(content warning: This post goes into some seriously heavy stuff about my recent experience with mental illness, and other not-pretty things. If you're sensitive to any of that stuff, you may want to skip this.)
Hello, Internet.
So.
Stuff has happened.
It's been a long time, Internet, and I feel incredibly guilty about that. The truth is, I have been avoiding this blog, because for some time I have felt that it was taking away from the fiction writing I have been wanting to do. And then I was avoiding this blog because I had no time to write anything ever. And then.
And then, Internet, the bottom sort of fell out of my world. I am currently coming off a four-month depression relapse. I won't bore you with details, but it was bad. Bad enough that there was the all-concerning Plan that doctors, counselors and psychiatrists ask you if you have, during particularly long episodes. Bad enough that I had to move houses and quit my job and am now living on ODSP with no cushion and am scared out of my mind, but I HAD to go, because things were just bad, and they weren't getting any better, and I was going to the Terrible Scary Place more often then I was doing human things like eating and sleeping. Bad enough that for the first time in my life I was eating to SURVIVE, rather than because I was hungry, or because a particular thing looked tasty. I was actually eating a meal a day, purely in order to function, because I could not summon up the emotional energy required to actually ENJOY food. I was hospitalized for a six-hour long dissociative episode. My mother was on suicide watch. I refused to allow the kids to even talk to me on the phone, let alone to visit because I was afraid of the awful things I would say to them, because I could not filter anything, and everything inside me was ugly.
We don't really talk about depression like we should. We are aware, I think, that depression affects many, many people, and that it is not the same thing as sadness, and these things are important to know, but they don't convey what happens, I mean what REALLY happens. For me, depression is like I am a little kid being lost in a supermarket. Five minutes ago, my life was fine, everything was familiar and everyone I loved was right there with me. But now it's not, and they're not, and I'm not sure how to get back to that place, because I never really know what I've done to lose it in the first place. And that's a really awful and scary thing, to know that because of some chemical trick being played on me, sometimes I feel bad for no reason, and sometimes there is a reason, and I never really know which it is, and worse, neither does anyone else. And then, Oh. And then.
I think the hardest part about that kind of depression is the amount of love and support I get. Growing up, my depression and my anxiety were mine to deal with and now, they are mine and my mother's. My brothers and sisters, all of whom struggle with it in some form or another, just aren't available to care. Which may actually be a blessing, because there are times, during that period, where you actually wish you were loved less, so people would stop telling you they know you're going to get better. Because the hardest, the absolute worst thing about depression? Is not the pain you're in. It's when the pain goes away.
For the first few weeks of a depression relapse, I am always in a great deal of pain. It's all very visible, and visceral, and noticeable, I start sleeping 20 hours a day, I either refuse food, or eat whatever is available. I take the dogs on shorter walks because I don't want to be seen by anyone trying to be nice to me. And I cry. Oh my Goddess I cry all the time over everything. And then, slowly, it goes away. It's a funny thing, about depression. There's this idea that even though we know depression is an illness, not a sadness, we still imagine it as being sad. It's not like that. When I am happy, I am aware that I have been sick, I have been depressed, and I remember that that hurt, that it was scary and it was bad and I don't want to go back there. But I don't actually know how it feels. I am wrapped in cotton wool and nothing I feel is real, and I barely feel anything at all most of the time. I am not part of the world. Happiness, however, is a vibrant and alive thing. So while I am depressed, I remember every single second of what it was to be happy, everything I had and lost, and I don't know where it is, or how I lost it, and what if I never get it back? People keep reassuring me it's there, but they are the same people who reassured me that I was so happy, while I was happy, and how could I have been, when this has always been there?
I find it's a common attitude among particularly young writers to sneer at a happy ending as taking the easy way out. I always had a darkly private giggle over that. Having been undiagnosed til I was 17, I can still say with some certainty I have been dealing with some form of depression and/or anxiety from probably eleven years old. I'm always curious as to who and where these people are that their happiness had an easy answer. My own has been so hard-won, and often, much too fleeting. There is, of course, a part of me that understands that conflict makes a story, but there's still something off about the glamorizing of misery that goes on. I don't mean people shouldn't be writing sad books, or making sad movies. I mean the fetishist that says, "I like sad things because they are more real." Sad has never felt like a real thing to me. Most of the time, sad is a trick of my brain chemistry, out of proportion to who I am and how I feel, usually brought on by nothing, and offering nothing in return for what it takes. In real sadness, you pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes, and try not to let it happen again. In depression, you pick yourself up, slowly crawl back to the world, and hope the monsters won't find you again. Another version of this is that I hate the number of people who feel that my disability have made me a stronger person, not because I don't think it has, but because I don't know why I'm supposed to be so strong when so many aren't. Is it just so that I have space inside me to be more unhappy then they do? Why would I need that, if I didn't have the thing that made me so 'strong' in the first place?
After I got out of the hospital, I stopped writing. That was a conscious decision. I had been through a rough patch, was unsure if I wanted to write anymore, at all, and that was scary to think about, because as I have previously discussed, writing has never been about what I do. It's who I am. But I gave it up. For two weeks. Then I wanted to get back to it. I missed it. I had things I wanted to do, and there are things I feel like need to be written, because they should exist, and they don't yet. I sat down to write. And promptly started screaming.
I've had panic attacks while writing before, fear of failure that creeps up without warning, makes it hard to breath, and I have to go sit in the other room AWAY from the computer for a while. This was not that. I stared at the blank doc for twenty minutes, and cried, and then I screamed. I screamed how much I hate myself, how much I hate doing this thing. How it was the only thing I ever had or ever would have. How I didn't even know who I was anymore, and how I hated that everything inside me meant so much, and so little of it was real. How I am never going to be the person I wanted to be, and nobody was even bothered by that, except me, and that meant that I am apparently the only opinion in my own life that doesn't matter. And that went on for another six weeks. Six weeks of being cut off from what mattered most to me, after nearly four months of alienating my entire family.
I don't know what to say about all that now. Things have slowed down. My world has started righting itself, but it has taken on a very different shape from what it was, and, I think, so have I. I don't know if it's a good shape or not. I mentioned above about depression never offering anything for what it takes. Last time I was in this bad a shape, I had a similar moment of suddenly knowing the truth about who I was and what that meant, and how people saw that, and how that mattered. It was not a good moment, for me, but it was an important one. I think this is another of those. I think. I don't know yet. I think the reason writing has made me angry was not, as I guessed, because it too had nothing to offer me, because that could never be true, but because I was angry about having so little to offer it. It is indeed a poor workwoman who blames her tools, isn't it? And Goddess help me, but I think maybe. Just maybe. I can do better. I don't know that, mind you.
But I'm still here. And I'm still doing this thing.
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Saturday, March 26, 2011
DIY
This is not a post about building things, except it sort of is, a little bit.
My father is a contractor/construction worker, and has been for most of his life. Growing up, he told me hilarious stories about the time he worked as a pizza delivery man, and the tricks he and his friends used to play on the university students. "University students," he would tell me, "are some of the stupidest people you have ever met in your life. They have no common sense. Everything they know comes from books. They don't exist in the real world." Gratitude, Common Sense and The Real World were the million-dollar concepts to my father. Whenever we were lectured for anything, leaving a mark on the wall, not doing our homework, fighting at the dinner table, my father's lecture was the same:
"You kids are so Ungrateful. You don't have any Common Sense. You need to wake up and realize that in The Real World, you can't act this way." Theoretically, I could have come home carrying a human head, and the lecture would have likely gone something like this:
"You are so Ungrateful! Do you think your mother and I ever chopped someone’s head off? Common Sense says you cannot just chop someone’s head off. You should know better! In The Real World, people don't do that! Smarten up!"
This explains the somewhat tumultuous relationship my father and I have, and have had since I developed what we refer to as Independent Thought. My poor mother had to play referee, but every once in a while, my Dad would say something so off the wall that even my mom had to go, "Huh?" So one day, somewhere in my angry adolescence, my father was lecturing me on the dangers of my not having a backup plan. This lecture was another oldie, and at some point, my father made the mistake of asking me if I knew how many people tried to write books, every year. Because I was ticked off at this point, and because I was a bit of a snarky kid, I responded with, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Do you?" His next words were, "Well, I could write a book too, you know." At which point, my mother stared incredulously at my father and said, "You know you're full of it, right?"
My dad, realizing his misstep, floundered for about half a second, and then amended himself. "I'm not saying it would get published..." So of course, the snark in me responded with, "Yeah, and I could build a house, but I'm not saying it wouldn't fall down."
It's strange, the things we value in this world, and why. I value people like construction workers, because I know they're necessary, but I don't understand why a person would rather do that than do this. In fact, most of the time, I assume they only do what they're doing because they don't have any other options. Like maybe they're just not good at anything else, or maybe the money's better and they need it. It sounds harsh, but then, sometimes feel the same about this venture, and in fact, most ventures of mine. In writing classes, they warn you that if you can do anything else, you should do it, because this is a long and painful road to nothing for most of us. For me, it was this, or struggle on disability for the rest of my life (which I may do anyway). I know that I have a decent job right now, and it's a job I like, but it's not what I would choose for myself, so I don't understand people who would. It was easy to be the one to say, "I'm going to be one of that 3%, because I don't have other options." Now I have another job, I have other options, I'm not miserable, and I know this is still an integral part of my sense of self, and my goals. It's a comfort of sort, to know that, but it makes other people's decisions and choices all the more confusing to me.
I've always been a DIY of a different sort than my father. My father needs to know that he is where people expect him to be. Everything that I've ever wanted, I've wanted for myself and by myself, and those have been some pretty concrete goals. I chose my profession at four, and decided I would stay single for most of, if not all of my life, at sixteen. And because of that, and because of the disability, I'm not afraid to move slowly. I get impatient, sometimes. But I take comfort in the fact that I am not like other people. I want to do things, not just at my own pace, but in my own way, and that takes time.
I think when you're a parent, with a child with a disability, you harbour a deep-seated fear that failure is inevitable. I was lucky, because I have two parents who cope with that fear in very different ways: My father, by denying the possibility of failure, and pushing me well beyond my capacity, pushing me towards goals he feels I can actually accomplish, and my mother, by denying the rest of the world's importance and embracing the failure. On their own, neither of those are particularly good ways to parent a child with a disability, and there are a lot of ways and a lot of times the whole thing worked out really badly for everyone. Put them together, though, and I grew up in an environment that if I wanted something, it was up to me to tell my mother I would have it, and if I couldn't do something, it was up to me to tell my father to back off. Sometimes this led to disaster and shouting, but it also led to me knowing exactly what I wanted, and exactly why, and understanding that if I was going to have something, I would have to get it myself. Because the people who believed I could have it also believed I didn't need help, and the people who didn't weren't going to waste resources trying to help me do the impossible.
