Live to Write or Write to Live?

Balance 2011

The writing life is a strange and mercurial one.  When the muse is talking there is no greater high.  When that capricious lady clams up, well, life can be a bit sticky for a while.  But like any compulsion, I can’t stop.  Believe me.  I have tried.  So how do I live with the ups and downs that come with creating?  The business of living any Life, a creative life included, comes down to balance.

Osmosis, The law of Conservation of Energy, Feng Shui, the idea of finding balance is elemental and omnipresent.  But is balance attainable? Is a work/life balance  a reachable goal or  catching lightning in a bottle- the luck of the draw?



During his years as a paramedic, my husband, George, chanced to meet an elderly couple, married 75 years.



 "I just got married," George told the couple.  They smiled at him and then at each other. 

"Ah, new love," said the woman, her gnarled hand patting her husband's across the stretcher.

George smiled back.  "What is your secret?"  he asked.  "Seventy-five years and you obviously still care very deeply for one another." 

Herb (that was the man's name, Herb) looked at his wife.  A moment passed between them before he answered my husband.  "The secret, son,  is to never fall out of love at the same time.  Someone has to fight to keep it together and someone has to be allowed to doubt, if for only a little while."



Sisyphus by Titian, 1549



In other words, they took turns pushing the boulder uphill.  Like a teeter-totter, husband and wife took the highs and lows, ups and downs, balancing one another through the years.  They kept faith in a belief that what goes up must come down, and then go up again.  They found their balance.

Balancing writing and life with four children and a marriage is a challenge. With the demands of both career and family pressing in from all sides, I am learning what it takes to balance my time with family with a compulsion to create. 

Living with me isn’t easy in the best of circumstances and terrible (I suspect) in the worst; but I am a lucky girl.  My family doesn’t seem to mind the moody irritated writer who sometimes goes by Mommy or Rebecca or Honey, or at least they take it in stride.

Ted Krever, author of Mindbenders understands what it is to live a writer’s life. In Part Two of our interview, Krever and I ruminate on the ideas of craft, routine and chasing that ellusive balance between an artist’s internal world and an external life of family, second jobs and social interaction.  I hope you enjoy a glimpse into the inner workings of a writer's effort to live to write and write to live.

Part One: Mindbenders

Part Two
On Writing: Life and Craft with Author Ted Krever

RM:  As a writer, we pull from our past experiences. What are some of yours you feel most influence your writing?

 KREVER:  David Morrell said at ThrillerFest that if you read his books, they were all chapters in his emotional autobiography. I'm paraphrasing but I think accurately.

RM:  Yes, I remember that.

KREVER:  So it's not so much pulling from the past for me. It's discovering, through writing the books, what I'm struggling with now.  I know myself through my own writing; it's my best guide to my subconscious. And I work pretty hard to keep the subconscious instead of the conscious mind in control as much as possible. Of course, this is something Renn and Tauber deal with a lot in the book.

 RM:  When I was at ThrillerFest, I heard many different approaches to the work and craft of writing.  Everyone seems to have their own process, their own ritual.  What is your writing process?  Do you have a set schedule?

KREVER:  I write constantly, whenever I’m able.  If I can pull out a book or pad or laptop, I’m writing.  Some days, of course, staring at the blank screen in frustration is also considered writing. When I finish a book, I take a day off to pat myself on the back and start another.  They don’t always get finished, but I am always working.

RM:  Wow. A whole day?  Isn’t that a little extravagant?

KREVER:  I’m a hedonist, what can I say? When I have vacation days, like I will this weekend, that means more time to write!  This is something I need to do.  I’m a psychotic mess if I don’t deal with all these voices in my head.  This is lesson #27 I leaned from Neil Young: the more you throw away, the more you have.  If you write constantly and just keep putting it out, you keep finding more.  If you’re cautious and only write a couple of sentences a day, it gets harder and harder. You can't let any piece of the process get too important.

RM:  I think I know the feeling.  The Innerworld, the places and people and situations inside your head need a way to get out.  It creeps up on you and comes out in weird ways if I don’t get it out—like Alien dreams.  But we are talking about you.

KREVER:  It is the overall that matters.

RM:  So, don’t over-think the process of writing then, or the writing itself?

KREVER:  Don’t think, if possible, at all.  Put fingers on keys and go.  Fix it later.

RM: I am frustrated when my typing doesn’t move as fast as my brain and allows that internal critic to voice an opinion.  What do you do when your conscious mind gets in the way of your writing mind?

