Stranger than Fiction Monday

I believe it was Mark Twain (AKA Samuel Clemens) who said fiction had to be believable, but fact has no such constraints—paraphrased, obviously. And honestly, moments in my life definitely qualify. So here I present Stranger than fiction Monday. No I don’t know if this’ll be something I do regularly, I mean really, I don’t know if I’m getting paid next month, why would I have my blog nailed down when I can’t even keep my real life together?

Assuming I do manage to get this up and running on a regular basis, people can feel free to ask whatever questions they like, and I’ll do my best to answer them (sorry, I missed your question about the size of a road runner, Jen, but they’re basically land bound, overgrown pigeons with cool plumage). When I don’t have questions, I’ll regale everyone with strange stories from my myriad odysseys (and yes, that is the right way to describe most of my stories).

Without further ado: Stranger than Fiction.

You know how most people have stories that start out with “My friends and I were at the bar”? Well, I don’t have stories like that. I can actually count the number of times I’ve been in a bar on my fingers (and even those only happen at conferences and airports). No, all of my crazy stories go more like “So, I was out in the field.”

I was on a field trip with the people at UCSB, it was a tour of Death Valley (pretty awesome place really), and it was May. I mention what time of year it was because, you know, Death Valley is really hot. No, I don’t mean like a little bit hot, I mean like make tea in your water bottle hot (then burn your lips when you try to take a drink). I got a nosebleed the second I stepped out of the van (yes, for all my bluff and bravado, I am the nosebleed person, damnit). I was also deemed one of the more responsible people, so they let me drive one of the 14 passenger vans—their first mistake. Well, it had been a really long, hot day, and considering that we had a permit from BLM, we decided we’d call it an evening at seven o’clock. It was still 100 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course, I’m in the US here). One of the professors knew of a really great place to camp, a nice wash with a soft sandy bed that practically never had water in it. So we four wheeled it in our giant Econoline vans, through the creosote bushes to the sandy (read car eating) wash.

Now, I don’t know how many of you have had much experience with the desert, but a creosote bush is a plant that has a characteristic scent. In fact the scent is creosote (hence the name) but it smells of rotting flesh when you bruise it.

Seriously, this bush smells like rotting garbage.

And we drove through it.

Yeah, really smart.

But wait, there’s more. I should have stopped following directions much earlier in this particular trip, and now that I think about, they may have been directing me into things for the fun of it, but I hit a big old rock. Ugh. Econoline spins out in sand, I’m stuck. And it smells like someone exhumed a recent grave nearby. At this point, it’s starting to look like the beginning of a horror flick… the college kids trapped in the desert with the rising undead, will they make it through the night?

One of the burly undergrads who still had something to prove, comes over and looks at the scene. He decides to roll the giant rock out of the way (I’d only just barely hit it, but there was only so much room between it and a boulder that would have actually capsized the van). Oh, yeah, did I mention I was the lead van driver? Yeah, that’s me, holding up the other three because I hit a rock.

Well, burly guy one bends over and pulls and pulls and pulls. Nothing. He calls over some of the others, and they rig up a lever, and with these guys pushing on this rock they finally turn it away from the van. The face that had been facing the van pulls up into full view of the sun, and it says “R.I.P. 1492.”

The burly guys drop the rock while screaming like little girls. I mean, I can hardly blame them, it does smell like rotting flesh, I can see how they might have thought for just a second or two that there was a body nearby (one that I might have actually been driving over), but they manned up and finished the job so the rest of the vans could get to the chosen campsite. (The chosen campsite possibly ringed by the resting places of the undead!)

By some strange, silent agreement, none of the guys who touched the rock said anything about it, but there were plenty of witness (including yours truly), and that night around the campfire we told stories. We started out with Bundy and his gang (one of his known hideouts was very near death valley) and of course, when talking about mass murderers, we got into ghost stories.

Well, what better fodder for ghost stories than the one about the vengeful spirit of the disturbed tomb on the edge of camp.

