Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety-Jig

We used to sing:

One door, and only one, and yet its sides are two:

Inside and outside. On which side are you?

One door, and only one, and yet its sides are two.

I’m on the inside. On which side are you?

There's no line on the ground that shows the change between then and now. I can't identify the moment that I shifted from conservative fundamentalist to progressive Baptist. Or from abuse victim to abuse survivor. Or the moment I changed my mind about the role of women in the Church, or about what it is to be saved, or about how good Sunny D tastes (not good at all, as it turns out). Things changed without my noticing. Some things that were big changed so much that I don't see how I could have developed from the person I was twelve years ago. That was a life I couldn't wait to get rid of. At eighteen, I was off like a shot, five hundred miles away and never going back.

Now I’m going back.

NaNoWriMo: I Did That

nanowrimo.org is an organization that runs writing workshops for youth. Their title event is the National Novel Writing Month, run every November. You sign up and commit to churning out a 50,000 word first draft of a brand-new, never-before-worked-on novel.

So, I did that. I did it for the reason I put down in my NaNo Author Info page:

When I was small, I thought that authors were like gods, generating full-fledged books straight from their minds, like Athena born from the head of Zeus. Then I noticed that some books are very very badly written, and while it shattered my worldview, it meant that authors are human and with hard work and luck, I too could be an author someday.

I'm participating this year because I have a fear that hitting 30 without seriously working on a novel will mean that I'm not actually a writer but just an ordinary working stiff. I turn 30 in December. The challenge is on.

It was not difficult. I created an outline in October, bought a battery-powered word processor for $10 on eBay, and typed like a lunatic during my commute to and from work every day in November. I wrote on the computer while the baby was napping on the weekends. I wrote by hand in the bathtub. And on November 28th, I hit the 50k mark, and paused for a breather.

Emotionally, it's been a little difficult. In the wake of a sudden death in the family, things are strained at home. Revisting many of the lowest points of my childhood for this writing project left me drained, and struggling to keep upbeat and to maintain order in household containing a grieving spouse and tantruming toddler.

But it's satisfying. This is a creative process that parallels my work as an interior designer, from concept to design development to revision and documentation. The pace and phases are familiar and I'm confident that, writing skills and experience aside, the process itself is something I can go through. And five years as a designer has taught me that nearly all the work is revision, and that it's so, so much better to delete the things you loved last week than to hang onto them when they no longer fit your design purpose.

Writing fiction for anyone else's viewing is terrifying to me. A friend who knew about NaNo demanded an elevator pitch, and I froze in place. It's too embarrassing. Everyone has a very bad novel kicking around in her head. I don't want anyone to know I'm one of the everyones. I come up with concepts, create outlines, start writing, tell no one, and get nowhere. NaNo's community and public accountability swept me up and carried me to the first goal.

So I'm putting my synopsis here, because it's time for accountability and concrete commitment, instead of crawling inside of a closet or dresser drawer to write. Don't worry; I won't be posting excerpts here. But I am going to put my goals and progress out for the world to see. The first goal: reach the end of December fully prepped to begin the first revision on January 1st.

"Corey, Someplace Else" takes place in a re-imagined Appalachia, charting the emergence of the title character from his family's cycle of abuse and his exploration of the beautiful and complex world beyond the gates of his trailer park. This YA novel is in the magical realism genre, with a Southern Gothic sensibility.

In the rural town of Culmore Cove, 17-year-old Corey Ellison leaves his mentally ill father and moves in with a pair of austere great-aunts. He explores their century-old farmhouse and finds ghosts and memories inside. When he takes a summer job with a renovation company, Corey puts his second sight to use, identifying properties that carry good memories and those that are haunted by a bad past. He spends his days with a ghost and turns a critical eye on his old friends. As his abilities increasingly disconnect him from the world, Corey reevaluates family roles and the happiness and suffering that are part of living with others. In this hot, lush Tennessee summer, Corey will encounter deadbeat gods, monster catfish, ghosts of the Cherokee, and the night-stalking Wampus cat, and come to terms with the probability that he won't make it to autumn alive.

You're Scaring Jesus

Or, John 1:10 at the antique store

We just returned from an amazing vacation in the highlands of western North Carolina.

My family has vacationed in Linville nearly every year since before I was born. One of our traditional activities is a day spent in Boone, the city named for Daniel Boone and now known for being the home of Appalachian State University. On this trip, the first that Patrick has attended, we had lunch at the soda fountain in Boone Drug. The waitress, an older woman with fluffy hair and penciled-on eyebrows, took my order by saying "What can I get you, baby?" She shuffled back with a delicious, overflowing mint chocolate milkshake. "Drink on this, honey," she said, "I gave you a little too much." (You know you've left Northern Virginia when the waitress doesn't appear to want you to die.)

A Letter to My Brother, or, Don't Fear the Wesleyans

Hey, kid. Remember all those years that we hated each other's guts? All the fights we had over toys and chores and schoolwork? Remember how we'd stand in the living room and scream back and forth, and then you'd throw something at me, and then I'd slap you, and we'd huff and puff with rage for about five seconds before hearing The Mother's key in the lock and realizing that, if either of us told on the other, there would be a Reckoning? By the time she had her briefcase through the door, we had apologized and were busy doing each other's chores and pretending that we had been getting along nicely all day.

Anyway. I'll forgive you for being lazy and annoying if you'll forgive me for being bossy and intrusive. It wasn't easy being the big sibling in a single-parent working household, and you had to deal with me as both sister and custodian most of the time. I didn't have the patience, good humor, or ability to judge priorities that you needed in a full-time babysitter. And you-- well, you weren't the easiest kid to be home alone with every day. I'm not going to forget the Grape Jelly Incident.

I Want My Six Dollars Back

“Can’t I get the price for the men’s cut?” I asked.
“No; you woman,” she said.
“But it’s a man’s cut,” I said. She wouldn’t back down, and I didn’t want to start a fight, so I paid the extra six dollars for the women's cut. I got the same service that a man gets, but was charged more.

At another barber shop, I was turned away; the woman there looked at the picture I showed her-- cut with scissors on top, clippers on the side-- but insisted that she did not know how to cut a woman's hair and couldn't do it.


This is the cut that was billed as a woman's hairstyle.

When I was little, I had long hair. I hated it. It got caught on things, and I had to braid it every night if I didn’t want to wake up with a horrible tangle. I brushed it out smooth and straight every morning, pulling out knots and tying it back, but by the end of the day it always had terrible snarls in it. It was heavy and stringy and annoying and, by the time I was nine, I’d had enough of it. I went to the hairdresser and had it all chopped off.

How it all began

One day I was eating lunch on a bench by a fountain, watching all of the yuppies walk by in their suits. Then I realized that I was one of them. The fact that I hold an office job, dress in blazers, and spend most of my time working on spreadsheets hadn't really clicked. That afternoon I realized that the fundamental difference between myself and all of the people around me was no longer visually apparent, and that I was only wearing overalls on the inside.