So here we are. Me, attempting to self publish. Earning my online degree. Being at least functionally single for the foreseeable future, but daring to dream and plan for children. In part because it's the path life has led me to, but for the most part, purely because that's how I work. On my own. I suppose people are right then, to accuse me of being a bit self-interested. I am interested in myself, not at the expense of others, but because others don’t really factor into my life much. Possibly not the most lucrative way to live, and most times I seem antisocial and hard-headed. (I'm not. Well, antisocial.) But I think certain things are hardwired into you.
Recently, I had the flu. And I remember thinking, “So this is why people have partners. It’s so they can have someone to walk the dogs, and cook food and do the dishes while they can’t stand up.” It was the first time it occurred to me that being single might be in some ways harder than being coupled. Another day, I was talking to a friend about my severe lack of a social life, where I talked about having very few friends, and she offered many solutions, how I could go out and meet new people, and what do to once I had. And after making excuse after excuse as to why I couldn’t, I realized that it wasn’t that I lacked friends. It was that I had lived too full a life, I had friends on three continents, scattered all over the country, and that didn’t even include the myriad of amazing people I had met through other people, online. I wanted more time and more space in common with those people. I am not lonely for friendship or for romance. It’s just that the world is made for people who come in pairs and sets.
Good things and bad things to everything, I suppose. There are times I take on too much, sometimes, because like my father, I forget what I'm up against. I get stagnant and sometimes I'm easily overwhelmed, because I think, like my mother, that I should just revel in the fact that I have any ambition left, and sometimes that's enough to be grateful for. But one day I'm going to have all the things I want to have, a family, a career, and a life that I earned, and the job I always dreamed of having. And when I do, I know it'll be in part because I have good people in my life, and lots of support, and a little luck. And part of it will be because I learned how to stand up to the people who loved me before I had to stand up to the people who don’t. But mostly, it'll be up to me. Because there is the world, and there is me, and when we work together, it’s awesome, but when we don’t, somebody has to look out for me.
I sort of like it that way.
Good things and bad things to everything, I suppose. There are times I take on too much, sometimes, because like my father, I forget what I'm up against. I get stagnant and sometimes I'm easily overwhelmed, because I think, like my mother, that I should just revel in the fact that I have any ambition left, and sometimes that's enough to be grateful for. But one day I'm going to have all the things I want to have, a family, a career, and a life that I earned, and the job I always dreamed of having. And when I do, I know it'll be in part because I have good people in my life, and lots of support, and a little luck. And part of it will be because I learned how to stand up to the people who loved me before I had to stand up to the people who don’t. But mostly, it'll be up to me. Because there is the world, and there is me, and when we work together, it’s awesome, but when we don’t, somebody has to look out for me.
I sort of like it that way.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Positively Infinite
You'll remember, I have been meaning to write this for a while, but I wasn't sure how to start it. And then something happened. So. This is not a rage post. This is not a Hannah post. This is a post on positive thinking. (Rages and Hannah are a feature of that. You'll see.)
Every once in a while, my day-to-day and my politics collide in a way where I am forced to acknowledge that the world is not really full of shiny happy people who want to do good. Not to say I'm not aware of assholes, their existence in my life, or the fact that they have far more bearing on my life than I have on theirs, and how horribly I despair when I sit and think about that for too long. But what I mean to say is, every once in a while I am forced to acknowledge that in many ways, the world is full of shiny happy people who just want you to get out of their way and leave them alone, kthanx!
I am hopeless, in the figurative sense. I have the worst luck, the worst timing, I am hopelessly clumsy, and I rehash the million ways any undertaking will go wrong. Weirdly, though, I am also painfully optimistic. I am a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of gal (hence the blog name) where the bad stuff goes down, and then you wake up the next morning, and more stuff happens. And always, always, I believe the answer is right around the next corner, even when I'm so far gone I don't even remember what the question was. I mean really, sick, stupid, masochistic, Michael J. Fox levels of optimism*. It's hardwired into me, where, despite neurosis born of years of the aforementioned crap, be it long drawn out recovery after surgery, the hellish nightmare of The College Thing, and the years of aftermath, despite all the random WTFery of stuff that could only happen to me, from bad-idea surgeries to a good decision two days too late, I remain always waiting for my next moment. It is both a gift and a curse. I keep getting hurt, purely because I don't believe it could possibly happen this time. I keep going because what else am I going to do? Because if anything can happen, it could happen to me, right?
I don't see myself as an activist. I am an optimist. I am a hopeful person, and I believe the world is generally decent, and if I talk enough, someone will get this someday. But the trouble is, a lot of people think, because I am a woman who fights, and therefore, feminist purely by default, because I am a person who wants the world to change, that I am unhappy, that I am negative. Some of this is purely sexism, but sometimes, it is genuine concern and fear of the ignorant. So let me please explain, to the friends and family who aren't as familiar with this idea as the feminists and anti-ablists I know. For those of you just learning this, I know you're not going to get it, and I'm going to get arguments, but here goes anyway.
Complacency is not happiness.
I am complacent about my disability. It is something I have to deal with. It is something that colours my decision making, though less than what most people think it does, still enough that it requires a cursory nod every time I make a plan. It is something that changes what I am capable of, and how I handle what I am not capable of. It does not make me happy. It has its good points, and there are things I am that I know come directly or indirectly from being a person with a disability, and some of those things are good things. It is not something I dwell on or waste time giving more credit than it is due, but it is still, by and large, one of the negative forces in my life. I am okay with it. We are not always friends, me and this label of mine, but we peacefully acknowledge each other's existence, and I make allowances and work around it. I did not cultivate and grow this disability. It does not give me a sense of pride or strength the way you might imagine that it does. It does not bring me joy or happiness. Just a different perspective, which I am sometimes grateful for. I am mostly okay with having a disability, and mostly, I do not think it sucks all the time. That is complacency. I am also complacent, sometimes, about my sexuality. I know there is nothing I can do about it. I know there are things in this wide world that I will never experience, or at the very least, never in the way that the rest of the world insists they experience things. I know, sometimes, that I am lonely, and that I cannot express that loneliness without people misunderstanding me. I know that I am different in some fundamental way to the rest of the world, that judgments are made on both sides, and sometimes I am at fault, and sometimes others are at fault. But I still like being asexual. I know I am often happy when I am alone. I am happy not to have to sacrifice my wants for someone else's. I am horrified when I see the emphasis placed on beauty and standards, and relieved that I have no such motivation, and don't cave to the pressures. I'm happy to be in the company of people like J. M. Barrie and Michael Jackson, who were brilliant at what they did in a way I can only dream, and seemed like decent human beings. (Someone told me Salvador Dali was too, but I've never been able to verify.) And I am also comforted that they faced similar accusations and judgments. I'm confident that my asexuality has not damaged me in any way, but the prejudice and peer pressure I have faced because of it certainly have. So the sexuality isn't necessarily a negative force in my life, but I'm not sure it's a positive one either. It just is what it is. I am comfortable with it.
My writing makes me happy. My spirituality make me happy. They are positive, driving forces which challenge and excite me and push me to change: who I am, how I think, what I want, and what I am willing to do to get it, and how much I am willing to let people in. Change is not a negative thing. Change is movement, movement is energy, and energy is used for the good of things. Sometimes, writing is hard. Sometimes, I can't get the words out right, or I can't get the words out at all, or there isn't enough story, and it dies off, or there's a question I haven't asked, a perspective I haven't considered, and everything hinges on this empty hole that I can't seem to spot, let alone fill. It's hard. But it is mine, writing, even though I do believe I was born with it, it is still mine, and when I get it right, I can take pride, not in having worked around a problem, but in having created something which changed, with the writing, which became something outside of what I know and what I think, and I can enjoy that and know that I have changed because of it. Sometimes, my chosen spiritual paths frighten me. Sometimes I am unsure. Sometimes I am weak or believe myself to be weak. But I know in my heart that I am learning. I know I've chosen right, for myself, and that I appreciate the learning, and that it changes me. And it makes me happy, and powerful, to be the force of my own change, to bear witness to my own growth, and to be more awake in the world the more I change. I have more value outside of myself, the happier I am. Pride and accomplishment, growth and change, and discovery and education changes you. And when you change and are happy, you pass on positive energy. Change is good.
Two stories. The first is what happened to kick my butt into writing this thing in the first place. I had a house guest, someone who knows me quite well, and has known me for years. We got to talking about a certain actor, and I mentioned that I was angry because he had played a blind person in a film I saw. My friend shook her head, and said she didn't understand why things like that bothered me, so I explained that of course it bothered me, blind people don't have the opportunities to play sighted. People who use wheelchairs don't get to play people who can walk. And on and on and on. So then she placates me with "Yeah, but _________ is famous, and they needed someone famous." This is a common argument which makes zero sense, and I said, "And why are there no famous blind actors again? Oh, right, because they don't get hired." (Incidentally, my favorite WTF excuse is the one that goes, 'well, we can't be sure that person can do everything the character needs to do.' Uh, writers? That means the character is badly written! That means you're being unrealistic!) So then she backpedals.
"Okay," she says, "I know. I know it's wrong and it's bad, but it's just how things are. It's not going to change. I don't understand why you let yourself get so upset about it."
Take a moment to think about that. Why would I, who have aspirations to write screenplays one day, and would like to write realistic portrayals of people with disabilities, get upset that if I do that, I will likely be the only person who has a disability working on said movie? The only person with any knowledge of my own intended audience, and a pretty unimportant person even so. I know, I'm so sensitive, aren't I?
When people say, "Why do you get so upset about...", what they really mean is, "Why do you expect people to care about..." Sometimes, people is a politically correct "me", as in, "Why should you make me care about things I don't want to. How dare you!" Sometimes, it's a more passive "me", as in, "I already know nothing I do will ever affect anything. I don't have to care about this because it won't matter if I do or not." Which, really, is a lot more negative than insisting on change. (Sometimes it's also, "I actually think you're totally wrong, and I don't want to tell you, so I'll just placate you until this goes away," but I'm not giving that one any credence here because in this instance, it's just flat out wrong. Like, one of those rare and beautiful black and white versions of wrong, where one side is right, and the other is nowhere near where right is.)