KREVER:  I’m talking, really, about first draft, where I want the story to come from as unconscious, subconscious a place as I can. Let it come together in rough form and then I’ll refine later. Which is why first draft usually takes me five restarts to come together— very inefficient but useful in other ways. In every book I've ever written, I slogged to within thirty pages of the end of the first draft and I'd write a sentence without thinking and look at it and go "Oh, that's stupid" and then look a second time and it would explode on me.  I've just told myself what the book is about.  And then I have to go back and the second draft is writing the story so it leads to that line

RM:  You surprise yourself. I do enjoy that part of the writing. When you read something from yesterday and think "Really? Where did that come from. I didn't know that!"

KREVER:  Because you never know what the book is truly about until the end of the first draft.  I'm just telling a story. But I think conscious is for later drafts. Unconscious for the first, for the story

RM:  To paraphrase Stephen King:  Write with the door closed and edit with it open.

KREVER:  Because that's the level [the unconscious] the reader should react from.  That is where character and story are the same thing. 

RM:  While in NYC, you accompanied me on a research field trip for my novel.  How do you approach research for your novels and at what point do you begin the fact finding?

KREVER:  Research for me is strictly answering the needs of the story. I don’t start researching until I need to know something or understand something and that’s all I do, though I’m open to whatever I find that’s interesting. I’m always open to being sidetracked because, again, it’s that element of being surprised. It only richens the mixture. And with a book like this, I researched a lot looking for limitations. What would be the limits of Renn’s mind power? What would get in the way? If you don’t have limits, you end up with Superman—all-powerful and essentially pretty boring.

RM:  You mentioned thriller writer David Morrell a moment ago.  There were many fantastic writers at Thrillerfest and all of them gave out advice of one sort or another.  What is the best writing advice you have ever gotten?

KREVER:  Joe Papaleo, my writing teacher, told me a novel is a gross form. Just throw everything on the page and cut back later. Unfortunately, he was dead by the time I learned how to cut back properly.  That's the other hard part. Learning to edit yourself.

RM:   What was the worst piece of advice?

KREVER:  That's a tough question. I guess it was the implied concept that you can learn to write by studying literature.  Literature is great but it has no relevance to the story that's inside you. You just have to let that out. Where it stands in terms of literature is for other people to figure out later. 

You want the best piece of advice that I offer? Don't know whether I made it up or heard it from someone.  C'mon...you've gotta give me permission so I'm not a pretentious little shit.

RM:  Ok.  Tell me.

KREVER:  Write what hurts.  If you write what hurts, you'll be into your subconscious. You'll be into what really matters to you, automatically. So you don't have to worry about what's at stake for the characters.  There's something major at stake for you so there will be for them.

On Living a Writer’s Life

RM:  How much does your writing life effect and or influence your living life, your relationships and day to day living?

KREVER:  I have no life.  I write and my relationships have to fit in with that.

I had no idea what a monk's life writing was until I committed myself to it. It takes everything you have.

RM:  I think it takes a very special person to partner a writer.  There is a general attitude that living with a writer is a tough business.  Would you agree?

KREVER:   Anyone who gets involved with me has to understand some part of me is always humming away in another dimension.  Yes, I think that is hard to accept.

RM:  I know that I become very frustrated trying to live in two worlds- the one in my head and the one where I have kids and bills and laundry. I never feel like I do either very well. Do you have any advice for writers trying to balance life and writing.

KREVER:  I'm no role model. I gave up on life for ten years. I lived for writing and my son every other weekend. Now I'm trying to develop a balance; if I develop any success at it, I'll let you know.

RM:  What do you think the ultimate spouse or significant other would be for a writer?

KREVER:  Just understanding that our madness is our strength. That we can't function without this other world in our heads. If you can deal with that, then it's a normal relationship. But it's understanding that I'm in love with other women that I’ve made up and I am many different men and women all day long. And that my triumphs and failures almost all take place inside.  That's a lot to ask. 

“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.” -Robert Frost, poet.

“We work to become, not to acquire.”- Elbert Hubbard, author.

 Author Ted Krever and I discuss the business of publishing in part three of our interview

Ted Krever’s books can be found at Amazon.com, at Goodreads.com and  BarnesandNoble.com

For more information about Ted Krever please visit www.tedkrever.com

Summer's over! Back at it!

~ The kids are back in school and the red edged leaves of the sugar maples outside my office window  are hinting at Fall. Alas!  My summer vacation has come to an end.  What better way to get back to the work of writing than with a book review, a little tease and an author interview?  No better way I say! So here we go. Hope you enjoy it.  ~ Rebecca

Mindbenders

 by Ted Krever

They are called Mindbenders - men and women who know your every thought. They  have the power to control your emotions, manipulate your memories, your body and the world around you.  When the possibilities are endless, who will draw the line between what is right and what is unspeakable evil?

