Betwixt and Between

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Sometimes I feel like a fit in nowhere. Like I ‘m the poster child for the betwixt and between crew.

I don’t mean with my family, of course. My family is the one place where I feel I can be me, really me, and still be totally accepted and supported.
But once I leave the protected environment of my loved ones I have trouble finding that special place that feels like home away from home, with people who take on the role of my second family when my first family isn’t available.
I have a degree in archaeology, and had planned to make it my career until life intervened. Yet I certainly can’t rely on the archaeology community for that second home experience. It wouldn’t make sense. I’m an outsider and will remain an outsider. I’ve never even been on a single dig.
Lack of practical experience explains why I don’t have a zillion best buds among the archaeology crowd, but not what keeps me an outsider in the librarian community.  I’ve been a practicing librarian in both public and school libraries. I have real world experience as a librarian and I found I was rather good at it.Yet somehow, the connection to other librarians I know just isn’t there. I can’t seem to reach them on a personal level.

So where exactly do I fit in?Do I fit in with the writing community, as a novelist or a screenwriter?

I guess only time will tell.

Or maybe my crystal ball, if I could remember where I packed it.

A bullhorn in the desert.

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Having a blog is an odd thing. It’s like doing a coffee house reading without the coffee. Or the house. Or the stage. Or the microphone. Or the faces.

Hmm. That’s a lot of ‘or’s. Guess I’d better re-think my analogy.

Let’s see…

Got it! Having a blog is like being in the middle of an empty desert with a bullhorn.

Yep! That’s more the feeling.

Don’t get me wrong. My blog gets comments. Just enough to let me know that that old bullhorn is doing it’s job.

But not enough to let me know how well the old bullhorn is working.

Which leaves me with a plethora of questions. Like, who’s listening? What type of people drop by for a visit? What are their likes, and dislikes? Do we share common interests?

So I do the only thing I can. I check my stats.

You should check your stats. It can be a disappointing, yet fascinating, experience.

Disappointing because the stats really don’t give very much information, only how many visits the blog gets and what country they’re from.

But fascinating because, well, the blog gets visits from all over the world. All those potential friends!

It really sparks the imagination. Especially when a country jumps to the top of the list and stays there for months. I can’t help myself. I start to feel that there must be people in that country that I’m connecting with. People who could be my friends.

But the other day I checked my stats and was surprised to see a new country not only on the list, but with ten times more visits than I’d ever had in one day from ANY country. Even the United States.

Then in the days that followed, not a single visit.

What’s up, country-that-will-remain-unnamed, was it something I wrote?
Did it remind you of another blog you used to read that ended badly?
Does my blog have bad breath?
What?

Country-that-will-remain-unnamed, I’ll admit that you flattered me with your attention. Commonsense flew out the window. I thought we had something. I thought you liked me–I mean my blog. I thought you liked my blog.

Then BAM–nothing!
No comments. No visits. You dropped my blog like a hot potato.

Sigh.


So much for making a connection.

Back to the old bullhorn in the desert.

 

When is a selfie not a selfie?

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“Stay here honey, I’ll be right back,” the father said to his daughter. They were standing fifty feet from a set of bathrooms located at the foot of the California Screaming roller coaster.

The very same roller coaster that my family was in line to ride for the second time that day.

Once had been enough for me. Several years earlier I had eagerly jumped aboard, only to be rocketed along at such a force that I was lifted out of the seat for the entire ride while tears streamed out of my eyes.

And no, I wasn’t crying. The force of the ride was intense. So much so that it literally squeezed tears out of my eyes like Minute Maid squeezes juice from an orange.

Can you blame me for opting out of the ride to sit on one of the cozy benches located at the foot of that monstrous roller coaster?

Anyway, the man handed the child his smart phone and proceeded on his mission to visit the bathroom. The girl, who was about eight, found a seat on an empty bench near me and immediately became immersed in a game.

I’m not really a buttinsky, but I do worry about children left alone in public places. So I decided to quietly keep an eye on the girl until her father returned.

Which is why I noticed when a woman about twenty feet away got up and moved in my direction. She turned back to where she had been sitting and shrugged a question. A heavyset man on the bench motioned, she looked at the bench with the little girl and immediately went to sit an inch from the girl. The girl was so caught up in her game that she seemed not to notice.

But I noticed.

My brain worked frantically as I thought through different scenarios, the best of which being that the woman and the little girl knew each other.

Which wasn’t likely. The little girl continued to play her game and ignore the woman sitting practically on top of her.