People think caring about things, being passionate about social justice, as I am, makes me negative, because I am constantly examining my own behavior, and educating others about theirs, when I can. People think finding fault with large chunks of 'how the world works' makes me perpetually nasty and bitter and angry. Certainly, a large amount of things in the world make me angry, as a woman, a person with a disability, an asexual, a pagan. Certainly, I am frustrated (not bitter, just not happy) that there are less ways the world works for me than for others. But. I am an optimist first. Passion is a good thing. I do not use this fire or frustration inside me to hurt the people I love. I do not use it to hurt other people in similar situations, furthering my own cause, and setting others back. I use it to speak. I use it to write. Blog posts and stories both, to show people that I am part of the real world. That there is a world that exists, within "the world". Where holes still need to be filled in some places, and in others, space needs to be made. Where there is a need for a different kind of "normal", a new version of "acceptable". Being an activist isn't about pointing out the flaws in the system. That's just the first part. The rest is about fixing them. You can't be an activist, without being an optimist. You cannot work every day towards change you don't believe is coming. You cannot live a happy life, believing your perspective is invalid, and just existing is enough to hope for. I am learning one of the most fundamental beliefs belonging to many Pagan groups is that life itself gives you power, and you use that power, ideally, to make the world a better place. I exist, and in recognition and gratitude of the fact that I exist, in this world full of amazing things, to my own mind, I am honor-bound to do good in it. If that means certain things must change, then certain things must change, and I must do my best to see that change. Less than a generation ago, I would have been put in an institution, and see my family on weekends if I was lucky, and never be educated. In some parts of the world, a child like me would be put in a cage, fed just enough, and never talked to or stimulated. That changed, here. Here, now, someone fought for our right to be treated as people. That I am grateful and happy and proud of that change, however it came about, does not mean we're done. And I would certainly feel like an ungrateful little brat, for resting on someone else's laurels, and saying, "Okay, we have enough now." Because I want to be there when they start treating us like people who matter. Somebody could make things better, and it's not conceit to think it might be me, it's self-preservation. I don't do this to prove to you that my life is hard, or that people don't play fair. I do this to remind you it doesn't have to be this way. We are capable of more and better, as we have been through history. That you don't believe it, well. Just shows who's the negative one, doesn't it?
The other story: When I was a kid, I saw Peter Pan. Then I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Then I heard David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. And I began to wonder what went into the water in London, and decided I must go there and see for myself. At around ten years old, I said to my mother, "One day, I am going to live in London, England," and she said, "Okay." And after the disastrous College Thing happened, and after I had woken myself out of my shell shock, I said, "Now. I am going to London now." And I did. I got a passport and what was left of my student loan, and I went to London, for a week. I had a ball, fell in love with the city, and came home, and warned my mother, "Next time I go, it's permanent," and began to plan. It took two years of working part time and living like a monk and carefully planning, and arguing with my mother/sister/therapist/various people that I was serious, and getting my visa, and a mix up with my passport, before getting the go-ahead. Along the way, the biggest snag I hit was that the people who said, "Oh, sure," when I was ten or fifteen had a lot more to say when I was twenty-four. Much of it along the lines of, "It's well and good to have dreams, but you need to have a real life, and be serious. This isn't going to happen. People don't just do this. Get a job, settle in, focus on building your life." And for the first time, it wasn't, "you can't do this." It was, "I can't do this, so how could you?"
It wasn't permanent. I had a two year visa, and I lasted three months. Couldn't find work. But it was three months. Three months living in London. And for the first time in my life, I had done something important, not to someone else, but to me. I had done something that wasn't amazing because I had done it, but because it had been done. I am going back in the summer, for a week and a half. Because I can. Because I am careful with money, and more importantly, because it is something I knew all along I would have. You can't have one without the other. Belief doesn't mean you can sit back and things will come to you, and there's no point in working for something you don't believe you're ever going to have, because even if, by some strange twist of fate, you get what you want, you'll waste it. I advocate for change because change is coming, and I want to make sure it's change I need to see, to keep going, to keep making gains in my life and the world, for myself when I need to, for others when I can. I may not make a difference, but I gain another drop of power each time I open my mouth when someone wants me to keep quiet. And that means something to me, whether it means anything to anyone else.
I have been in writing classes where I was the only person not writing a tragedy or drama. I have been in writing classes where, if I was not writing a tragedy or drama, I was mocked. If I wrote a happy ending, it was seen as 'taking the easy way out.' I don't know where we got this idea that being unhappy meant something more than being happy, but next to The Dreaded Mary Sue, it is my least-favorite myth about writing, and art in general. I hate the glorification of Misery and Dissatisfaction almost as much as I hate the glorification of Home and Family. I suffered, for much of my formative years, from what was quite literally a crippling form of depression and social anxiety, from the time I was eleven. It was so bad, I quite honestly saw my CP as the more manageable of the two conditions. When I woke up, went on meds and into therapy at the age of seventeen, my mother stared at me, after two weeks in treatment, and said, "Where have you been?" And that was enough to keep going. I'm off meds now, but still in counseling. My happiness is hard fought and hard won, and I will not let anyone tell me it means less or is less real, just because we suffer from a peculiar sense of ourselves, where we imagine that our lives aren't supposed to be really great and we should settle for "not lousy" whenever we manage to find it. I have had a life that is not lousy. It's not enough.
When I went to London, the common question, for some reason, was not "How?" but "Why?" and my answer was, "I want to, and I can." It's as simple as that. If you're able, do it. If you're not able, find a way. If there's no way, find another way. Again, I realize I'm luckier than most. I have a nice part time job I really like, I have goals, and, as I am not hindered by many visible signs of disability, I am, sometimes, afforded more humanity than others I know. But then again, I have able-bodied friends with full time jobs who were able to get their education, and who have dreams that go unfulfilled because those dreams are for other people. I have this theory that, since I am a person with a disability, I was spared all the awful socialization that taught us that there are Things which constitute a Real Life (since it was never expected that I would have any of them anyway.) so now, I go around foolishly believing that a Real Life is what I am doing, as I am living. This is why it's so important to me that people understand that a person with a disability does not want to be treated like an "ordinary" person. Because one thing I've learned is that "ordinary people" the way that you mean it, with Jobs and Spouses and Responsibilities, can be really really unhappy. They feel ripped off, because they were told what would make them happy, and they went out and did that, and it didn't make them happy, and now what? Who wants that? I am complacent as a person with a disability, but as a person with a life, it's pretty decent, and I'm pretty happy. I'm not flat broke anymore, I belong to a group of people who listen when I talk, I tell stories about people I will never be, when I have the time and energy, I have two precious furbabies who love me. Sometimes I do cool stuff like go to Europe in the summer, or set about self-publishing a book. Those things are possible, and for the things that aren't? Yeah, that hurts. That really sucks, actually, but there's always another direction to move in. I'm not stupid, I'm not naive, and I'm not trying to be completely unaware of whatever narrow grasp of privilege I have. It's not the life I wanted at ten, it's not the life I want at twenty-five, but I'm getting there. And I will get there, at thirty, forty, or fifty, maybe, but I will. And because I know that, I can share my happiness. I can spare a drop or two of my energy telling the people in my life that if things were different, I might be capable of more, if things were different, the fact that I am capable of anything would not be such a shock. I can spare my time and energy to tell people that one day, things will be different, things will be easier, for me, and others like me, and still, we will keep working, and moving forward. Because it's not about what is or what should be. It's about what is possible. And the answer to that is always, always anything.
People spend a lot of time telling me the things I should be grateful for, because they are grateful they are not me, or they are grateful they do not have to deal with anything worse than me. The truth is, I am more grateful than I could ever appropriately express. That doesn't mean I don't deserve more. There, I think, is the crux of the matter. There's a certain level of narcissism in advocating for change, in your own life, or the world at large. There is a point at which you demand it be acknowledged that you're important, and because of that, you are owed, in that you have the right to expect the amount of effort you put into something should match the value of the result. And I have reached that point, and the people who haven't are angry because how could I possibly think I should have more than they should?
One day, I will have more, and because I do, someone will start where I finish, and have more than that. I believe it is important that that happens, and I believe that it will not happen unless I make it happen, and certainly, it will not happen in a vacuum. So I do what I can every day, paying in advance, fighting for a better life for me, and a better world for everyone else, for the same reason I fought to go to London, and the same reason I fight for this book, now. Because it's important and it will make things better, and it will make me happy. But mostly because I want to. And I can. That should be enough reason for anything.
So. I do wholeheartedly apologize to the people who feel I am negative. Clearly, nobody has convinced you what you're worth, and you have no idea what the world is capable of. My condolences to you, and the people who have to put up with you, while you are putting up with life.
*Read it. I'm not kidding. One day, my little optimist heart tells me I will be given the opportunity to thank that man, for his awesome work, his awesome writing, and his general all-round awesome. I even forgive him for converting to American, because he is made of that much awesome. In case this is that chance, thank you sir, you are appreciated.
Every once in a while, my day-to-day and my politics collide in a way where I am forced to acknowledge that the world is not really full of shiny happy people who want to do good. Not to say I'm not aware of assholes, their existence in my life, or the fact that they have far more bearing on my life than I have on theirs, and how horribly I despair when I sit and think about that for too long. But what I mean to say is, every once in a while I am forced to acknowledge that in many ways, the world is full of shiny happy people who just want you to get out of their way and leave them alone, kthanx!
I am hopeless, in the figurative sense. I have the worst luck, the worst timing, I am hopelessly clumsy, and I rehash the million ways any undertaking will go wrong. Weirdly, though, I am also painfully optimistic. I am a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of gal (hence the blog name) where the bad stuff goes down, and then you wake up the next morning, and more stuff happens. And always, always, I believe the answer is right around the next corner, even when I'm so far gone I don't even remember what the question was. I mean really, sick, stupid, masochistic, Michael J. Fox levels of optimism*. It's hardwired into me, where, despite neurosis born of years of the aforementioned crap, be it long drawn out recovery after surgery, the hellish nightmare of The College Thing, and the years of aftermath, despite all the random WTFery of stuff that could only happen to me, from bad-idea surgeries to a good decision two days too late, I remain always waiting for my next moment. It is both a gift and a curse. I keep getting hurt, purely because I don't believe it could possibly happen this time. I keep going because what else am I going to do? Because if anything can happen, it could happen to me, right?