Greg is a man who can’t remember, cut off from his memories.   While Greg’s body survived the war in Iraq, his mind remains a fractured tangle of the sights and sounds of past battles and lost comrades.

Max Renn can never forget.  A human weapon and Cold War  leftover, Renn can read minds, move mountains – even plant ideas and emotions into another’s head.  What he cannot do is escape the past- no matter how far or how long he may run. To live in Hell is hearing every thought, feeling every emotion, experiencing every lived moment and memory of every person around you.  Max Renn is a permanent resident.

When Dave Monaghan, caretaker to lost souls and a former director for the US cold war mind control project is murdered, the uneasy peace Gregg and Renn had found in Dave’s Florida everglades safe haven is shattered.  Thrust into a world of international conspiracy and paranormal warfare, Greg and Renn race to gather Dave’s old team of Mindbenders in a fight to stop an insidious evil bent on world domination. 

For Gregg it is about vengeance- vengeance for Dave.  Someone murdered his friend and  that Someone was going to pay.

For Renn it is about answers.  Who had killed Dave Monaghan and why?  Who were these Others, new Mindbenders with inferior abilities and murderous intentions?  And what did an assassination of the Indian Prime minister, a sabotaged nuclear power plant in New York and a disgraced international leader have in common?  The mind control program is back in play and they are coming for Max Renn.

Mindbenders is a fast paced thriller with broad audience appeal.  There is a literary hint to Krever’s writing without the prose being over burdened by heavy word choice and turn of phrase.  I enjoyed the dark and brooding look back to a time passed.  This glimpse into the era  of spies and intrigue and old-fashioned espionage lends a noir overlay to an otherwise  hedonistic, modern thrill ride.  Krever’s fully developed characters seep quietly into your head and set up house, begging you to read on well into the small and quiet hours of the night.   

The rule to telling a good story, like a good lie, is adding a healthy dose of truth and Mindbenders is no exception.  Krever skillfully balances the ingredients to good story telling- a sprinkle of fact, a body of fiction and viola!  A nightmare of believable proportions.  In this age of hidden terror behind everyday faces, Mindbenders promises a fantastic paranormal underbelly to a humdrum existence.  Pick up Krever’s Mindbenders and expand the horizons of the Possible.  After all- the mind is a terrible thing to waste.  If you don’t use it someone else might.

 ~

This past July I attended the International Thriller Writer’s ThrillerFest at the Grand Hyatt in New York City.  The week was packed with brilliant authors, inspiring talks and new friends.  I met author Ted Krever by happenstance, in a small alcove set back from the busy miasma of words, inspiration and networking.  He was kind enough to befriend a girl who had no idea how to mingle.  He has continued that friendship despite my neuroticism and writing temper tantrums. 

Ted has graciously agreed to an interview about his book Mindbenders, a paranormal thriller.  I hope you enjoy the next few posts where Ted and I discuss his novel, the process of writing, living a writer’s life and the fate of the publishing industry. 

(Note- for the purposes of this series of interviews I am RM and the fabulous Ted Krever is KREVER­ - obviously.  (It really is a necessary step in the rock star writing world after all:  to be known by only one name.)

RM:  I have the fantastic opportunity to interview you today - the Ted Krever, author of Mindbenders and my friend.  Wish it was over a bottle of wine or coffee and face to face but I guess we can make this IM thing work.

KREVER:  Go ahead, you start.  You’re Walter Cronkite and I'm Rocky the flying squirrel

RM:  I always loved Rocky.

KREVER:  Me too.  I loved Boris and Natasha—I wonder if that’s where Renn came from?  That’s a weird thought.

RM:  I was just wondering that myself.  Are you mindbending me?

KREVER:  I told you it was real. Seriously. 

RM:  Well, at Thriller Fest, I was standing in the market in Grand Central wishing someone I knew would come and have lunch with me and suddenly there you were- with chocolate!

KREVER:  It was very good chocolate.

RM:  Really good chocolate.  Must be a writer thing.  You have been writing for quite a long time, in one fashion or another.  Can you give us a quick background? 

KREVER:  I grew up in New Jersey, moved around some as an adult. I’ve worked in television and Internet production, including at ABC News, as a prep cook in an Italian restaurant, associate manager of a revival house movie theater, a local newspaper reporter and a mattress salesman. But in writing fiction, all that matters really is a skeptical eye on the world and a way with words. People can get a sense of those things from my website or—better—from the excerpts of the books available on Amazon, BN.com or Smashwords.

RM:  Mindbenders is selling well on Amazon.  You have received positive reviews from the likes of Thomas F. Monteleone and F. Paul Wilson, both NY Times bestsellers.   Readers say they enjoy the fast paced action and developed characters. 