So I did the most logical thing I could think of. I turned and openly watched as the heavyset man moved over to the bench and looked down at the little girl. Then he looked up and his eyes locked with mine. I kept my gaze steady and unflinching. An easy thing for a former librarian to do.

He looked away from me, ordered the girl off the bench, and took a seat. The girl’s father returned a minute later and they went about their business, happy to return to a day of fun.

But I kept watching the couple on the bench. They sat there for about five minutes, with the woman worriedly looking in my direction every few seconds.

Which brings up the question, “When is a selfie not a selfie?”

Of course the answer is, “When it’s a ‘just in case’ picture.” As in, ‘just in case’ the couple was or is up to no good.

I know the couple didn’t do anything except run the little girl off the bench. It was rude, but nothing to write home about.

But what would have happened if no one had been watching? Would the outcome have been the same?

You may notice that I’ve blurred the woman’s face and tattoo.

I did this because I don’t believe in plastering a person’s image all over the Internet. Her features are blurred enough so that she looks like thousands of other women.

But even with the blurring it’s easy to see that she’s looking my way and she’s worried.

Which is why I’m keeping the original of this ‘selfie’ in a safe place.

Just in case.

 

Novel temptation

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There’s a full outline and 15,000 words of one particular novel written and waiting.

I put it aside when I started the MFA program because, well, sometimes you just have to focus. A two year Master’s program squished into one year definitely requires focus.  It was intense!

I haven’t touched the novel since. Not because I lost interest, but because I’m too interested. Once I start writing it all other projects will disappear from my mind.

So before I allow myself to dive into the deep waters of the new world I’m creating for the novel, I need to solidify my screenwriting skills. Five screenplays ought to do it. I have three written and I’m working on the other two now.

But, darn it, that novel won’t leave me alone.

“I’m waiting,” it whispers as I open my computer.
“Go away, I’m busy,” I reply.
“Come on. You know you want to.”
“Later, I have other projects I need to do.”
“Just one hour. It’ll be fun! I promise!”
“No!”
“It’ll relax you. Give it a try.”
“Go away. I’m opening a screenplay now. THAT will also be fun.”
“Not as much fun as Vanessa’s world. Remember how it gets all messed up because someone travels back in time–”
“Shhhh!”
“–and Vanessa’s children travel with her–”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Leave me alone! I need to focus on this screenplay!”
“–to the future, and–”
“If you don’t go away I’ll delete you.”
“What? You wouldn’t!”
“Watch me. See, here’s my finger on the delete button. Go ahead, bug me some more.”
“Fine,” the novel sighs in resignation. “I’ll wait. But you’re missing out on some really good fun!”

I guess I’d better get busy and finish those screenplays. I don’t know how long I can hold off the novel. It’s very persistent.

Just between us, I’d never follow through with the delete button threat. Writing that novel really is going to be lot of fun!

You won!

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When the phone rang this morning I immediately jumped up to answer. After all, every phone call has potential. It might be a long lost friend looking to reconnect, a family member with fantastic news, a reporter wanting an interview about one of my books, or a producer interested in a script.

Okay, okay, I’ll admit it. Most of the calls I receive are sales calls and requests for donations. But let’s not focus on that. It’s best to push those sad disappointments out the the mind as quickly as possible.

Anyway, as I said, I answered the phone quickly, and with a chipper “Hello.”

“Veronica?”

“This is Veronica,” I answered, encouraged that the person on the other end of the line knew my name.

“This is Jessica from Readers Group-”

On hearing the words ‘Readers Group’ my heart soared, whirling and whooshing among the clouds. This had be about one of my books, most likely Gray Zone. Someone in this group, this Readers Group, had read Gray Zone and realized that it was perfect for-

“-and I’m calling because you are in the running for our grand lottery prize of $2 million. Congratulations!”

At those words my heart plummeted into a nosedive and crashed, SPLAT, on the ground as I recognized the start of the old you-won-the-lottery scam.

“But I haven’t entered any lotteries,” I interrupted before she could get too deep into her pitch.

“If you will just wait a minute and listen to what I have to say….”

So I paused politely to see what she would say.

“Or you can ignore me. That’s real adult.”


And she hung up the phone with a resounding CLICK. 


So much for my attempt to be polite.

Does that mean I don’t get my $2 million?








 

The un-quashing

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I’ve been so successful in quashing my desire to write for the last six months that I truly feared that it was gone forever.