I don't see myself as an activist. I am an optimist. I am a hopeful person, and I believe the world is generally decent, and if I talk enough, someone will get this someday. But the trouble is, a lot of people think, because I am a woman who fights, and therefore, feminist purely by default, because I am a person who wants the world to change, that I am unhappy, that I am negative. Some of this is purely sexism, but sometimes, it is genuine concern and fear of the ignorant. So let me please explain, to the friends and family who aren't as familiar with this idea as the feminists and anti-ablists I know. For those of you just learning this, I know you're not going to get it, and I'm going to get arguments, but here goes anyway.
Complacency is not happiness.
I am complacent about my disability. It is something I have to deal with. It is something that colours my decision making, though less than what most people think it does, still enough that it requires a cursory nod every time I make a plan. It is something that changes what I am capable of, and how I handle what I am not capable of. It does not make me happy. It has its good points, and there are things I am that I know come directly or indirectly from being a person with a disability, and some of those things are good things. It is not something I dwell on or waste time giving more credit than it is due, but it is still, by and large, one of the negative forces in my life. I am okay with it. We are not always friends, me and this label of mine, but we peacefully acknowledge each other's existence, and I make allowances and work around it. I did not cultivate and grow this disability. It does not give me a sense of pride or strength the way you might imagine that it does. It does not bring me joy or happiness. Just a different perspective, which I am sometimes grateful for. I am mostly okay with having a disability, and mostly, I do not think it sucks all the time. That is complacency. I am also complacent, sometimes, about my sexuality. I know there is nothing I can do about it. I know there are things in this wide world that I will never experience, or at the very least, never in the way that the rest of the world insists they experience things. I know, sometimes, that I am lonely, and that I cannot express that loneliness without people misunderstanding me. I know that I am different in some fundamental way to the rest of the world, that judgments are made on both sides, and sometimes I am at fault, and sometimes others are at fault. But I still like being asexual. I know I am often happy when I am alone. I am happy not to have to sacrifice my wants for someone else's. I am horrified when I see the emphasis placed on beauty and standards, and relieved that I have no such motivation, and don't cave to the pressures. I'm happy to be in the company of people like J. M. Barrie and Michael Jackson, who were brilliant at what they did in a way I can only dream, and seemed like decent human beings. (Someone told me Salvador Dali was too, but I've never been able to verify.) And I am also comforted that they faced similar accusations and judgments. I'm confident that my asexuality has not damaged me in any way, but the prejudice and peer pressure I have faced because of it certainly have. So the sexuality isn't necessarily a negative force in my life, but I'm not sure it's a positive one either. It just is what it is. I am comfortable with it.
My writing makes me happy. My spirituality make me happy. They are positive, driving forces which challenge and excite me and push me to change: who I am, how I think, what I want, and what I am willing to do to get it, and how much I am willing to let people in. Change is not a negative thing. Change is movement, movement is energy, and energy is used for the good of things. Sometimes, writing is hard. Sometimes, I can't get the words out right, or I can't get the words out at all, or there isn't enough story, and it dies off, or there's a question I haven't asked, a perspective I haven't considered, and everything hinges on this empty hole that I can't seem to spot, let alone fill. It's hard. But it is mine, writing, even though I do believe I was born with it, it is still mine, and when I get it right, I can take pride, not in having worked around a problem, but in having created something which changed, with the writing, which became something outside of what I know and what I think, and I can enjoy that and know that I have changed because of it. Sometimes, my chosen spiritual paths frighten me. Sometimes I am unsure. Sometimes I am weak or believe myself to be weak. But I know in my heart that I am learning. I know I've chosen right, for myself, and that I appreciate the learning, and that it changes me. And it makes me happy, and powerful, to be the force of my own change, to bear witness to my own growth, and to be more awake in the world the more I change. I have more value outside of myself, the happier I am. Pride and accomplishment, growth and change, and discovery and education changes you. And when you change and are happy, you pass on positive energy. Change is good.
Two stories. The first is what happened to kick my butt into writing this thing in the first place. I had a house guest, someone who knows me quite well, and has known me for years. We got to talking about a certain actor, and I mentioned that I was angry because he had played a blind person in a film I saw. My friend shook her head, and said she didn't understand why things like that bothered me, so I explained that of course it bothered me, blind people don't have the opportunities to play sighted. People who use wheelchairs don't get to play people who can walk. And on and on and on. So then she placates me with "Yeah, but _________ is famous, and they needed someone famous." This is a common argument which makes zero sense, and I said, "And why are there no famous blind actors again? Oh, right, because they don't get hired." (Incidentally, my favorite WTF excuse is the one that goes, 'well, we can't be sure that person can do everything the character needs to do.' Uh, writers? That means the character is badly written! That means you're being unrealistic!) So then she backpedals.
"Okay," she says, "I know. I know it's wrong and it's bad, but it's just how things are. It's not going to change. I don't understand why you let yourself get so upset about it."
Take a moment to think about that. Why would I, who have aspirations to write screenplays one day, and would like to write realistic portrayals of people with disabilities, get upset that if I do that, I will likely be the only person who has a disability working on said movie? The only person with any knowledge of my own intended audience, and a pretty unimportant person even so. I know, I'm so sensitive, aren't I?
When people say, "Why do you get so upset about...", what they really mean is, "Why do you expect people to care about..." Sometimes, people is a politically correct "me", as in, "Why should you make me care about things I don't want to. How dare you!" Sometimes, it's a more passive "me", as in, "I already know nothing I do will ever affect anything. I don't have to care about this because it won't matter if I do or not." Which, really, is a lot more negative than insisting on change. (Sometimes it's also, "I actually think you're totally wrong, and I don't want to tell you, so I'll just placate you until this goes away," but I'm not giving that one any credence here because in this instance, it's just flat out wrong. Like, one of those rare and beautiful black and white versions of wrong, where one side is right, and the other is nowhere near where right is.)
People think caring about things, being passionate about social justice, as I am, makes me negative, because I am constantly examining my own behavior, and educating others about theirs, when I can. People think finding fault with large chunks of 'how the world works' makes me perpetually nasty and bitter and angry. Certainly, a large amount of things in the world make me angry, as a woman, a person with a disability, an asexual, a pagan. Certainly, I am frustrated (not bitter, just not happy) that there are less ways the world works for me than for others. But. I am an optimist first. Passion is a good thing. I do not use this fire or frustration inside me to hurt the people I love. I do not use it to hurt other people in similar situations, furthering my own cause, and setting others back. I use it to speak. I use it to write. Blog posts and stories both, to show people that I am part of the real world. That there is a world that exists, within "the world". Where holes still need to be filled in some places, and in others, space needs to be made. Where there is a need for a different kind of "normal", a new version of "acceptable". Being an activist isn't about pointing out the flaws in the system. That's just the first part. The rest is about fixing them. You can't be an activist, without being an optimist. You cannot work every day towards change you don't believe is coming. You cannot live a happy life, believing your perspective is invalid, and just existing is enough to hope for. I am learning one of the most fundamental beliefs belonging to many Pagan groups is that life itself gives you power, and you use that power, ideally, to make the world a better place. I exist, and in recognition and gratitude of the fact that I exist, in this world full of amazing things, to my own mind, I am honor-bound to do good in it. If that means certain things must change, then certain things must change, and I must do my best to see that change. Less than a generation ago, I would have been put in an institution, and see my family on weekends if I was lucky, and never be educated. In some parts of the world, a child like me would be put in a cage, fed just enough, and never talked to or stimulated. That changed, here. Here, now, someone fought for our right to be treated as people. That I am grateful and happy and proud of that change, however it came about, does not mean we're done. And I would certainly feel like an ungrateful little brat, for resting on someone else's laurels, and saying, "Okay, we have enough now." Because I want to be there when they start treating us like people who matter. Somebody could make things better, and it's not conceit to think it might be me, it's self-preservation. I don't do this to prove to you that my life is hard, or that people don't play fair. I do this to remind you it doesn't have to be this way. We are capable of more and better, as we have been through history. That you don't believe it, well. Just shows who's the negative one, doesn't it?
The other story: When I was a kid, I saw Peter Pan. Then I read The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Then I heard David Copperfield and Oliver Twist. And I began to wonder what went into the water in London, and decided I must go there and see for myself. At around ten years old, I said to my mother, "One day, I am going to live in London, England," and she said, "Okay." And after the disastrous College Thing happened, and after I had woken myself out of my shell shock, I said, "Now. I am going to London now." And I did. I got a passport and what was left of my student loan, and I went to London, for a week. I had a ball, fell in love with the city, and came home, and warned my mother, "Next time I go, it's permanent," and began to plan. It took two years of working part time and living like a monk and carefully planning, and arguing with my mother/sister/therapist/various people that I was serious, and getting my visa, and a mix up with my passport, before getting the go-ahead. Along the way, the biggest snag I hit was that the people who said, "Oh, sure," when I was ten or fifteen had a lot more to say when I was twenty-four. Much of it along the lines of, "It's well and good to have dreams, but you need to have a real life, and be serious. This isn't going to happen. People don't just do this. Get a job, settle in, focus on building your life." And for the first time, it wasn't, "you can't do this." It was, "I can't do this, so how could you?"
It wasn't permanent. I had a two year visa, and I lasted three months. Couldn't find work. But it was three months. Three months living in London. And for the first time in my life, I had done something important, not to someone else, but to me. I had done something that wasn't amazing because I had done it, but because it had been done. I am going back in the summer, for a week and a half. Because I can. Because I am careful with money, and more importantly, because it is something I knew all along I would have. You can't have one without the other. Belief doesn't mean you can sit back and things will come to you, and there's no point in working for something you don't believe you're ever going to have, because even if, by some strange twist of fate, you get what you want, you'll waste it. I advocate for change because change is coming, and I want to make sure it's change I need to see, to keep going, to keep making gains in my life and the world, for myself when I need to, for others when I can. I may not make a difference, but I gain another drop of power each time I open my mouth when someone wants me to keep quiet. And that means something to me, whether it means anything to anyone else.