I let them go on for a bit, trading stories about how one time his aunt had heard/felt/seen something that was just like this time. And then the time his brother had went into a cave and found a bone then couldn’t sleep for weeks. Then one guy with dilated pupils, and a t-shirt with a pot leaf on it said, “But aren’t you the least bit worried that the ghost of that corpse is going to haunt you?”

I blinked. Everyone at the campfire turned their eyes to me. I am a girl after all, I’m supposed to say something like “Oh, I’m so scared, maybe someone should sleep close to my tent tonight, just in case.” But really, I’d been driving all day long, with enough nosebleeds and dehydration to tax the patience of a saint, and well, I’m not a saint. I’m a scientist.

I sighed the long suffering sigh of someone speaking with the mentally impaired (okay, that was probably rude, but I’d had enough egging on at that point), but if I could have rolled my eyes any farther, they’d have come up the bottom. “And you think I’m going to be haunted by the English speaking native American who died in 1492? Prior to the conquistadors? Seriously? Did you remember to pack your brain when you came on this trip? 1492, puhleeze.”

Everyone laughed, even the girly screaming burly boys laughed—in no small part relief, I’m sure.

But seriously, who’s lucky enough to hit the only freakin fake tombstone in Death Valley? Me. That’s who.

Oh, and no, I was not haunted by Native American (nor cowboy, nor conquistador) as a result of my dances with tombstones.

Short cuts

I’ve finished my read through of my soon to be query bait, and it needs something dreadful: rewrites. Okay, well not full rewrites (at least not that I can see, which is a subject to change with time), but a rewrite of the single most important part: the end!

I totally took the cheap route out. I got to the climax and punched the ticket. Credits roll and I’m awesome, or maybe not. See, I know better. I rush endings. I always have. I’m like a barn sour horse. I get heading back to home and suddenly I’m writing like a demon, dropping details, and rushing the scenery.

I’m not very good with tension in these settings, if you can imagine that.

So now it’s back to the drawing board on some crucial scenes at the end. I should know the old adage by now “If you have time enough to do it twice, surely you had time to do it right the first time.”

Where do you take shortcuts?

Where I am honest, angry and sad

I’m very sad today. This is not a funny post. My S.O.’s favorite aunt died yesterday in a motorcycle accident.

It’s like a curtain just fell over the world. Yesterday, there were things that were so important. Today, those things are like ants at a picnic, small, annoying and almost beneath my notice.

I’ll not lie, my family has been through a lot of tragedy in recent years. My 34 year old brother had a terrible stroke that nearly killed him. Two of my grandparents died within 4 months of each other. For a long time, I just wore black because there was nothing I could say to express myself anymore. It was like my words had all left me.

This just feels impossible. She was so strong and solid. She would have taken over the world if someone hadn’t needed to keep the family in line and get dinner on the table.

I’m angry at the world. I’m not a fool, I know life isn’t fair—and thank all the gods anyone has ever thought to pray to for that; if the world were fair we’d deserve this shit—but this is just such a kick to the groin.

And I feel so guilty because we hadn’t gone out to visit in a long time. We hadn’t even sent pictures since Christmas.

All of us get that phone call, the one at an odd hour. You look at your phone and know there’s no good news on the other end. If you haven’t had one, it’s really just a matter of time. The only way not to get this phone call is to have no one you love. This is the risk of love.

I don’t have any words of wisdom like “go hug your aunt,” or “life is short.” Those words are true but also trite. They are the words society has taught us so we have a response when we are hurt and reeling from the disbelief that now there is a gaping hole in the family. Society has taught us these words because otherwise we’d scream our invocations to the powers that be, and when we receive less than ameliorating response, we would curse the gods who have seemingly turned their backs on us. So we have social norms, to couch the pain into pat answers. I’m not a fan of social norms.**

Damn it, I hate this part of life. 

** If my lack of sensibilities has offended, I do apologize. It is not my intent to hurt others, only to express myself while I still have words. 