Sure, I’d written a little here, and a little there. Nothing could make me totally stop writing.

But that oh-so-important drive I’d developed that had helped me write four novels while working full-time, well, it was pushed down deeper than a tick on a vampire.

The coping mechanism I’d used to keep from dying of frustration had worked. I could go days, even weeks, without writing and without my head exploding.

Which really scared me. The time had come for me to rejoin the ranks of the regularly writing. Would the drive resurface?

I sighed a number of times as I sat down at my computer this morning. I didn’t look forward to the days ahead. It had taken me months to subdue my desire to write, so I knew it would take an equal number of months to reactivate it to its full strength.

Boy, was I wrong! It took less than a page.

I was deep in a scene–so deep I felt the heat of the flames that were part of the scene–when a tidal wave of adrenaline hit.  My body tingled with energy and my mind exploded with ideas. As the adrenaline wave washed over me it obliterated every trace of restraint I’d spent months developing.

Whew! What a relief!

I’m back!

A writing experiment

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I love to try new ways of writing, just in case there’s a better way out there that I haven’t yet discovered.

Only, well, lately I have had very little time for writing experiments.

As a matter of fact, during all the moving mess of the past six months I’ve had very few opportunities to do any writing. The disruptions to the daily routine that happen when your house is on the market is not in the least conducive to a good writing environment.

So many brokers called to schedule a viewing that I quickly learned to hate my phone. It went from being a toy of communication to a tool of bondage. It distracted me away from writing like nothing else ever has.

For me, it just doesn’t work to be deep in a storyline and have to dig myself out to answer the phone.

So when I read a book that laid out, step-by-step, the similarities of every successful movie, I decided to do an experiment. I’d create a beat sheet based on the points listed in the book, and use it as an outline for a movie.

My experiment had to wait until the calls for showings halted, which wasn’t until we found a buyer for our house.

Unfortunately, the buyer wanted some changes done to the house before the sale was finalized.

I was so frustrated by the time I had already lost that I sat down in the living room and hammered out the beat sheet while a maelstrom of workers rewired my house.

That night after the workers left I reread the beat sheet and was pleased with the story I had created. It had everything the book listed as necessary for a successful movie, as well as everything I had learned about storytelling.

But–and this is rather important–no matter how many times I tried to sit down and write the screenplay, I just couldn’t do it. Something didn’t feel right. The beat sheet worked as a beat sheet, but not as an outline. I couldn’t convert it to the next stage.

Since then weeks have gone by and I’m now in my new apartment. This morning I got out the beat sheet and decided to give it another go.

It was still no good. Something didn’t flow. It felt wrong.

So I pushed the beat sheet away and started from scratch. And by scratch I mean the beat sheet stopped being an outline and became a series of suggestions.

Words flowed from my fingers like magic.

Which is why I call this experiment in writing a success. Everyone has their own writing method. For me, too much structure is just as bad as not enough.

I need wiggle room to write.

 

Sta-sta-staticky

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“Your phone was cutting out and I just pretended that I could hear what you were saying.”

That was the excuse I got.

I had arrived home at 8:30 am to find two workers under my house digging away. This was after I had been given assurances just yesterday that no more work would be done on the house while we were still in residence.

After all, if the new owners want work done they can live with the hammering and the dust, not us. We’ve done our part.

As soon as I saw the guys I tried to talk to them to let them know a mistake had been made. Unfortunately, they didn’t speak a word of English.

So one guy took out his cell phone and called his office.

I had explained the problem and started a dialog when the call was dropped. I waited for the guy to call back so we could finish our conversation but he never did.

So I retrieved my own phone and called. I explained that no work was to be done until we moved out because I’m prone to migraines and the work they had already done had triggered one. The guy on the phone said no problem, he’d tell the men to leave.

Fifteen minutes went by. The men under my house continued to work.

I was relieved when they headed for the truck, until I realized that they were getting more supplies. So I stopped them and gestured for them to call their office. My assumption was that they had somehow not gotten the message that my house was no longer on their schedule.

That’s when the man on the line told me he hadn’t heard a word I had said since the phone had cut out multiple times. He had only been placating me, making me feel better.

Except, that old phone-cutting-out story doesn’t hold water. Because during that supposedly sta-sta-staticky call he had repeated my very words back to me multiple times. Verbatim.

Strange that he could do that and still not hear me.

He ended with, “All you had to do was ask and I would have sent the workers away.”

Funny, that’s what I thought I had done.