I have been in writing classes where I was the only person not writing a tragedy or drama. I have been in writing classes where, if I was not writing a tragedy or drama, I was mocked. If I wrote a happy ending, it was seen as 'taking the easy way out.' I don't know where we got this idea that being unhappy meant something more than being happy, but next to The Dreaded Mary Sue, it is my least-favorite myth about writing, and art in general. I hate the glorification of Misery and Dissatisfaction almost as much as I hate the glorification of Home and Family. I suffered, for much of my formative years, from what was quite literally a crippling form of depression and social anxiety, from the time I was eleven. It was so bad, I quite honestly saw my CP as the more manageable of the two conditions. When I woke up, went on meds and into therapy at the age of seventeen, my mother stared at me, after two weeks in treatment, and said, "Where have you been?" And that was enough to keep going. I'm off meds now, but still in counseling. My happiness is hard fought and hard won, and I will not let anyone tell me it means less or is less real, just because we suffer from a peculiar sense of ourselves, where we imagine that our lives aren't supposed to be really great and we should settle for "not lousy" whenever we manage to find it. I have had a life that is not lousy. It's not enough.
When I went to London, the common question, for some reason, was not "How?" but "Why?" and my answer was, "I want to, and I can." It's as simple as that. If you're able, do it. If you're not able, find a way. If there's no way, find another way. Again, I realize I'm luckier than most. I have a nice part time job I really like, I have goals, and, as I am not hindered by many visible signs of disability, I am, sometimes, afforded more humanity than others I know. But then again, I have able-bodied friends with full time jobs who were able to get their education, and who have dreams that go unfulfilled because those dreams are for other people. I have this theory that, since I am a person with a disability, I was spared all the awful socialization that taught us that there are Things which constitute a Real Life (since it was never expected that I would have any of them anyway.) so now, I go around foolishly believing that a Real Life is what I am doing, as I am living. This is why it's so important to me that people understand that a person with a disability does not want to be treated like an "ordinary" person. Because one thing I've learned is that "ordinary people" the way that you mean it, with Jobs and Spouses and Responsibilities, can be really really unhappy. They feel ripped off, because they were told what would make them happy, and they went out and did that, and it didn't make them happy, and now what? Who wants that? I am complacent as a person with a disability, but as a person with a life, it's pretty decent, and I'm pretty happy. I'm not flat broke anymore, I belong to a group of people who listen when I talk, I tell stories about people I will never be, when I have the time and energy, I have two precious furbabies who love me. Sometimes I do cool stuff like go to Europe in the summer, or set about self-publishing a book. Those things are possible, and for the things that aren't? Yeah, that hurts. That really sucks, actually, but there's always another direction to move in. I'm not stupid, I'm not naive, and I'm not trying to be completely unaware of whatever narrow grasp of privilege I have. It's not the life I wanted at ten, it's not the life I want at twenty-five, but I'm getting there. And I will get there, at thirty, forty, or fifty, maybe, but I will. And because I know that, I can share my happiness. I can spare a drop or two of my energy telling the people in my life that if things were different, I might be capable of more, if things were different, the fact that I am capable of anything would not be such a shock. I can spare my time and energy to tell people that one day, things will be different, things will be easier, for me, and others like me, and still, we will keep working, and moving forward. Because it's not about what is or what should be. It's about what is possible. And the answer to that is always, always anything.
People spend a lot of time telling me the things I should be grateful for, because they are grateful they are not me, or they are grateful they do not have to deal with anything worse than me. The truth is, I am more grateful than I could ever appropriately express. That doesn't mean I don't deserve more. There, I think, is the crux of the matter. There's a certain level of narcissism in advocating for change, in your own life, or the world at large. There is a point at which you demand it be acknowledged that you're important, and because of that, you are owed, in that you have the right to expect the amount of effort you put into something should match the value of the result. And I have reached that point, and the people who haven't are angry because how could I possibly think I should have more than they should?
One day, I will have more, and because I do, someone will start where I finish, and have more than that. I believe it is important that that happens, and I believe that it will not happen unless I make it happen, and certainly, it will not happen in a vacuum. So I do what I can every day, paying in advance, fighting for a better life for me, and a better world for everyone else, for the same reason I fought to go to London, and the same reason I fight for this book, now. Because it's important and it will make things better, and it will make me happy. But mostly because I want to. And I can. That should be enough reason for anything.
So. I do wholeheartedly apologize to the people who feel I am negative. Clearly, nobody has convinced you what you're worth, and you have no idea what the world is capable of. My condolences to you, and the people who have to put up with you, while you are putting up with life.
*Read it. I'm not kidding. One day, my little optimist heart tells me I will be given the opportunity to thank that man, for his awesome work, his awesome writing, and his general all-round awesome. I even forgive him for converting to American, because he is made of that much awesome. In case this is that chance, thank you sir, you are appreciated.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Just When I Think She's Done Surprising Me
So. I've basically been sitting around the last few weeks, staring at the screen, and nothing's been happening, and that doesn't make sense, because I know this story like the back of my hand, right?
Well. Today, I was sitting in the laundromat, and I had one of Those Moments. You know those moments, right? If you're a writer or other artist, you have Those Moments at least some of the time, if you wish you were a writer or artist, those are the moments you're looking for. It's the stuff of legend, you're sitting around, because you're tired of staring at the screen, the house is a mess and you haven't eaten anything but instant mac and cheese for three days because you feel guilty every time you leave your house because you've only written three pages today, oh gods. And then something shifts, a veil lifts, a bolt of lightning strikes, the ground moves under you, and something changes inexplicably, suddenly, perfectly.
I have a hard time with scheduling writing time. Some days, it's five or six hours, some days it's thirty minutes. Too many days, it's nothing. Ten minutes or less. I'm working on fixing that. For those of you who do not understand this yet, we are not actually at the mercy of the almighty Inspiration. We need the inspiration, to find the stories at all, and there are small moments of inspiration in the writing process. And there are large earth-moving cracks of inspiration. Usually, I get the first one when the idea hits, then I have to squish it down, because some ideas are, well, stupid. And some ideas are amazing, but they're intimidating and all-encompassing, and I don't have the mental capacity or fortitude to focus on it, and it sits and stews for a few months (or on memorable occasions, a few years, coupled with a few false starts. Hello, Gerard, you blood-sucking pain in my ass). I am saying this, rather condescendingly too, because it still shocks me how many people think words will get written, if you're not writing. Seriously, I know I have time management issues. This is not because I lack inspiration. This is because I am neurotic and therefore easily distracted. I am not a morning person, so morning is when I write, because I know I am of no use to anyone besides myself. If I sleep in, usually, because I did not sleep well the previous night, or I overextended myself the previous day, I hate myself. Hating myself takes a lot of mental energy. You can see where this is going. I'm not making excuses. I'm a flawed writer who badly needs to work on self-discipline.
Seriously, I don't know about anyone else, but my muse is a grade-A asshole. On the good days, I feel like I've got this person whispering in my ear that if I do not get this out as quickly as possible, it could blow my head off, I will explode in a shower of guts and grey matter and all the wrong words, and on the bad days I'm stranded in a desert and he's five feet away with a cup of water, yanking it an inch further away every time I take a step. The thing is though, words can actually come out whether you're inspired or not. I am not yet immune to how crap the words are, but I'm at the stage now where at least I know crap is a perfectly normal thing and I just have to suck it up and deal, or in theory, anyway. Because then there's the second kind of inspiration. Where you've spent like, two or three (or in my case, four or five) drafts on this stupid thing, and the tone's not right, and the timing's all off, but the story is there and you're doing a whole lot of telling people what's happening, instead of just having it happen and then something, some inexplicable THING happens, you ask the right question to an empty room, a typo leads you to an adjective which leads you to an idea you never would have thought up on your own, and then it all kind of fuses together.
Like my friend, I had Hannah mapped out. So there was no need to write with any real urgency. Everything has been fits and starts and me screaming at my laptop, and erasing huge chunks of pages. But the map was wrong. After all this time, I didn't imagine that could be true. Of course, the writing of Hannah is still moving at a somewhat steady pace, but a slow steady pace, so much so that I've had to extend the original deadline to the end of October. I had the brainwave yesterday, that maybe I was wrong, maybe the plot was a little thin. So I had the idea, as I had had before, that maybe I could smush all three stories together. Which caused a panic attack because, a) I tried to do that before and it didn't go down so well, b) even if the first novel comes in half the length I had planned, that still makes the book almost 500 pages, and too expensive to self-publish, and c) I hadn't planned that far ahead yet. So there I am, at the laundromat, in utter despair as only a writer can be in utter despair, and trying to sort out what I'm going to do, and telling myself I am not going to start spinning around the floor in front of innocent bystanders. You see, I have a stim. I pace. I pace a lot, particularly when I am imagining all the places I would rather be, like at my computer writing a best-seller that will make me a gazillionaire, instead of alternating between the clock, the spin cycle, and my empty notebook. I try hard not to do it in public, except at work, when I am required to stand in one place for a long time. So I stared at said notebook, and started mapping out the second Hannah book just in case, you know, as a fail-safe. And I realized something. There was a slight incongruity between *spoiler alert* Hannah as a teenager, as she is in book 2, and Hannah as a small child, as she is now. Nothing huge, she hasn't all of a sudden become a completely different person, but there's a distinct change in her motivation that I can't account for. This leads me, like a PI following a gut instinct in an old movie, to thinking, "Hm. Something happened in book one that is not there. I don't know what that is. What is that?"
That was all it took, you guys. WHAM. Hit me like a freight train. I knew exactly what happened, I knew exactly what it was I had been intimidated by in the first place. And just as I thought to myself, "How am I going to pull that off?" I knew the answer to that, too. When you write, you give characters traits and habits and personalities, and you know you're only going to use pieces. The rest is extra, stuff you use in your head, to solidify the characters so you can keep writing them, so you can get to know them. Sometimes, you don't know which extras you're going to end up using, and sometimes, in those extras, there are answers. I thought by now, after all this time, Hannah had finished surprising me in the big ways, and everything from here on out was extra. But oh boy, that last step was a doozy. It was glorious. Beautiful. CRACK!CRACK!BOOM! then all the little pieces, snapsnapsnap as if it was always meant to be exactly that, as if at fourteen, I saw a picture in front of me and fell in love with it, and suddenly, eleven years later, I just noticed the picture is a mosiac, made up of dozens of little pictures that fit with the big picture so perfectly you can't notice them, until you do. I was wrong, and it cost me time and effort and energy and blood and sweat and tears. And I don't care, because when it comes out, it's going to come out amazing. We're still moving. But it's a whole new game. For the first time since this last leg of the journey began, she is running ahead of me. I don't know where we're going. It's gorgeous.
