Conflict=problem

I like the way they're teaching conflict in school these days. When I was a kid, conflict was defined as man vs. man, man vs. himself, man vs society, etc.

That works, but it's not very easy to wrap your head around. Especially when your life is mostly kid vs. kid, kid vs. self, kid vs. society, etc. That generic "man" thing doesn't do it when you're reading something like Anne of Green Gables. That definition was too cloudy. For example, Anne serves Diana blackberry wine instead of raspberry cordial. If you're in fourth grade...where's the conflict? Diana's mother gets mad at Anne and she can't be friends with Diana anymore. Is that man vs. man? Or man vs. society? It was cloudy and vague definition that didn't quite fit the books you read. Unless it was Lord of the Flies --then it hit you on the head and oinked like a wild pig. But how often did you read that kind of book?

Anyhow...

My kids have learned a better definition. A conflict is a "problem". Even my first grader knows that every story has a problem, and the story ends when the problem is solved.

Here's a story he wrote for last night's Reading Camp Out at school:

Once I went camping. I took my friends Nick and Robert. We took my new car. Nick and Robert liked it. Finally we got to the campground. At night, we told scary stories! Hahahaha! We all got scared when we were asleep. A black bear stole all our food! We were starving in the morning. We went to a restaurant for breakfast. The End.

Reminds me of a Hemingway story. There's even a Nick: "Nick liked the car. It was shiny and fast. This is a fast car, thought Nick. It is sleek and it goes fast in the night like a car that is fast..."

You can clearly see the evolution of the plot. Beginning, rising action ("hahahaha"), crisis, resolution. No muddled middle--straight to the conflict: no food because of a bear. How do the characters solve the problem? They go to a restaurant.

Why didn't they teach it that way when I was in elementary school? Instead of planning for the GMC in my stories, I'm now going to start planning for the GMP.

Maybe my son will help.

Too too but not too much

Another way to say it is internal conflict.

A friend of mine was angry with me today. Not undeservedly, I don't think. In fact, I'm glad she expressed her feelings. I'd worried all along that in the course of our relationship she would begin to feel I was taking advantage of her, and she'd always told me she'd let me know if she felt that way.

I'm sorry I wasn't sensitive enough to remedy the situation before she felt the need to tell me about it. But I have a reputation as being dense. Ask my husband, who often tells me: You're insensitive. (He tells me I'm oversensitive, too. Which makes me wonder if that means I cancel myself out?)

I also have a reputation of being stubborn. "You're stubborn! You never listen to anything anyone ever tells you!", my mother in law tells me.

My sisters tell me: "You're over-emotional!"

I've also been told: you're not assertive enough, you're wishy-washy, you don't pay attention, you don't think about yourself enough, you think about yourself too much--in short: You're too too and You're not enough.

It's a tough load to carry; mostly because I'm not sure which way I'm supposed to go. I can't please everyone (but I've been told I'm not supposed to) yet I've been told: you're selfish. So that means...I shouldn't try to please everyone yet...I'm not supposed to please myself, either?

No, wait. I'm supposed to please myself and then everyone else will be pleased. Except those who won't be pleased because I've pleased myself.

Perhaps the problem is that, as I've been told: "You're too one way or the other. There's no middle ground for you." I've also been told that I should be single-minded of opinions and feelings.

In reality, I'd like to tell everyone to take a long hike, and keep their opinions of how I should be/act/express myself/be a human being to themselves. But then, you see, I'd be too emotional/confrontational/bitchy. So I keep quiet and let people tell me I'm too unassertive/submissive/weak.

Besides, if I say anything, my mother will only tell me I'm making excuses.

No wonder I'm depressed.

Anyhow, I'm sorry I upset my friend, and I'm sorry I make her feel unappreciated and taken advantage of. I wish I could do things the way she suggests, but to do that means I have to not run my life the way other people want or suggest and then they'll be mad at me, too. I'm not perfect (though the people in my life seem to think I have the potential to be) and even if I was perfect, people wouldn't be happy with me. Because then I'd be too too and that's too much. (Yet still, never enough.)

Either way, I can't win. I can only feel confused.

*I'm sorry if I've upset anyone with the contents of today's blog but I'm not supposed to be worried about what anyone thinks. In other words, I'm sorry I'm being insensitive. I'm also sorry for being sensitive. Oh, and I'm sorry for being sorry about being sorry for being sorry. Sorry.

waahhh!

Call me paranoid. But I'm pretty certain. My children are trying to squash my career before it even gets off the ground. Even the baby's in on the act.

He won't let me put him down. Even when he's sleeping. He wakes with a squawk and a start. Then he wails. If I ignore him, he becomes frantic, screeching until my ear drums begin to swell. The worst part is--the second I pick him up, he smiles at me.