I found myself deeply invested in the story from the very beginning.  The story of Greg, a Iraq war vet living, or trying to live, with PTSD and Renn, a “leftover” from the Cold War era coming together to fight the age old war between what is right and what is easy was both thrilling and frightening.  How did you approach the idea for his novel?

KREVER:  Characters always come first for me. I got a letter from a woman who got the book on a Goodreads giveaway, saying her son had been home from Iraq for ten years and was still struggling with PTSD, that she found the book disturbing but very accurate about that. That meant a lot to me, because I worried more about that aspect of the story than any other. Greg and Max have in some ways very complementary problems. Greg can’t remember his history because of the PTSD and Max has no history, having been raised as a genetic experiment by the KGB. A lot of the book is tied up in the question: how differently would you view people if you really knew what they were thinking?

RM:  The themes of war and a global reach to politics, the idea that so few could effect so many with what seemed like a whim and the fear that accompanies feeling vulnerable and helpless resonate with me both as a child during the Cold War and a parent today.  Do you think that, somewhere in your subconscious, growing up during the Cold War had anything to do with the themes you choose to write about?

KREVER:  Actually, I think this is very much a post-9/11 book. I think one of the interesting things about it is the way the old Cold War lines get jumbled-up. Both Max’s team and the bad guys include members from both sides, people who would have been bitter enemies twenty years ago. If anyone wants to read into that some message about the absurdity of all our conflicts, I won’t object.

RM:  9/11 is something very much on the American mind, especially this week with the tenth anniversary coming up this weekend. 

In Mindbenders, Max Renn and his team posses the ability to read minds and manipulate the world around him using the power of his thoughts—his mind.  Did this novel come from any past experience or fascination with psychic phenomenon?

KREVER:  Not from any particular psychic experience of my own, no.  My son wanted a superhero and I made up a mindreader because I didn’t want a guy in tights.  When he went home to his mom that night, I started thinking, 'this could be interesting if I could find the right angle for it.'  I did a little research and stumbled upon remote viewing, the fact that the US Government funded a mind control program for 18 years.  And then the revelation that the Soviet program began much earlier was more serious and considered much more successful.  Once I stumbled onto that, I had Renn.

RM:  And so Renn was born.

KREVER:  Now this is about ten years ago. Renn first appears as a secondary character in a literary novel I wrote, which is probably one reason my literary novels never sold.

But when I finished that book, instead of patting myself on the back, I found myself thinking, "I've got to give this guy his own story. He's my Sherlock Holmes." And then it took me years to get loose enough to do him justice.

RM:  Let’s talk about your character Greg.  Mindbenders is told in the first person-Greg’s point of view.  While Renn appears as a secondary character early into the book, Renn quickly moves to stand shoulder to shoulder with Greg.  How did that come about?

KREVER:  Renn is certainly the main character. But Greg is a necessity. My first attempts at writing Renn were first person –from inside his head—and that just didn't work. The guy hears every thought for three blocks around all the time. So it was impossible to do him justice. The background noise at any given moment would overwhelm the story.

RM:  You had to tell Max Renn’s story from the outside. 

KREVER:  So Greg was a practical decision. I realized I needed Watson. Watson is the most important guy in the Sherlock Holmes stories because he's the one who asks, "Holmes, how did you deduce the details of his life with such uncanny accuracy?" which gives Sherlock the opportunity to tell us.  But Greg is also to some extent my son, who has a serious case of Asperger’s - and the Vietnam vets who lived across the street and had a hard time focusing on anything for any length of time because part of them was always back in the jungle, hearing whispering in the trees and the guns pounding inside their heads all the time.

RM:  In many ways I saw Greg as a vehicle for other stories. I find it interesting the story is told fromGreg’s point of view when he seems to function as a container, a whiteboard for other people’s emotions and experiences. What did Renn call him?

KREVER:  Greg is a receptor.   He can pick up brainwaves if the frequency is a match.  Renn makes the point that most people can be receptors under the right circumstances

RM:  A receptor, yes. But Greg’s own emotions, his own head is on lock down, at least from himself.

KREVER:  He's locked away from himself, yes. That's the PTSD.  His life is a mystery that he feels, not unnaturally, that he has to try to unlock. But he's forgotten the connecting threads. He remembers details but not how they fit together.

RM:  I don't get the feeling he wants to unlock it, only that he feels he should want to unlock it.

KREVER:  I think, through most of this book, he’s just glad to be functioning. He's been existing on the most basic level for so long that all this tumult is still an improvement.  I think it takes him most of the book to take seriously the thought that you might be able to find yourself. But that thought is the first step to doing it.