I am not destined to be a great writer. At best, I will be a good storyteller. I am not trying to change the world, only trying to believe that I could. Most times, I think I really suck at this, that I've always sucked, and that's why it gets harder as it goes on, not easier. And that's why stuff hasn't worked out, and that's why what happened in college happened, and that's why I chose self-publishing over the traditional methods. When I get comments on this blog, or when I get to talk shop with other writers, or I help people, I sometimes think I am good at this thing that I do so compulsively, but even that, sometimes, is empty and hollow because after all this time, I had better at least be good. There are people in my life who rather foolishly think that if I am to set out, to do this job, and the job of being read, I will change the world, I will do Great Things. I will be a Great Talent. Most of the time, I believe it comes from love. Some of the time, I believe it comes from ignorance. Today, only for today, I think I just believe it.
xfingers
* to my knowledge, 'stim' is a medical term for self-stimulatory behavior. Please do let me know if is derogatory in any way.
Well. Today, I was sitting in the laundromat, and I had one of Those Moments. You know those moments, right? If you're a writer or other artist, you have Those Moments at least some of the time, if you wish you were a writer or artist, those are the moments you're looking for. It's the stuff of legend, you're sitting around, because you're tired of staring at the screen, the house is a mess and you haven't eaten anything but instant mac and cheese for three days because you feel guilty every time you leave your house because you've only written three pages today, oh gods. And then something shifts, a veil lifts, a bolt of lightning strikes, the ground moves under you, and something changes inexplicably, suddenly, perfectly.
I have a hard time with scheduling writing time. Some days, it's five or six hours, some days it's thirty minutes. Too many days, it's nothing. Ten minutes or less. I'm working on fixing that. For those of you who do not understand this yet, we are not actually at the mercy of the almighty Inspiration. We need the inspiration, to find the stories at all, and there are small moments of inspiration in the writing process. And there are large earth-moving cracks of inspiration. Usually, I get the first one when the idea hits, then I have to squish it down, because some ideas are, well, stupid. And some ideas are amazing, but they're intimidating and all-encompassing, and I don't have the mental capacity or fortitude to focus on it, and it sits and stews for a few months (or on memorable occasions, a few years, coupled with a few false starts. Hello, Gerard, you blood-sucking pain in my ass). I am saying this, rather condescendingly too, because it still shocks me how many people think words will get written, if you're not writing. Seriously, I know I have time management issues. This is not because I lack inspiration. This is because I am neurotic and therefore easily distracted. I am not a morning person, so morning is when I write, because I know I am of no use to anyone besides myself. If I sleep in, usually, because I did not sleep well the previous night, or I overextended myself the previous day, I hate myself. Hating myself takes a lot of mental energy. You can see where this is going. I'm not making excuses. I'm a flawed writer who badly needs to work on self-discipline.
When I was in London, there was a guy. He was in TV, I don't know exactly what he did, some desk job, but it was in television. He worked part time as an extra. When I told him what I did with my spare time, he told me about a screenplay he really wanted to write. When I asked him what was stopping him writing it, he said time. He assured me he had it all mapped out and knew exactly what would happen, but he was waiting for the right time. When I asked how long he'd been waiting, he said ten years. I tried not to judge. I asked him how much he had written.
"Weeeelllll... you see, I haven't, really. But I know exactly how it's going to go, so once the inspiration strikes, I'll be able to jump right on it." So I said, you should make it a habit, to write every day. "Weeeelllll.... I just, I don't feel inspired to do it." I walked away trying to hide the smirk because we both knew it wasn't ever going to get done, but really, there was no need to rub it in.Seriously, I don't know about anyone else, but my muse is a grade-A asshole. On the good days, I feel like I've got this person whispering in my ear that if I do not get this out as quickly as possible, it could blow my head off, I will explode in a shower of guts and grey matter and all the wrong words, and on the bad days I'm stranded in a desert and he's five feet away with a cup of water, yanking it an inch further away every time I take a step. The thing is though, words can actually come out whether you're inspired or not. I am not yet immune to how crap the words are, but I'm at the stage now where at least I know crap is a perfectly normal thing and I just have to suck it up and deal, or in theory, anyway. Because then there's the second kind of inspiration. Where you've spent like, two or three (or in my case, four or five) drafts on this stupid thing, and the tone's not right, and the timing's all off, but the story is there and you're doing a whole lot of telling people what's happening, instead of just having it happen and then something, some inexplicable THING happens, you ask the right question to an empty room, a typo leads you to an adjective which leads you to an idea you never would have thought up on your own, and then it all kind of fuses together.
Like my friend, I had Hannah mapped out. So there was no need to write with any real urgency. Everything has been fits and starts and me screaming at my laptop, and erasing huge chunks of pages. But the map was wrong. After all this time, I didn't imagine that could be true. Of course, the writing of Hannah is still moving at a somewhat steady pace, but a slow steady pace, so much so that I've had to extend the original deadline to the end of October. I had the brainwave yesterday, that maybe I was wrong, maybe the plot was a little thin. So I had the idea, as I had had before, that maybe I could smush all three stories together. Which caused a panic attack because, a) I tried to do that before and it didn't go down so well, b) even if the first novel comes in half the length I had planned, that still makes the book almost 500 pages, and too expensive to self-publish, and c) I hadn't planned that far ahead yet. So there I am, at the laundromat, in utter despair as only a writer can be in utter despair, and trying to sort out what I'm going to do, and telling myself I am not going to start spinning around the floor in front of innocent bystanders. You see, I have a stim. I pace. I pace a lot, particularly when I am imagining all the places I would rather be, like at my computer writing a best-seller that will make me a gazillionaire, instead of alternating between the clock, the spin cycle, and my empty notebook. I try hard not to do it in public, except at work, when I am required to stand in one place for a long time. So I stared at said notebook, and started mapping out the second Hannah book just in case, you know, as a fail-safe. And I realized something. There was a slight incongruity between *spoiler alert* Hannah as a teenager, as she is in book 2, and Hannah as a small child, as she is now. Nothing huge, she hasn't all of a sudden become a completely different person, but there's a distinct change in her motivation that I can't account for. This leads me, like a PI following a gut instinct in an old movie, to thinking, "Hm. Something happened in book one that is not there. I don't know what that is. What is that?"
That was all it took, you guys. WHAM. Hit me like a freight train. I knew exactly what happened, I knew exactly what it was I had been intimidated by in the first place. And just as I thought to myself, "How am I going to pull that off?" I knew the answer to that, too. When you write, you give characters traits and habits and personalities, and you know you're only going to use pieces. The rest is extra, stuff you use in your head, to solidify the characters so you can keep writing them, so you can get to know them. Sometimes, you don't know which extras you're going to end up using, and sometimes, in those extras, there are answers. I thought by now, after all this time, Hannah had finished surprising me in the big ways, and everything from here on out was extra. But oh boy, that last step was a doozy. It was glorious. Beautiful. CRACK!CRACK!BOOM! then all the little pieces, snapsnapsnap as if it was always meant to be exactly that, as if at fourteen, I saw a picture in front of me and fell in love with it, and suddenly, eleven years later, I just noticed the picture is a mosiac, made up of dozens of little pictures that fit with the big picture so perfectly you can't notice them, until you do. I was wrong, and it cost me time and effort and energy and blood and sweat and tears. And I don't care, because when it comes out, it's going to come out amazing. We're still moving. But it's a whole new game. For the first time since this last leg of the journey began, she is running ahead of me. I don't know where we're going. It's gorgeous.
I am not destined to be a great writer. At best, I will be a good storyteller. I am not trying to change the world, only trying to believe that I could. Most times, I think I really suck at this, that I've always sucked, and that's why it gets harder as it goes on, not easier. And that's why stuff hasn't worked out, and that's why what happened in college happened, and that's why I chose self-publishing over the traditional methods. When I get comments on this blog, or when I get to talk shop with other writers, or I help people, I sometimes think I am good at this thing that I do so compulsively, but even that, sometimes, is empty and hollow because after all this time, I had better at least be good. There are people in my life who rather foolishly think that if I am to set out, to do this job, and the job of being read, I will change the world, I will do Great Things. I will be a Great Talent. Most of the time, I believe it comes from love. Some of the time, I believe it comes from ignorance. Today, only for today, I think I just believe it.
xfingers
* to my knowledge, 'stim' is a medical term for self-stimulatory behavior. Please do let me know if is derogatory in any way.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
One Month! (a post of lists both formal and informal)
One month blog-o-versary. Wow. I've actually never been able to maintain a blog. Deeply impressive. And, because I'm all about learning new things, I have put together a list of, in no particular order, the things I have learned this month. Because I'm a huge dork.
1. I am going to HAVE to get some kind of schedule down, or I am never going to get this done. Because what I'm doing now? So not working.
2. People seem to like me better when I'm angry. Whoda thunk it?
3. I may not reach my deadline.
4. I have not yet made peace with that.
5. I have really awesome friends and family, who totally think I'm a famous writer right now. Your epic support and/or editing skills, and/or willingness to put up with my ego as it waxes and wanes has not gone unnoticed. Love you all. I will do my best to make it easier to support me, to the completion of the project, so none of us go totally insane.
6. I have really crappy negative friends, also, who couldn't care less about what I'm doing, don't want to hear about it, don't want to know about it, and don't take the time to listen when I'm talking, let alone read when I'm writing. You can pretty much fuck off. I don't ask for fawning praise or recognition, and I don't ask that you make this project a part of your life just because it's a part of mine. I do expect that if you genuinely want no part in it, that you will understand that that is hurtful, and also that means cutting you out of a substantially large part of my life. It's not my responsibility to make up for that missing space, time, or interest. It's yours.
7. There are total strangers who do, actually, care about what I think. Very cool!
8. You can talk and talk and talk, and still, some people won't get it.
9. There's a lot more to this racket than I thought there was.
10. Not commenting on people's blogs is really, really rude. And I promise never to do it again.
11. I am capable of a level of venom I never thought possible before. Oh, to grow as an artist. (Thanks again, Amanda.)
12. I am also capable of much more than I thought I was
13. Still got a long way to go, though.
14. Write Or Die works for Nano. But I really need to stop using it.
15. For some reason I will never understand, Googledocs hates contractions. wtf Google?
Lookit how smart I am becoming! Even have plans for like, the next six blog posts! For those of you who like to be warned, incoming blogs may include:
my vulnerable self-esteem
the elitism of the literary world
the previously mentioned post on positive thinking
a possibly, a follow-up to the Mary-Sue post, currently titled, in my head, The Dreaded Twilight Post I Really Don't Want To Write.
and a particular charming one where I attempt to write a scene which incorporates sexual aggression, drunkenness, and violence. Three things I have absolutely zero experience on.
