Story Ideas From My Exciting Stay-At-Home Mom Morning

My day so far:

1:30 a.m. Awakened by Seth crying.  Waited a couple of minutes and he was back out.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.  Went back to sleep.

5:45 a.m. Awakened by Seth crying.  Fed him a bottle.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.  

6:15 a.m. Walked down to an open house I worked on Saturday near my house to drop off stuff that should have been dropped off last night.  Called my mom on the way and chatted about the kids, Texas weather, cicadas and whatnot.

7:00 a.m.  Seth woke up, checked on him and then going down the hallway in the morning sunlight, I could now see the giant maggot parade stretching from our front door to the back door where we take out the trash.  Have no idea how long the festivities had been going on.  Seth stubbed his toe.

7:02 a.m. Swept up participants in the maggot parade, and cleaned trail of blood off the floor from Seths stubbed toe.

7:15 a.m. Put a bandaid on toe and disinfected parade route.

7:20 a.m. Stood up during disinfecting process and whacked my head on the corner of the cabinet door I had left open when I got toe bandaid out.

7:21 a.m.  Immediately crouched back down, rubbing head and beginning to cry (this was th capper to a stressful weekend....)

7:30 a.m. Regained consciousness and composure enough to fold laundry and put in a load of towels.

8:00 a.m.  Stopped crying,  Made hot cocoa for my and my son, got dressed to run errands, made to-do-list for errands.  Took Tylenol for throbbing head from cabinet doors

8:35 a.m.  Drove to bank.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook. (John is off work so I had the luxury of going by myself and having a quiet moment by alone)

8:45 a.m. On the way to the bank I heard a call-in contest to win Tom Petty concert tickets.  Dialed the wrong number.  Couldn't remember the right one.  Blew my chances.

8:50 a.m.  Tom Petty's "Free Falling" comes on to rub in the fact that I didn't get tickets,  put the top down on the car and sang along. Loudly. Because I know every word.

9:00 a.m.  Bank.  Fairly uneventful.

9:20 a.m. Michaels.  Had fun picking out butterfly stuff for a girl's birthday D was going to today.

10:05 a.m.  Stopped picking out butterfly stuff, finally, and hit the grocery store for milk and bread.

10:20 a.m.  Stopped by the house to pick up D and Seth for the party.  D was too busy watching Curious George to be distracted by a birthday party.  I put the hammer down, because parties are important.

10:30 a.m. Went to the party with butterfly gifts.  Had lots of fun--scavenger hunt, swings, sifting through sand  for treasures, painting, opening homemade geodes with treasures inside, popping balloons with treasures inside....you get the picture.

11:30 a.m.  Ate Mexican Food and donuts at the party.

Noon  Left the party to drop D off at Ninja Camp.  That's right....Ninja Camp.  We are cool like that.

12:05 p.m. Seth fell asleep in the car on the way home from dropping off at Ninja Camp.  Perfect.

12:15 p.m. Reheat my cocoa from this morning,  Lay down for a little bit because of throbbing cabinet door knot on my head.  

12:30 p.m. Really need sleep, but wrote this entry instead. Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.

And the day is not even half over yet.  There has to be a least a few story ideas in they're somewhere....Tha Maggot Parade....hmmm...D would love it.

The Art of Brevity

Pacific Beach locals don't need a caption.

In my art work and graphic design, I pride myself on my ability to capture some thought or emotion through a clean, simple image.  It comes natural to me.  It is how I think.  The watercolor to the right is a good example.  Locals love it.  They know where it is and that, even though it's a street sign, it represents a particular beach spot.  They know I frequent that spot.  They know it's a simple representation of a place, a love for that place, and it means I'm a local, too.  I get brevity in my art.

But, when I write, I want to explain everything.  I want to make sure everyone understands exactly what I mean.  And, unfortunately, that can mean I am not giving the reader enough credit to draw his or her own conclusions.

I was reminded of this and of the need for brevity this week as I have been polishing two short works, with the help of my friend of 25+ years, Christa, who is a wonderful writer with far more experience than I have (http://www.christalestelasserre.com).  She responded to my two projects with great advice about brevity and getting to the heart of the story, and it allowed me to see what I needed to do to make some key changes.   Perhaps even complete overhauls.

One of my projects is a 500 word short story submission, and the other is a twelve line children's poem I intend to illustrate into a book.  It's close to midnight, and I am finally pretty happy with my work.  But, it has taken more hours over the last several days than 500 words should.  In a story that short, each word, each phrase has to be carefully thought out and placed for maximum impact.  Each image, like a biblical parable, must be relied on to teach more about the story than the few words used to describe it.  The beauty of simple imagery is that it can hold different meaning for different people, and all interpretations can be correct.  As I begin to edit the larger manuscript from which this short story was taken, I am now asking myself how many of those words I need to keep.  How many are absolutely necessary?  I fear I have a lot more editing in store than I originally imagined.  That said, I am looking forward to paring down to the heart of the story.  It is my story--my memoir, and I don't want it muddled with distracting thoughts that serve as smoke and mirrors to lure the reader away from what he or she should be analyzing.  It is a tactic I have often used in my own life so others don't see what is really there.  And that goes against the whole purpose of this memoir.  It is not to conceal.  It is to capture the essence of these memories so I can lay them to rest and move on.  And I don't want to string that out any longer than is absolutely necessary.