Delusional

I’ve been in the throes of that delusion. If you’re a writer, you know the one, they’re almost all the same.

There I am imagining that the first time an agent sees my almost  ready query bait, they’ll swoon with love for my awesomeness. I’ll hit send on my queries, and I’ll instantly get five (seriously, I can’t handle the idea of more than five active queries at a time, what a nightmare) requests. One of the agents will fall instantly in love with the manuscript and call to offer representation. (In my delusions, this part happens at the same time I’m defending my dissertation, but that’s just my own personal delusion. Should I ever get THE CALL, I’m sure I’ll be doing something entirely inappropriate for phone answering, like going to the bathroom, or changing a poopy diaper, or waiting in line at the Post Office). After the first offer of representation, I inform the others, and then they all offer representation. (Ah, the delusions are so much fun sometimes).

After picking Agent Fabulous—oh yeah, in my delusion, agent fabulous and I are like super awesome best friends—she doesn’t even want to change much in my manuscript, just a couple of typos (I’m dyslexic, there’ll be some typos). Agent Fabulous submits my manuscript and sells my book in a pre-empt to a major publishing house.

Oh, but that’s not all, my delusions are nothing if not thorough.

That house loves my manuscript soooo much, they decide to bump me up in their print schedule (I’m sorry, it took me a while to come back to my keyboard after laughing so hard, “move up in the schedule” how sweet). And then after it hits the shelves, it lands on the NYT Bestseller list instantly and has a lengthy stay, one so long the NYT decides to add a new category just so other books can be at the top of their list.

Ah isn’t that a fun delusion?

*sigh* I love having that daydream, but then it’s usually followed by another daydream—well daymare perhaps is a better term.

There I am, I’ve written the world’s greatest novel. I query for it, and I don’t get any requests. I revise, no requests. I rewrite: no requests. I trunk the novel in favor of my next novel. I get a day job I hate because I know success is just around the corner. I query the next novel, but no requests. I revise, no requests. I rewrite, no requests. I write the next novel, and start querying it, but after years and years and years of following the process—my dreams crushed into a fine paste perfect for topping muffins—I never ever publish. And worse, I know exactly why I don’t publish: I’m just not good enough. I have no talent. Everyone has just been sweet to me, telling me that they loved my work. My mother, no matter how much she liked it never could be trusted. It was all a delusion, every scrap of it, just like my dreams of being on the next US women’s soccer team (I was 16, and no I wasn’t close) or making the US Olympic team in swimming (I was 12, and no I wasn’t actually that good), or making the US Team in fencing (I went to nationals, but even that wasn’t very close). I’ve failed at other things, so why not writing too? I didn’t have enough talent/gumption/will power/drive/whatever in anything else, so why would writing be any different?

And this is why writers are crazy. We have in us these two diametrically opposed daydreams, secret wishes and darkest fears lurking inside us, just waiting for some outside source to confirm one of them. This is why people go crazy with just the littlest amount of reinforcement in either direction, it’s like we’ve quantized our dreams, it’s all or nothing, and then the truth falls short.

See in the first daydream, all doubts about talent, or ability are utterly abolished, and in the second all fears are confirmed. They are the extremes, and in reality, there is nothing so extreme.

The strange thing, is that early on, it feels like any failure, every rejection, means you’re on the second path, not the bestseller. Almost worse though, each new project is like a do over, you get to try on that bestseller dream again.

So here I am, nearing the start of another journey with a new query bait and I have my two dreams, both evil in their own ways. Sure I'm over here hoping for what's behind door number one, but I know better. I've girded the loins and battened the hatches, I'm ready for my rejections storm. All any of us can do is remind ourselves to brace for rejection, but be prepared for success (more on that later).

War on Monday

Right, so I’d thought I had mastered the arts of War and Mondays long ago.

I was wrong.