Part Two - Author Ted Krever and I discuss the writer’s life.
Part Three - Author Ted Krever and I discuss the changing climate of publishing and independant publishing.

Ted Krever’s books can be found here at Amazon.com, here at Goodreads.com and here at BarnesandNobel.com

For more information about Ted Krever please visit www.tedkrever.com

Hero

I have a codependent relationship with writing manuals.  Oh, they look innocent with their bright, glossy covers promising the world:  Write a Novel in a Weekend!  The Keys to Writing the Next Great American Novel!  Write a Damn Good, No Great, New York Times, Award Winning Best Seller!

 I have ‘em all. I also  have my therapist on speed dial.  My many books sit there- smug and sure- on my shelf whispering “open me, if you dare.”  And I dare.  Oh, every day I dare.  And like a bad romance, Push Me, Pull Me is the name of the game.  Last Thursday I had a breakthrough.  Friday I had a breakdown.

On Monday, mostly recovered, I opened to page 22:  Give yourself permission to write shitty first drafts. 

Oh! Sweet Baby Sunshine!  I could do that.  I banged away for hours at the keyboard only to dump 3000 words into my electronic waste bin.  I had succeeded at sucking.  Hooray for me!  The problem was I was still without a viable chapter five and my deadline was a scant month away. 

On Tuesday I opened to page 60: Join a writer’s group, critique and be critiqued.  Hold yourself accountable. 

What the hell?  You just told me to be shitty.  Now you want me to produce something I want to show someone?  Make up my mind, damn it!   Besides, group = people.  I don't do People.  Tuesday was a disaster.  My character remained where I had left her Friday last, obsessing over a strange piece of jewelry and a new fear of the dark.  I had a new fear too- failure and humiliation.

Wednesday, dear Wednesday, she was two small days from Friday.  I hoped she would be my friend and help me with page 102: Do you have a personal hero?

Of course I have a hero!  Who doesn’t?  It’s…um…well.  Crap.  I had one here somewhere.  I read on.

What is a hero?  Asked page 102. 

I knew that one!  A hero is a guy, or a girl (this is the 21^st century) who goes out, overcomes great adversity and returns better for it, usually.  So who was my hero?  Aw, common.  I couldn’t be that pathetic and jaded.  I had to have a hero. Right? 

Page 102 mocked me.  Don’t have one, do ‘ya?  How can you write about something you don’t know anything about?

“Shut up,” I said, giving the book a punishing shove onto the floor.  After a solid ten minutes of pouting and cursing the universe for killing my soul I retrieved the book and opened it to page 103.  Maybe there was a hint.  I took a deep bracing breath and read. 

What are the aspects of these heroes you find admirable? 

Aspects, huh?  Little pieces of personality I could admire?  Bite size chunks of heroic valor?   I could do bite size.   

Well, I liked my aunt’s patience.  I admired my grandparents for their ingenuity and perseverance through the depression and WWII.  A writer friend pushed through five years of writing drought to explode into a new market, taking it by storm.  My husband’s sister left behind a life of broken dreams and promises in Manhattan and rebuilt a beautiful life for herself in Maine. At age 12, my husband survived a deadly car wreck. The doctors told him he would be lucky to walk again. Within a year he was playing baseball. My kids emulate grace under pressure while learning how to be a friend, do multiplication, execute a cartwheel or catch a ball. 

All of these individuals have parts inside them that I want to have inside of me.  That is what a hero is to me then- someone, or some aspect of someone that makes a person want to be better in some way, to try harder, to keep going. 

Hercules had his labors, Jason his Argonauts and Luke Skywalker had his Force and a complicated family life.  I have my novel to write and way too many voices inside my head telling me how to go about it.  

Monday made me careless.  Tuesday made me cry.  Wednesday (and that snarky book) made me think.  Maybe that’s what a hero is:  Someone or something that makes you think, makes you question yourself and the world around you.  Maybe a hero is a mirror, a way to try on faces like masks, personalities like cloths and see how they look. 

Can I learn to walk again?  Can I be patient and persistent and brave? Can I be that writer who rises like a phoenix from the ashes of self-doubt? 

On Thursday I will find a lovely box, just the right size for all my writing books.  I will put them someplace safe and dark and far, far away.  On Friday I will tell my therapist I am cured, at least until Monday comes around again.

One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.  -May Sarton, Poet

Game of Life

It was a Sunday afternoon in spring when the phone rang.  A friend, we’ll call her Sam, called exasperated and exhausted.

“Tell me,” she ground out, “does the urge to tell my son to swallow his spit after the 250^th request for a glass of water after I tucked him in make me a bad mom?”