And more! *cue cheesy theme music* (Hm. What kind of theme music? I wonder). Also, watch me juggle Script Frenzy and play catch-up with Hannah.
(Also, please cross fingers for me.)
And because I believe in sharing, have some awesome:
Asexy bingo card - I don't spend a lot of time on the AVEN boards, but this gave me a laugh. Count how many you've gotten, and hope the prize is NEVER HAVING TO HEAR IT AGAIN! (I counted 22.)
Hir - I use 'zir' as my gender-neutral pronoun of choice, as I'm sure you've noticed. This will still make you cry. I am not being dramatic here. Bring tissues and be prepared to hit 'replay' at least four times.
101 Reasons To Stop Writing - Despite the demoralizing intent of the content, it makes me laugh. Particularly the Demotivational posters. Also, there's a really good snark piece on the Polanski rape-apologist nonsense, if you can stomach being snarky about it yet.
BookByYou - Okay, so I know the writing is probably abysmal, but whoever came up with this idea is a freaking genius, and probably raking it in. Don't judge me. Like you never read Choose Your Own Adventure as a kid. For those of you interested, they're also coming out with same-sex romance novels within the next year. (credit for this knowledge goes to my dear love, who wrote to ask if they would, only to be told they were already working on it, but the current crop of mystery novels could serve in a pinch.)
That's pretty much it! Next month, hopefully I will finish a full draft. Thanks to everyone still following along. And if you're a lurker, it would be awesome if you de-lurked sometime next month. Watch this space!
1. I am going to HAVE to get some kind of schedule down, or I am never going to get this done. Because what I'm doing now? So not working.
2. People seem to like me better when I'm angry. Whoda thunk it?
3. I may not reach my deadline.
4. I have not yet made peace with that.
5. I have really awesome friends and family, who totally think I'm a famous writer right now. Your epic support and/or editing skills, and/or willingness to put up with my ego as it waxes and wanes has not gone unnoticed. Love you all. I will do my best to make it easier to support me, to the completion of the project, so none of us go totally insane.
6. I have really crappy negative friends, also, who couldn't care less about what I'm doing, don't want to hear about it, don't want to know about it, and don't take the time to listen when I'm talking, let alone read when I'm writing. You can pretty much fuck off. I don't ask for fawning praise or recognition, and I don't ask that you make this project a part of your life just because it's a part of mine. I do expect that if you genuinely want no part in it, that you will understand that that is hurtful, and also that means cutting you out of a substantially large part of my life. It's not my responsibility to make up for that missing space, time, or interest. It's yours.
7. There are total strangers who do, actually, care about what I think. Very cool!
8. You can talk and talk and talk, and still, some people won't get it.
9. There's a lot more to this racket than I thought there was.
10. Not commenting on people's blogs is really, really rude. And I promise never to do it again.
11. I am capable of a level of venom I never thought possible before. Oh, to grow as an artist. (Thanks again, Amanda.)
12. I am also capable of much more than I thought I was
13. Still got a long way to go, though.
14. Write Or Die works for Nano. But I really need to stop using it.
15. For some reason I will never understand, Googledocs hates contractions. wtf Google?
Lookit how smart I am becoming! Even have plans for like, the next six blog posts! For those of you who like to be warned, incoming blogs may include:
my vulnerable self-esteem
the elitism of the literary world
the previously mentioned post on positive thinking
a possibly, a follow-up to the Mary-Sue post, currently titled, in my head, The Dreaded Twilight Post I Really Don't Want To Write.
and a particular charming one where I attempt to write a scene which incorporates sexual aggression, drunkenness, and violence. Three things I have absolutely zero experience on.
And more! *cue cheesy theme music* (Hm. What kind of theme music? I wonder). Also, watch me juggle Script Frenzy and play catch-up with Hannah.
(Also, please cross fingers for me.)
And because I believe in sharing, have some awesome:
Asexy bingo card - I don't spend a lot of time on the AVEN boards, but this gave me a laugh. Count how many you've gotten, and hope the prize is NEVER HAVING TO HEAR IT AGAIN! (I counted 22.)
Hir - I use 'zir' as my gender-neutral pronoun of choice, as I'm sure you've noticed. This will still make you cry. I am not being dramatic here. Bring tissues and be prepared to hit 'replay' at least four times.
101 Reasons To Stop Writing - Despite the demoralizing intent of the content, it makes me laugh. Particularly the Demotivational posters. Also, there's a really good snark piece on the Polanski rape-apologist nonsense, if you can stomach being snarky about it yet.
BookByYou - Okay, so I know the writing is probably abysmal, but whoever came up with this idea is a freaking genius, and probably raking it in. Don't judge me. Like you never read Choose Your Own Adventure as a kid. For those of you interested, they're also coming out with same-sex romance novels within the next year. (credit for this knowledge goes to my dear love, who wrote to ask if they would, only to be told they were already working on it, but the current crop of mystery novels could serve in a pinch.)
That's pretty much it! Next month, hopefully I will finish a full draft. Thanks to everyone still following along. And if you're a lurker, it would be awesome if you de-lurked sometime next month. Watch this space!
Thursday, March 4, 2010
First and Foremost.
There's a story I like to tell.
When I was a kid, following well into my teenage years, I used to warn people that I was odd. Before the anxiety was diagnosed, before biochemistry forced me to acknowledge my asexual status and circumstances turned me into an aromantic, and years before I had discovered alternative religions, back when, as far as we knew, the kids only made fun of me because of the Cerebral Palsy, and all that entailed, I used to say to my mother, quite frequently, "I think something is wrong in my head. I don't think it works like other people's heads work." My poor mother used to pat me on the head, and reassure me that at my age, everybody feels like an outsider.
One day, when I was seventeen or so, a family friend came to dinner. She had two sons, both a few years younger than me, and closer to my brother's ages. But the younger one and I, we sat up at the dining room table that night, as our respective mothers chitchatted about... whatever it is they chitchat about, and talked shop. It was slow and stilted in places, he was still younger than me, young enough to believe that he could be published within the year, and it would be an instant bestseller, and bonus, people would be thrilled because at the time, he was something like fourteen. I had to reign him in quite a bit, I remember. But it was nice, to get to talk on the same wavelength with someone, to be on equal footing, crossing terrain I knew well.
Our mothers watched the whole thing, eventually abandoning their talk to listen to us, until my mother turned to his, and said in an interested tone, "I never knew he wanted to be a writer." His mother smiled in the indulgent way parents of artists often do, one part proud, one part uncertain, one part jocular.
"Since he was six." She said. My mother nodded.
"Her too." She said, and then, suddenly, conspiritorally, she turned towards the mother. "They're weird, aren't they? I used to think it was just her, that she would grow out of it in time, but then she got to high school, and there's like, there's a whole group of these weird kids. They're a whole different kind of person." And his mother laughed and agreed. I remember staring at my mother, until she shifted guiltily and said, "Sorry." and I just smiled, then, and told her honestly.
"I'm just glad you finally said it."
Whenever people ask me if I feel different, I always say yes. But then I have to add an asterisk. I don't feel different, being asexual, or being physically and mentally disabled, or having suffered anxiety or insomnia, or studying pagan theology. I feel different because I'm a writer. I feel different because I feel differently. Because other things are immediately noticeable to others, they make easy assumptions. I could write a whole post on these assumptions, and their wrongness. But I won't. Because this blog is not about that.* What this blog is about is that when I was fourteen, I wrote a novel.
When I was fourteen, I wrote a novel about a little girl in a big, scary grown-up world. A world where she had to watch her strong, independent mother turn weak and scared. A world of grownups who were afraid of things they didn't understand, and kids who were just plain afraid, like kids get. And I created a little girl who could fight back, and fight hard. Five pages every morning, getting up early to squeeze in computer time before my brothers woke, and hearing my mother hush them when they tried to pout about how unfair it was, that extra half hour it took me, "Be quiet, your sister's working. This is important." And I wrote it, and I finished it, and then... then it ended.
But it always began again, and again, and again. And in between each incarnation, there were new things to write, new stories and characters, and also, real life. I got into a top film college, then had to leave it because the disability services were not prepared for me. I watched my best friend lose her heart and soul to a monster disguised as a man. I lost family members to illness and disaster, and friends to distance and growth. And I wrote. And I wrote. And then I wrote more. And always, in the background, there was Hannah. Waiting for me to finish. For years I toyed with the idea of rewriting, reworking, and getting Hannah published, but I kept putting it off. And recently, I realized that the reason I was putting it off, was because I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to trust someone else to get the job done. I wanted to self-publish. And for a long time, I wasn't ready for that. I think, I hope, I am now.
These are the things you need to know about the project:
1. I am writing five pages a day, and only five pages a day, as a throwback to my youthfully naive goals. The goal is to self-publish the first Hannah book, have it ready for distribution, by August 31st. This is as close as I can remember the original version first draft being finished. Which means nothing to anyone but me, but it's my project, so myeh. Currently, page count stands at ZERO. (pray for me.)
2. There are actually three novels involved in Project Hannah. I did, actually, complete the first version of the first one, but it never came out dark enough, at fourteen, to consider it done. I recently completed a deliciously dark screenplay titled Everywhere, which nearly cost me what's left of my lingering sanity. So yeah, I think I'm ready now. Of the other two, one was half completed, and the other was outlined. Since the original Hannah had almost no planning, beyond the odd brainstorming session, I am officially working without a net.