Damn! The little bugger loves me. He's actually pleased and happy--happy!--to see me. His eyes twinkle, he gurgles and stretches his little hands up to my face...ooh. You can't be mad at someone who is so delighted to see you. Even when they mess up your blog or your interview for an article, or a chapter to be revised. All you can do is hold him and wait for him to become independent...knowing deep in your heart, if you could, you'd keep him like this forever. A baby, one who needs you, one who loves you with his whole being. Because before too long, he'll be grown, too big for Mommy's arms, or her kiss. Too big for cuddles. Too big for songs and stories and rock-a-byes...

Maybe I don't mind it as much as I thought I did. Career--yeah, it might happen. But he'll grow, for sure. I think I'd best focus on what is sure, for now. Don't you?

Feng Sh**

We had a Feng Shui expert come and talk to our group (RIRW) on Saturday, addressing The Writer's Space.

She began by saying you should put your desk so that it faces the door; your back should never be to the entrance. And if you can't do that, you should angle a mirror so that you can see the goings-on in the room behind you. She also said that so many of her clients devote a tiny portion of space to their desks, putting them into a dark corner and piling clutter on top of them. If you want your work to be an important part of your life, you need to give it a prominant place in your life, remove the clutter, bring on the light (and the houseplant)!

My desk is wedged in a corner of the finished basement.

Um. You don't even need to have a BA in English to figure out THAT metaphor. My writing career is in the basement.

In fact...it's practically in the toilet, since there is one not five feet from my desk (behind a sliding panel-door). Hmmm. Feng shui? Feng sh**, I think. (Oh. Crap.)

So the task before me is to relocate my desk--if not out of the basement, at least out of the corner. There's not much I can do about the porcelain chair, unless I hire a plumber. Mostly, I should just make sure the door is closed at all times. And make sure the dog doesn't pull the roll of t.p. off the free-standing roll holder and begin biffing it around the legs of the desk.

Another thing the Feng Shui expert encouraged was to purge the space of all things with negative energy. I've tried this, but I just can't get my husband to stay outside. (I can write this, since he doesn't read my blog. He will however, read Curt Schilling's blog. Ha. Oh, all right. Only kidding. About putting my husband in the trash, not the Curt Schilling thing.)

I wonder if Curt has good Feng Shui? Perhaps that's why Bill will read his blog, and not mine.

I wonder if the infamous bloody sock has positive or negative energy? I guess it's subjective. Red Sox fan + bloody sock = good times. Yankee fan + bloody sock = 9 inning journey to Hell.

I betcha Curt's wife has a whole other energy about the sock. Something like, "Oh yeh. More $%#!ing laundry." Anyhow, that's Curt's desk/blog/career.

I'm talking about mine.

Okay. Move the desk, purge the negative objects. What else? Buy a plant. Maybe Curt will come over and help me.

Or maybe Manny will put my grill on ebay for me, and I can buy a whole new space altogether. Now that's good feng shui!

Just a hunka hunka burning...waah!

My notebook is dead. My daughter dropped it, cracking the casing and causing the pin that the charger hooks up to, to loosen.

We've been using a pointy-screwdriver thing to straighten it out so we could put the charger-thingy in there (sorry for all these technical terms; I know they're confusing to the lay person, but really--learn the jargon, folks!) and charge the battery. We used duck tape to keep it in place because it would fall out.

The other night, I noticed the charger-thingy was hot. And then, there was a dreadful burning smell...the next morning, the charger-thingy had melted. (Hmm...does that mean you're not supposed to duck tape the charger in place?) I ordered a new one from Gateway. I'm not surprised to discover that it doesn't appear to be connecting properly with the pin in order to charge.

So I'm stuck with the desktop. I hate the desktop. I have to battle my family to use it. My son uses it to play games. My daughter uses it to write stories about nine-year-old girls who angst and the horses who love them. My husband uses it to update his sports whatever they are--rotisserie baseball, March Madness brackets, and the thing they do during football season. I can't remember. It doesn't matter.

I sit in the chair, wipe the fingerprints off the monitor, add more paper to the printer, clean up all the disks left by the boy, organize all the pages left by the girl, close the windows left open by the husband. I straighten the desk, put away the pens and pencils, take the cups, bowls, glasses and utensils left by the computer to the dishwasher. I sponge the sticky mouse buttons, wipe away the rings left by spilled milk from bowls of cereal. Finally, when I get the space clean enough for me to feel comfortable I can start to write. I open the wip. I poise my fingers over the keyboard--

The baby starts to cry because his nap is over.

#$!%!

I keep telling myself to--gasp!--use a pen. But...but then...a pen? Paper? Writer's cramp and paper cuts. Damn you!

Oh, notebook...I miss you...

Thank you, Moody Muse

Quick! Go here:

http://themoodymuses.blogspot.com/

'Nuff said. And eloquently, too.


Cyn

Book Review

"If you ignore what I have to say, it really won't surprise me. I've come to find that most people ignore the dead."

Nice hook, huh? It's from a book entitled: The Worthy (A Ghost's Story), by Will Clarke.