I tried not to laugh. I failed. The whole thing sounded way too familiar. “I don’t think so,” I said “But, I have to admit I’m not the best person to ask. Growing up, Swallow your spit was the mantra of all family car rides, right before you can pee when we get there.” I thought a moment. “In hindsight, the former was probably to avoid the latter.”

Sam laughed, although it was more a weak and defeated chuckle than true guffaw.

 “What happened?” I asked.

“I have no idea! What on earth would make a previously happy and independent two-year-old suddenly develop Velcro and permanently attach himself to my body? I had a genuine fight or flight response.”

 I could almost hear her hands flying around her head as she spoke.

“I tried to put him down in church, he is heavy. He wouldn’t let me! I literally ripped him off my body and set him down for two seconds. I had to; he was pulling my shirt off in the middle of service!”

“I bet that didn’t go over well,” I said.

“He and my shirt ended up on the floor. I don’t know what was louder, his screaming bloody murder or the ripping of my last good blouse. Not only did the two ladies behind me get a show but the priest’s wife looked at me like I must have beaten him. I had to leave. I never leave church!”

“Well,” I said. “Again, you are probably not asking the most neutral party. I have a Velcro child too.”

“Ugh,” said Sam. “I don’t know how to do this! I am actually beginning to resent this mother-child bond thing.”

“That’s because kids use emotional superglue,” I said and was rewarded with a true laugh from Sam.

Sam and I came to no great revelation that day. Nor have we come to many in the years that have followed, pregnant with parenting missteps and angst. We have soldiered on, comforted by the simple companionship of murky parenting. She stinks. I stink. She struggles. I struggle. Neither of us knows what we are doing and we both suspect the kids are fully aware of that fact.

Today, many, many years later, I find myself mulling over that particular conversation in the scant quiet time between career and kids. Our Velcro kids are ten years older. As it turned out we didn’t have to go to kindergarten with them. Why did we feel so bad, so judged by ourselves and everyone around us? Why do we still feel that way?

I know there are others like me out there, wondering if they are bad parents. I hear them muttering over cereal choices. Do I pick what the kids will eat or what they should eat? I see their stories on social websites. My son slapped that mannequin’s naked behind! Where did he learn that? And why was she naked? I have been on the receiving and giving end of the Mortified Parent dance. It usually goes something like I am so sorry! I have no idea why he did that. He certainly didn’t learn it from us! It will never, ever happen again.

As a mother, it is too easy for me to take on my children’s failings and triumphs as a direct extension of my action or inaction and thereby an extension of myself. As another friend of mine pointed out today, we are adults raising future adults. Like a business that nurtures, develops and puts out a product, we nurture and develop another human being and release them into the world.

Being a parent has been a rollercoaster ride of terror and elation. I have held them, loved them, and watched them fall and fly since the minute they were born.   I have given tears, given sweat, given blood and allowed them to break my nose.  Well, not so much allowed them to break it as failed to avoid having it broken. I have scars and innumerable ruined panty hose from the Velcro child.  She continues to cling but in a less affronting manner and with more eye rolling.  

My grandma, a wise woman, said “You have to look in the cracks.” Parenting isn’t like making the bed, or completing a project at work. There is little total and immediate gratification. When my kids are asleep and it is quiet enough to hear myself think the parental Guilt Monster comes out of the closet. Then all I can remember of the day is how many times I yelled or when I punished them or spoke with impatience. Then I feel like a rotten, terrible failure.

But I am not a rotten, terrible failure. I just forget to look in the cracks. I forgot about the little things.

What’s in those cracks? Well for me it is this: They tell me they love me. They want to play games, read stories and go to the zoo, with me. They draw me pictures of Mommy and Daddy, and cover them with hearts and X’s and O’s. They come to me when they have had a bad day, skinned knee or bruised feelings. I am the ultimate lost crayon finder, lunch maker and belch contest winner.

Like all of the rest of us, kids have their own junk.  They come in with it, like some cosmic, karmic booby prize.  I can just hear Mr. Announcer Guy saying:

.... and Mrs. Holdsworth, for playing the Game of Life you will go home with a lovely 8 pound, 4 ounce, pink bundle of joy.   She poops, she eats, she coos, she cries and burps, she's got ten   fingers, ten toes, a cute little belly button and smells like heaven (most of the time). But wait! As a bonus gift-just for playing- you get a free upgrade to the super deluxe model complete with Kung Fu grip and tentacle arms with super glue suction.  This model won't eat anything but cheerios for three years and is afraid of spiders, dogs, men, vacuum cleaners and anything blue.  And just to say Thank You for playing we will throw in the Insecurity upgrade for free!  This fabulous piece of software will make it impossible to put your bundle of joy down until one day when she wriggles out of your arm, turns, waves bye and runs off without a backward glance. She will ruin your clothes, date night and any hope for a decent night’s sleep. She will consume your heart and your mind and you won’t care a bit, well, maybe a little bit, but you will be too busy to notice.