My War on Monday started Sunday night. Last night, I put the dogs out and heard a cute little chirping. I thought, huh, odd, for the quail to be so close to the house, but hey, water in the desert, I’m sure they’re just here for the water. My big dogs rustled around in the back yard for a while, then came in, but the chirping continued.

I checked the source, and I had three orphaned hatchling quail stuck in my flowerbed. Mama had led them into a place they couldn’t get themselves out of and abandoned them. Not good. I went back inside to check the interwebs and our own local wildlife rescue. After checking the site and calling the number, I was armed with gloves, a box and a mission to reunite the little chicks with their mother.

I went back outside found the little guys and started trying to locate the mama bird, but then I heard a “beep beep.”

Now I don’t know how many people know this, but the original Looney Tunes were actually made in Albuquerque, New Mexico. That’s why Bugs always says things like “I should have turned left in Albuquerque.” It’s also the premise for the whole road runner cartoon set. Those birds are ridiculous, and while Mel Blanc may not have gotten the sound quite right, they really do make a beeping noise sort of like a fire alarm.

Seriously.

But where things are a bit off is in the diet of the road runner. They don’t eat seeds. In fact, their preferred diet is hatchling. They’ll eat a baby bunny if one presents itself, and I’ve seen them take down cicadas and worms, and well they’re definitely meat eaters. And I had three little tasty morsels chirping like mad for their Mama.

We packed up those orphans, and taped the box shut and put it in the garage. Then the dreams. I perseverate. No really, I get something in my mind and I just can’t get it out of my head. So, after a sleepless night waking up in a panic anytime a roadrunner came by the house (they were not going to eat my baby birds!).

So I started my War on bad ground, tired, with more problems than usual. Yeah, it just wasn’t looking good for the day when I bumped out of bed. I’d run by the wildlife rescue before dropping my daughter off at day care. No big deal.

Oh, but wouldn’t it be better to just reunite them with the covey? They are right there, right at the bird feeder. So I opened up the hatchlings box and tipped it so they could get out. I put it right next to the feeder, and sure enough they started chirping their little heads off. But did they go to the bird feeder? Of course not. Why would they do the smart thing?

Those little guys went straight for the street. And then I heard the ominous beep beeping of a road runner, looking for a three egg omelet. Yeah, not good, so I decided to package them back up and take them to rescue after all.

Right.

You’ve heard of herding cats with a helicopter? Think that but then make all the cats about the size of two quarters stacked on each other. Exhausted, worried about these silly little quail who’d weaseled their way into my heart, and now chasing them out of the road and back up against the house to catch them.

Now I have a box of excited, overly loud crazy hatchlings who’ve tasted freedom, taped up in the back of the car. I package everyone up and we head out for the daily commute.

Then, my daughter, who has been happily eating her cheerios up till this point, decides that stuffing cheerios up her nose is fun. Yeah, that’s how you know you’re a mom: anyone else would have a hard time coming up with a good way to put fun and cheerios up the nose in the same sentence, but I routinely get to say things like “Honey, don’t lick the wall” or “Sweat pea, we don’t make sand castles with the cat litter.” Still, it’s all fun and games until Mom has to make an emergency traffic maneuver because child can’t get said cheerios out of the nose and is panicking.

Yup.

So at this point, I have a box of chirping quail in my car, and a traumatized two year old with a cheerio up her nose.

I wasn’t far from my normal doctor’s office, so I just went right on in. And then I had to explain to the receptionist, the intake nurse, the cashier and the doctor, that my otherwise healthy child is here today because she’s stuffed Cheerios up her nose, and oh, by the way could we hurry this up? I parked in the shade, but there’s a box of quail in my car, and I don’t want to leave them there for too long.

*Sigh*

Eventually, everyone made it to where they were supposed to be—well except the quail who should be with their mommy. When I did finally make it home (I work from home some time), instead of a road runner at my house, I had a sharp shinned hawk at the bird feeder not ten feet from my kitchen window. Maybe those little quail are safer with the rescue people.