A Worthless Restraining Order and Taking Back Your Life

Excerpt from my book in progress, from a story about my step-father: 

"I wanted him out of our lives and I didn’t care what that meant.  I knew that I didn’t want any of us to be victims any more.   So, when I drove my sister home from a church meeting one night and saw him driving slowly by the house, something snapped and I whipped a u-turn in front of the house and took off after him.  Us in my little white Mustang and him in his beat up little pickup truck.  We flew down these country roads in the dark in some crazy pursuit.  The question was, what was I pursuing?  Was it him or was it something else?  I wondered what I would do if I caught him.  What would I say?  What would I do if got my hands on him?  But, I didn’t care.  I felt this great sense of elation!  I smiled—might have even laughed.  The hunter had become the hunted and I wanted him to feel fear.  I knew these old back roads pretty well, and I knew we were headed for gravel.  He went up this hill and to the left and sped down the white rock road with no signs of slowing.  I knew we were a few hundred yards from a tee in the road, and with the darkness and the gravel dust, I decided to slow down, hoping I would still be able to catch him.  We pulled up to the tee and I stopped.  I couldn't tell which direction he had gone, and I knew I hadn’t been that far behind him.  And then I saw him.  He had obviously not known about the tee in the road and had plowed straight through a fence out into the field.  I looked and saw his car about a hundred yards ahead with the driver’s door open and smoke coming up from the engine.  It took a minute to spot him.  He had run about a hundred yards past the car and was crouched beside a tree watching me.  It was a really powerful moment for me.  Here was this man that I had grown to fear and despise.  This coward of a man who, for some reason I don’t understand, preyed on those less powerful than him.  There he was crouched down like a cornered animal.  I remember thinking how pathetic he looked.  How weak and gutless and powerless and pathetic he was.  I actually felt sorry for him.  My heart was softened.  Not in a way that I would ever let him back in my life, but in a way that would allow me to let go.  My sister and I just sat there for a few moments, watching the lights glare back off of his glasses, like a possum's eyes at night.  She said something about how that was just sad.  I agreed.  I flashed my brights at him and honked my horn a couple of times, and then turned around and drove away.  It wasn’t worth it.  He wasn't worth it.  What was I going to do anyway?  What did I expect would make him different?  He at least knew that I would pursue and that I wasn’t going to sit idly by without fighting back, and that was enough for me at that moment, even if nothing else changed."

Sorting Out My Story....

Do you remember that scene in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer” in which he is staring at the chess board trying to decide his next move, and he remembers his coach saying something about how he needs to see the ending and how he will get there before he makes his next move?  That’s how I feel about this book.  I keep writing down these bits and pieces of my story because I feel so compelled to write them.  But I can’t figure out why it needs to be written down.  I feel like I’m staring at a chess board and all the pieces are there, although perhaps scattered a little across the board and not perfectly lined up.  It isn’t random, because I put them there.  I just can’t figure out why I put them there and where they are supposed to wind up so that there is some kind of successful end result.  Sometimes I feel like the king and the goal is to protect myself and make sure I win.  But mostly I feel like little Bobby Fischer staring down at my life knowing that just a handful of correct moves will bring victory.  If only I could figure it out.  I love that scene in the movie.  I love the camera as it’s focused on his face trying to make sense of the pieces.  I love as it shifts from the pieces being in focus to his face as it clicks in his mind, and you see hope and adrenaline as he realizes how to win.  He lifts his head, his mind clear with the answer, solidifies his plan, and finishes the game.  Victory.  I’m hoping that moment of clarity will come.  And more importantly, I’m hoping when it does come, I will have the courage to finish.

Jack in the Box

Memories are a little like a jack-in-the-box.  It’s colorful and full of something familiar yet unexpected.  So, you wind it up out of curiosity and let the music play, and suddenly something pops up, and it either makes you laugh and say “oh yeah, I remember that!”, or it scares you to death, so you shove it back in and close the lid.  But that curiosity is just too much, so you start winding again, and sometimes you wind a little more slowly hoping to be able to anticipate the surprise.  But, it only makes the music weirder and the anxiety greater, and the surprise either that much more funny or that much more horrendous.  So you shove it back in, slam the lid, and sometimes let it sit on a shelf for months or years, but eventually, it will draw you back in.

The only thing is that I’ve always related a little more to the Land of Misfits from the Rudolph movie and I think mine is actually a Charlie-in-the-box instead.  It looks the same as a jack-in-the-box, it winds up the same way, the music is the same, but when those experiences pop out, they’re just a little off.

I was reviewing some things I had written privately some time ago about some of these events that happened when I was younger, and I started to realize that this is going to be tougher than I thought.  How do you write openly and honestly about events that shaped your life in one way or another without hurting others that were involved in some degree?  Even without mentioning names and being more general with circumstances, it’s hard to know what will be appropriate to share, especially since many close to you will recognize to whom you are referring.  As I look through the things I want to share, I think perhaps I need to have a conversation or two before I get too deep into some of these more painful memories.  And I need to make a decision myself if I’m ready for everyone to know these things or if I need to shove that little Charlie back into his box and shelve him a little longer.  I don’t think I can, though.  Those things were designed to pop out, and at least if you’re the one turning the crank, you have the opportunity to stand by to make sure that the people who might initially be a little afraid get an explanation and a back story to help them understand that it’s just a little metal box with a crank attached to a spring covered in fabric and a painted wooden head—nothing to be afraid of.  Of course, you have to believe that yourself first.

I've been writing these thoughts and memories down for years, and as I get ready to finally piece them all together into some semblance of a book, I hope I can do it justice.  I hope I can capture how these things have shaped me.  I hope it means something.  And I hope I can move forward, because life can be so beautiful.