practically the lottery at this point), will anyone read it? Like it? Is all of this just a pipedream anyway? Have I spent months ruining my life in my—thus far failed!—attempt to become a ‘real writer’?
Somewhere that little voice is telling me that not having a “finished manuscript” makes me a second class citizen, and worse, I used to be a member of the elite, a querying goddess of awesome. And then it all went away. I decided to make a change, and I had to yank my manuscript from what can only be called a tepid reception.
I wrote another book, but that wasn’t the stuff either.
And now I have a monstrosity of a WIP. I love it. My alpha readers like it, but they don’t love it. Even my Mom doesn’t love it (though she is always truthful and wouldn’t just blow sunshine up my ego). I guess it means more to me than them. So here I am, all my hopes in this one MS, and I can already see that I probably love it too much to do the editing and revisions on it I’ll need to make it awesome. This is why I feel like a fraud. I’m such a fraud I can’t even see that my broken WIP is only ever going to be loved by me.
Stupid little voice, how do I get you to leave me alone?
I’m a real writer. The only person who can say if I’m a real writer is me, so go away stupid voice. You don’t know me. You don’t know the stuff I’m made of. All the other weaklings quit. All the fakes and the frauds have already quit, and I’m still here. I don’t need you, stupid little voice, now go away.
So I’ve tried this post a couple of times, but it just sounds like I’m whining. I don’t want to be the whinny person who’s always having a bad day.
I also don’t want to lie and fake a happy sunny life thus propagating the idea that we have to be well adjusted sunny people with nothing worse than a hangnail going on in our lives.
But here’s the truth: I’m no closer to having my damned dissertation done now than before. Well, that’s not true, I’ve been working on it constantly, but it’s taking forever. I *feel* like I’ll never finish. And I’m teaching. 250 students generate email like you would not believe. And I have to keep on top of all of it because that email is someone’s grade.
No pressure.
I love teaching, don't ever doubt that, but when my computer eats my lecture an hour before my lecture I want to take a shot gun to my computer. The urge is not insignificant. And that sort of breakdown is occuring more and more frequently. My students must think I'm a complete flake. They have fewer computer problems than I do, and they outnumber me worse than the Persians outnumbered the Spartans at the battle of Thermopylae.
Yeah, I’m looking forward to Spring Break (next week). I’ll be heading to California to visit family and water, and I’m looking forward to it so much that if something goes wrong (always a possibility), I will seriously cry like a little girl (something I’m prone to when stressed out beyond imagining).
So I think I can sum up my life with two words: Over booked.
I don’t know how many of you have had the pleasure of experiencing March in the Southwest US, but let me just say, it has the most memorable March of all the places I’ve lived. This desiccating wind blows through the valley, drying out everything and sending anything not nailed down (and quite a few things that were nailed down, actually) to the sky.
This wind is a magic thing. It gives life to the dreaded tumbleweed.
If you’ve been reading for a while, I’m sure I’ve mentioned them before, but the battle between man and tumbleweed is taken very seriously here. This wind dries out the weeds and they start rolling around, and not slowly, I’ve been passed by a tumbleweed on the freeway before, doing 60 mph. It’s a thing to behold when a hay bale-sized object speeds past you. Tumbleweed range in size from soccer ball to sedan. I did once see one the size of my living room roll by (yikes). But despite their size they usually aren’t that heavy (hence the rolling along at highway speeds).
Even more disturbing is the way to handle them. Okay, well it’s actually pretty cathartic. When driving, run over the tumbleweed. Do not swerve (unless it’s bigger than your car). They look big, but they’re basically a skeleton of fairly delicate, desiccated plant matter. And even better, when exposed to the front end of a Nissan Versa, they explode in a shower of sticks.
It’s like magic.
In March I always try to think of all my problems as rolling balls of tumbleweed. They always look so much more solid than they are, but every time I’ve run over one, they explode. I like the idea of exploding problems. If all of my problems could be handled so easily… Kapoow!
Did I mention I have the tastes of 12 year old boy, and using my car to make invasive species explode makes me laugh like the mad scientist I am?
The problem is the first one. Every year, it’s a challenge to take out that first tumbleweed. We spend so much of our time learning to protect our cars and drive defensively, that the aggressive act of heartlessly—no! Gleefully!—mowing down a bush in our way is completely foreign to me. But then I get the nerve, line up the damn weed and smack-ola! Sticks and dust fly up over the hood in a satisfying cloud of destruction. Queue maniacal laughter.
Once I take out that first one, it’s game on for the rest of March. Look out tumbleweed, I’m after you.
This is the part where I’m supposed to compare writing to tumbleweed murder. I know, lame right. But it’s always been that way with me, with everything really, not just writing. All the big obstacles were big because I filled in the skeletons with rocks and plaster and stuff to make them harder. I swerved when I should have driven straight ahead. I avoided instead of taking them out when I had the chance. If only I could remember the crunch-whoosh sound of exploding tumbleweed when life throws its curve balls at me.
Right, and now For Crit Partner Appreciation day.
It’s Crit Partner Appreciation day (Thanks for making this one Megan!).
There are a number of people who have looked at my work (query letters and chapters). So in no particular order, I’d like to thank
Go send them some blog love. These guys (I guess gals, really) have changed the way I think about novels, and query letters. You never know how things will stick with a person, but literally, one comment—one sentence!—from someone once made me realize that my entire novel NEEDED to be rewritten (and no, the sentence was not “You need to rewrite your novel”).
In honor of Crit Partner Appreciation day, I’m giving away free crits. No contest, you don’t even have to follow. Send me your first 250 words, and I’ll give you feedback. These are crits people, so they won’t be just full of happy go lucky “I loved it” (even if I do love it). They will be full of honest feedback (it’s the only kind I know how to give). So email me your stuff by Monday the 5th at 11:59 GMT, and I’ll give you one critique on your first page. If you’re in dire need of query help, you can send me a query instead, and I’ll give you all I’ve got in that arena instead.
With critiques, remember that I don’t know any more than the next person, but sometimes all we need is another pair of eyes. I’ve got a pair of eyes, so I’m qualified. My email is RenaLFord(at)gmail, so send me your stuff, and go thank your Crit Partners.
And for my crit partners, I’ve been closed to crits for a while, but that changes now. Email me.