3. When I refer to Hannah, unless otherwise stating, I am referring to the character. No, I am not insane. Yes, in theory, I understand she is not a real person. But after 10+ years, I feel that we have a kind of relationship. So much so that a part of me wonders if by finishing this project, I will also be moving myself towards my own happy-or-otherwise ending. (Oh crap, I just gave away the ending. She doesn't die. SPOILER ALERT!) Hannah is one part my daughter, in that she is a child, and even though in later incarnations she grows, she will always be eight years old to me. But in another part, we are members of the same team. The other reason I have for self-publishing is that I feel that we began this journey together, and that's the only way I can conceive of finishing it. We do have conversations. Real ones, even. Just today, after knowing her for eleven years as I do, I learned she is a vegetarian. Isn't that amazing when that happens?**
4. I am epically disorganized, but not epically lazy. When I say this thing has taken me omgelevenyearshowamIsoold? That's not to say that I worked on it nonstop. I'm not a great writer, but I don't absolutely suck. As mentioned, my attention shifted to screenplays, there was college to try (and epically fail) and other bunnies to chase around my head. I am not so much banging my head against a brick wall. More getting reacquainted with an old friend. I just feel it's time to finish what I started.
5. Adding to 'not epically lazy', I currently have a part-time job, two furbabies to raise, travel semi-frequently, and am fiddling with other projects. Thinking of tackling script frenzy this year too. I also have a huge family that I love who sometimes make me want to tear my hair out, and some amazing friends, and some friends who bring the drama. If, on occasion, some of this spills onto this blog, you will have to forgive. I have never had a blog with a purpose before, and am more used to just shouting into the internet.
6. I am a writer inside, yes, but spelling and grammar? Oh boy. Mostly, I will be working with the aforementioned amazing friends to fix any errors. I will also be obsessively nitpicking on my own. But I will miss things. Sorry, and please feel free to correct me.
So. That's it. Me and my girl, and the next six months. Can I do in six months what I haven't managed in eleven years? Better, can I be happy with it?
*gulp*
Um. Maybe?
No. Yes. Yes, for sure. I can.
I think. Well, just watch. We'll see.***
*When I say 'this is not about that' I am simplifying. I am a person with a physical and mental disability. That fact and all that it entails worms its way into my life, and into my writing, both personal and professional. IRL, ie, NOT on the internet, I am often told I think a lot about my disability. I don't. But it's there, it occupies a space inside of my being, and so sometimes, there is a trickle-down effect and it turns up in different places where able-bodied people may feel it shouldn't, isn't warranted, or doesn't usually. If talk of HAVING a disability makes you feel uncomfortable, you are reading the wrong blog. Feel free to hit the back button, no one will judge you.
**Originally, Hannah was an experiment. My cousin and I created the physical character so that we could recreate the famous experiment where scholars sat around a table, and lent their energy to the room, focusing on their imaginary person. Supposedly, this created an actual poltergeist, a metaphysical being of pure energy, who could move things around and communicate. When we did it, the experiment never worked, and I kept her for myself. I don't see Hannah as a poltergeist, as in, I KNOW she does not occupy physical space of any kind, but after eleven years, she too is a part of my metaphysical and spiritual makeup, and takes up her own energy, inside me. That's why I feel like if I finish the project, I will move on to bigger and better things.
***When I was a kid, "We'll see" always meant, "convince me, because I want to say no, but I don't have a good enough reason yet."
When I was a kid, following well into my teenage years, I used to warn people that I was odd. Before the anxiety was diagnosed, before biochemistry forced me to acknowledge my asexual status and circumstances turned me into an aromantic, and years before I had discovered alternative religions, back when, as far as we knew, the kids only made fun of me because of the Cerebral Palsy, and all that entailed, I used to say to my mother, quite frequently, "I think something is wrong in my head. I don't think it works like other people's heads work." My poor mother used to pat me on the head, and reassure me that at my age, everybody feels like an outsider.
One day, when I was seventeen or so, a family friend came to dinner. She had two sons, both a few years younger than me, and closer to my brother's ages. But the younger one and I, we sat up at the dining room table that night, as our respective mothers chitchatted about... whatever it is they chitchat about, and talked shop. It was slow and stilted in places, he was still younger than me, young enough to believe that he could be published within the year, and it would be an instant bestseller, and bonus, people would be thrilled because at the time, he was something like fourteen. I had to reign him in quite a bit, I remember. But it was nice, to get to talk on the same wavelength with someone, to be on equal footing, crossing terrain I knew well.
Our mothers watched the whole thing, eventually abandoning their talk to listen to us, until my mother turned to his, and said in an interested tone, "I never knew he wanted to be a writer." His mother smiled in the indulgent way parents of artists often do, one part proud, one part uncertain, one part jocular.
"Since he was six." She said. My mother nodded.
"Her too." She said, and then, suddenly, conspiritorally, she turned towards the mother. "They're weird, aren't they? I used to think it was just her, that she would grow out of it in time, but then she got to high school, and there's like, there's a whole group of these weird kids. They're a whole different kind of person." And his mother laughed and agreed. I remember staring at my mother, until she shifted guiltily and said, "Sorry." and I just smiled, then, and told her honestly.
"I'm just glad you finally said it."
Whenever people ask me if I feel different, I always say yes. But then I have to add an asterisk. I don't feel different, being asexual, or being physically and mentally disabled, or having suffered anxiety or insomnia, or studying pagan theology. I feel different because I'm a writer. I feel different because I feel differently. Because other things are immediately noticeable to others, they make easy assumptions. I could write a whole post on these assumptions, and their wrongness. But I won't. Because this blog is not about that.* What this blog is about is that when I was fourteen, I wrote a novel.
When I was fourteen, I wrote a novel about a little girl in a big, scary grown-up world. A world where she had to watch her strong, independent mother turn weak and scared. A world of grownups who were afraid of things they didn't understand, and kids who were just plain afraid, like kids get. And I created a little girl who could fight back, and fight hard. Five pages every morning, getting up early to squeeze in computer time before my brothers woke, and hearing my mother hush them when they tried to pout about how unfair it was, that extra half hour it took me, "Be quiet, your sister's working. This is important." And I wrote it, and I finished it, and then... then it ended.
But it always began again, and again, and again. And in between each incarnation, there were new things to write, new stories and characters, and also, real life. I got into a top film college, then had to leave it because the disability services were not prepared for me. I watched my best friend lose her heart and soul to a monster disguised as a man. I lost family members to illness and disaster, and friends to distance and growth. And I wrote. And I wrote. And then I wrote more. And always, in the background, there was Hannah. Waiting for me to finish. For years I toyed with the idea of rewriting, reworking, and getting Hannah published, but I kept putting it off. And recently, I realized that the reason I was putting it off, was because I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to trust someone else to get the job done. I wanted to self-publish. And for a long time, I wasn't ready for that. I think, I hope, I am now.
These are the things you need to know about the project:
1. I am writing five pages a day, and only five pages a day, as a throwback to my youthfully naive goals. The goal is to self-publish the first Hannah book, have it ready for distribution, by August 31st. This is as close as I can remember the original version first draft being finished. Which means nothing to anyone but me, but it's my project, so myeh. Currently, page count stands at ZERO. (pray for me.)
2. There are actually three novels involved in Project Hannah. I did, actually, complete the first version of the first one, but it never came out dark enough, at fourteen, to consider it done. I recently completed a deliciously dark screenplay titled Everywhere, which nearly cost me what's left of my lingering sanity. So yeah, I think I'm ready now. Of the other two, one was half completed, and the other was outlined. Since the original Hannah had almost no planning, beyond the odd brainstorming session, I am officially working without a net.
3. When I refer to Hannah, unless otherwise stating, I am referring to the character. No, I am not insane. Yes, in theory, I understand she is not a real person. But after 10+ years, I feel that we have a kind of relationship. So much so that a part of me wonders if by finishing this project, I will also be moving myself towards my own happy-or-otherwise ending. (Oh crap, I just gave away the ending. She doesn't die. SPOILER ALERT!) Hannah is one part my daughter, in that she is a child, and even though in later incarnations she grows, she will always be eight years old to me. But in another part, we are members of the same team. The other reason I have for self-publishing is that I feel that we began this journey together, and that's the only way I can conceive of finishing it. We do have conversations. Real ones, even. Just today, after knowing her for eleven years as I do, I learned she is a vegetarian. Isn't that amazing when that happens?**
4. I am epically disorganized, but not epically lazy. When I say this thing has taken me omgelevenyearshowamIsoold? That's not to say that I worked on it nonstop. I'm not a great writer, but I don't absolutely suck. As mentioned, my attention shifted to screenplays, there was college to try (and epically fail) and other bunnies to chase around my head. I am not so much banging my head against a brick wall. More getting reacquainted with an old friend. I just feel it's time to finish what I started.
5. Adding to 'not epically lazy', I currently have a part-time job, two furbabies to raise, travel semi-frequently, and am fiddling with other projects. Thinking of tackling script frenzy this year too. I also have a huge family that I love who sometimes make me want to tear my hair out, and some amazing friends, and some friends who bring the drama. If, on occasion, some of this spills onto this blog, you will have to forgive. I have never had a blog with a purpose before, and am more used to just shouting into the internet.
6. I am a writer inside, yes, but spelling and grammar? Oh boy. Mostly, I will be working with the aforementioned amazing friends to fix any errors. I will also be obsessively nitpicking on my own. But I will miss things. Sorry, and please feel free to correct me.
So. That's it. Me and my girl, and the next six months. Can I do in six months what I haven't managed in eleven years? Better, can I be happy with it?
*gulp*
Um. Maybe?
No. Yes. Yes, for sure. I can.
I think. Well, just watch. We'll see.***
*When I say 'this is not about that' I am simplifying. I am a person with a physical and mental disability. That fact and all that it entails worms its way into my life, and into my writing, both personal and professional. IRL, ie, NOT on the internet, I am often told I think a lot about my disability. I don't. But it's there, it occupies a space inside of my being, and so sometimes, there is a trickle-down effect and it turns up in different places where able-bodied people may feel it shouldn't, isn't warranted, or doesn't usually. If talk of HAVING a disability makes you feel uncomfortable, you are reading the wrong blog. Feel free to hit the back button, no one will judge you.
**Originally, Hannah was an experiment. My cousin and I created the physical character so that we could recreate the famous experiment where scholars sat around a table, and lent their energy to the room, focusing on their imaginary person. Supposedly, this created an actual poltergeist, a metaphysical being of pure energy, who could move things around and communicate. When we did it, the experiment never worked, and I kept her for myself. I don't see Hannah as a poltergeist, as in, I KNOW she does not occupy physical space of any kind, but after eleven years, she too is a part of my metaphysical and spiritual makeup, and takes up her own energy, inside me. That's why I feel like if I finish the project, I will move on to bigger and better things.
***When I was a kid, "We'll see" always meant, "convince me, because I want to say no, but I don't have a good enough reason yet."
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