*Disclaimer*

Sanity upon arrival of your child’s 21^st birthday not guaranteed. Results advertised in parenting books not typical of average user, in fact, throw them out, all of them. Game of Life will not be held responsible for any lost sleep, watches down the toilet, important phone messages or remote controls (tie it to a brick, it works) socks under the couch, candy stashed behind the book shelf, parental hearing loss due to long hours of the Wiggles, Yo Gabba Gabba, Hannah Montana or Justin Bieber, or transient pediatric deafness due to requests to clean her room, feed the dog, take out the garbage or give back that diary. Fees for services will not exceed 150% of your funds, energy and patience. Results of good parenting or even mediocre parenting are not guaranteed under any acronym known to man or universe. These kids are wildcards, accept it. Refunds will not be awarded under any circumstances including public embarrassment, hunger strike or Goth/emo period. As the author’s grandmother says, you can’t return her, you already used her. The views and opinions of the author expressed in this article do not necessarily state or reflect those of said author every day of the week. After all, she has her good days and her not so good ones but now she has to go because the dog is choking on something, the boys are beating each other with Lego swords and the girls are way too quiet. Have a nice day. J

Dam: A Lesson in Fluid Dynamics

My inspiration is frozen like the ice building ever higher along the gutters under my house eaves.  My words, my story, are stuck, entombed within the winter of my creativity.  Ha.

Now is the winter of my discontent… 

Shakespeare really knew how to whine!  Damn straight I am discontent.  I have just spent the better part of three days embroiled in a battle of wills with Mother Nature for the possession of my roof and a petulant muse for possession of my creativity.  I have no idea what I did to piss those girls off but they are exacting their revenge in the form of dams.  My roof has ice dams.  Big ice dams.  Hoover ice dams.  My inspiration just seems dammed.  Or maybe damned?

For those of you not acquainted with ice dams I will explain these little winter jewels.  An ice dam is much like it sounds:  a large mass of ice that collects in the gutters of roofs.  As the snow melts water backs up behind the dam and comes into the house destroying the roof, the ceiling, the wall.  You name it – it’s trashed.  In short, Mama N. is threatening my comfortable life.

   

As for my dammed creativity, I believe the culprit to be a kissing cousin to Cabin Fever and Midwinter Blues: Restless Writer Syndrome (RWS).  I have seen it before and recognize the symptoms.  I am grouchy, cranky, distant and petulant.  My dreams are strange, full of fantastical creatures and complex plots.  Reading, my go-to self soother, is a hopeless act.  I can’t concentrate on a book long enough to reach chapter three.  I have trouble sitting at the computer unless it involves long hours of Facebook and Bejeweled.

On the home front, I feel the urge to reorganize my pantry, my kids’ lives, kids’ rooms, or silverware drawer.  Yesterday I found myself scrubbing the sink fixtures with a toothbrush.  Some may confuse this with spring cleaning or nesting but RWS is pure, unadulterated procrastination.   In short, I will do anything but write.  When I do manage to sit down with my manuscript the writing, well, it just plain hurts. 

“I should have been an accountant,” I tell my husband.

“You would hate it,” he says.  “It’s boring.”  This is his nice way of reminding me I can’t add two and two in my head.

I make a face.  “I would have a paycheck,” I say.  “I could work part-time and still be here for the kids.  We could afford summer camp.” 

“Yes,” he says.  “You could.” We have had this conversation before, usually over a beer and the want-ads.  “But--” 

I roll my eyes in interruption and take another pull from my bottle. 

“But.”  He emphasizes the word but with a toast of his own bottle,   “You’re a writer.  You have always been a writer, even when you tried to be other things.  You will always be one.  Like it or not.  You cannot resist the Force young Jedi,” he smirks.

That smirk irritates me even more than his paraphrasing Star Wars.  At least it wasn’t Spock.  It’s only logical.  I might have hurt him.

“I don’t want to be a writer,” I whine.  “It’s too hard.”  I flop down on the couch.   My husband waits patiently.  This isn’t his first rodeo.  

I am wrong.  The most irritating aspect of this conversation is he is right, as usual.   “A new character introduced himself today,” I finally say, sullen and pouting.

“Oh?”  He says oh but it sounds like I knew it was something like that.  “Tell me.”  He sits on the edge of the couch, ready to retreat to higher ground if things get too hairy. 