Here's what the jacket says: ...The Worthy, a wickedly funny and frightening ghost story of unholy proportions about secret ties...thanks to a brutal hazing incident at Louisiana State University's Gamma Chi fraternity, Conrad is dead--a nineteen-year-old spirit suddenly without an earthly body.

Make no mistake, the newly deceased Conrad is one angry ghost, and the object of this wrath is chapter president Ryan Hutchins...

Out for revenge, Conrad possesses an unsuspecting pledge's body so he can finish what Ryan started, steering them toward a depraved confrontation with a surprising outcome that will leave readers gasping.

All right, I cut out a bit there. You'll have to find the book and read the book jacket yourself for a fuller synopsis. Better, read the book and enjoy the whole plot, complete with secondary characters, dialogue and a recipe for Translucent Lemon Pi. (as in 3.141592...)

One reason I really like this book--besides the fact that it's a page turner--is this notation in the acknowledgements section: I wrote The Worthy when I was twenty-six.* And on the very night that I typed the last period at the end of the final sentence**, I dreamed that Stephen King congratulated me for signing with Simon & Schuster, and then he gave me a ham sandwich.

Very cool. I'm now going to wait each night for Stephen King to visit my dreams, name my publisher, and bring me a sandwich. Hold the mayo, Steve...

Cyn

*Twenty-six! You lousy s.o.b., Will Clarke. I hate you.

**Hm. A linear writer. Interesting. I wonder if he's a pantser or a plotter?

For more information about Mr. Clarke and his other book, Lord Vishnu's Love Handles: A Spy Novel (Sort Of) --soon to be a movie--go here! http://www.booktourvirgin.blogs.com/ Make sure you scroll down the page to see a short video-interview with the man, himself; he's wearing a toga and a pink crown (but not, however, eating a ham sandwich). I like his pitch. He answers the question what's your book about, complete with hook. I could just picture him at a conference, crouched on a chair in front of a glaze-eyed editor, totally capturing his/her attention. (Even without the pink crown.) Nice job, Will!

I don't feel like writing today.

...basically, because I feel as if I suck. At writing, that is. As well as sucking at housework. I'm not kidding about the giant dust bunnies*, you know. One of them, big enough to swallow up my four-month-old son, rolled out from under my couch the other day. Thank God I was there to stop it before it did. We'd still be looking for him. And I'd have to explain it to my inlaws. "He was there, and then, he was gone. Look out! Here comes another one--stop it before it eats againnnnnnnnnnn..."

Sometimes, I think writing is just an excuse not to do housework. If only I'd write something marketable.

Ah well. There's always tomorrow.

Wait. Did you hear that? Sort of a whoosh-swish noise. Like, a big...oh no! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh...!

*ATTENTION: no dust bunnies were injured or mistreated during the making of this blog. I'd like to thank our dust bunny wrangler (who shall remain anonymous) for posting this photo of a stunt bunny to Google Images for my use.

All my bunnies are 100% natural dust, with no fillers or paper of any kind.

And you thought a blank page was frightening...

A blank blog is even worse.

I thought I'd start this particular blog with a quote, something really literary. (Anyone who knows me is already laughing. Literary?)

My writing is about as far from literary as you can get. Like, out in the remainder bin, on the sidewalk outside of the store. But here's how one person defines the genre of literary fiction (which, incidentally, is supposed to be the anti-genre. Go figure. I can't.): "...fiction that is of higher quality, richer, denser, or, as the literary fiction book club states, work that 'can make us uncomfortable or can weave magic.''

Uncomfortable? I can write that. (Hey! I just noticed, if you put an h after the t in write, you get writhe...talk about uncomfortable. But that's for another blog.) I'm not sure about magic weaving. I like to think I write/writhe magic, or even magically. Most writers do. Probably because we've had too many Starbucks. Yet, even under the influence of mucho java most of the literary fiction I've read hasn't woven any magic for me.

It has, however, made me feel rather stupid. (Not difficult.) Written by people trying very hard to sound profound (hey, that rhymes), they write about the most profound thing they can imagine. Death. So they kill off their protagonist at the end of the story.

One article I've read sums it up this way:

"Tales from the Cryptic (AKA All's Well That Ends)
This is the great practical joker of the literary world, with a pedigree going back to the original shaggy-dog story. The reader is lulled by interesting characters and maybe even a whiff or two of plot. We read dozens of pages. Characters converge and interact. Things happen. Then we reach a conclusion that seems to bear no relationship to the previous text. For example -- two people meet and have tea. Halfway around the world, a butterfly dies. The end. We are left as clueless about the ending as the author. " (you can find the rest of this article, "A Guide to Literary Fiction" Copyright © 2002 by David Lubar at: http://www.davidlubar.com/litfic.html )

Thank you, David Lubar. You are my hero. I'd kiss your feet, but my blog is not that kind of a place.

Not today, anyway.