“It’s complicated,” I groan.  I have been avoiding this conversation all day but I have to face it sometime.  “He’s a Collector.”

“Really?  What does he collect?” 

My husband is good at this part- the listening part.  He knows not to give opinions, try to help.  Writers hate that, at least this writer does.

“People,” I say. 

“Really?  Why?  How?”

“I don’t know!  He’s some kind of bloodhound, a human-ish GPS system.  Once he collects you he can find you anywhere.  He has to touch you, emotionally.” 

“That could come in handy with our teenagers.” 

“This is serious,” I say.  “I don’t know what to DO with him.”  I sink deeper into the couch, deeper still into my pout.  “There were two of them,” I whisper, like admitting to a dirty little secret.  “An older one and a younger one.  The younger one hadn’t collected anyone yet and the older one was giving him some speech about the futility of denying who or what he was.” 

My husband raises an eyebrow.  I feel a Spock moment coming on. 

“Please!” I say, holding my hand in front of my face.  “Spare me the movie quotes.”

My husband eyes the beer and the want-ads and gives me a wry look. 

“Very funny,” I sort of snarl at him and huff but I continue.  “I saw the older man’s face.  It was covered in tattoos- like spirals and circles.  He could make them appear or hide them.”  I pause, pulling the image of the man into my mind.  It still disturbs me, fascinates me.   “He wanted me to see what he was,” I continue, studying the man in my head.   “The tattoos were names.  Some were moving, like spinning wheels, some still.  They were names of all the people he had collected.”

I pull away from the dream and focus on my husband.  He just looks at me.  I hold my breath.  I can’t help it.  It’s times like this when I wonder if he is sizing me up for a pretty white jacket, weighing the pros and cons of having me committed. 

He furrows his brow a little, takes a sip of his beer and speaks.  “But why does he collect people?  How does he fit into the story?” 

Phew.  No nuthouse for me today. 

“I don’t know yet. I am kind of annoyed they even showed up. I have enough to deal with as the story is now.  And then there is the black dog thing.”

“Black dog thing?” he asks. 

“Ugh,” I moan and run my hand through my hair, pulling just a little to ease the ache that is building in my brain.  “Don’t ask.  First he was a college Joe, then a huge black dog with red eyes and then he exploded into a rainbow mist when the sun touched him.  It was disturbing.” 

“I’ll bet.  Kind of mixing your monsters there.”  He shakes his head.  “You and Stephen King should start a support group.” 

“Tell me about it,” I say.  “These dreams are doing me in.” 

Sensing the crisis is over my husband smiles and holds out his hand.  I reluctantly relinquish the paper.  “I will save it for later,” he promises.

“This sucks,” I say. 

He laughs a little and shakes his head.  “You’ll survive.”  He says and heads out to check on our roof.

“Doubtful.” I mutter to his back and trudge upstairs to write down everything I can remember about Tattoo Man and Dog Boy. 

I have survived, so far.  The roof has held, knock on wood.  I will keep working at both issues until there is a clear winner.  Make no mistake.  I fully intend to be the victor.

I suppose dealing with the process of writing as well as many of life’s problems can be compared to my struggle with ice dams.   The way I see it, there are two choices: 

1.  You can stare at said issue and pray it doesn’t get any bigger, turn messy.  

2.  You can climb up to the edge and start hacking away at said issue, inch by inch. 

Sometimes progress is painful.  You get ice in your eye, cut your hand, get buried in snow or fall off the ladder all for one lousy measure of progress.  Sometimes you take a half-hearted whack at it and whoosh!  Things break loose in one big rush and the problem is solved. 

Perseverance, Patience and Will- the three Muses no one talks about.  They aren’t sexy.  They aren’t full of flowery language, beautiful music and vibrant color.  However, you let these three gals into your life, with their sensible footwear and comfortable pantsuits, and they will pave the way for their flashier sisters.  Eventually momentum will kick in and the water (or ideas, or solutions) will begin to flow in the right direction. 

Conversely, ignore the elephant in the room or a monster in the closet and an inevitable torrent will find its own way through in the most inconvenient way possible.  It could, for example, let loose all over your brand new cashmere sweater in the upstairs closet and then ooze its way down the wall into the girls’ room and ruin a new iPod dock.  But I'm just guessing here.

On that particular want-ad, one beer evening I didn’t want to talk about plot or characters or writing.  I had been dreading it as much as I had dreaded spending my day up on that ladder, hacking away at the ice in my gutters.  But after a few rusty swings the dam broke and the story began to flow again.

As for my roof, tomorrow’s sun will help along today’s effort.  I won’t be up there.  I will be writing.  The Collector found me and I will give him some time but Dog Boy is on his own.

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.   - Jack London, Author.