Passion

Too much time is lost

To boredom

The dull of vapid conversation

Well-meaning blather

Or silence

Stifling any emotional outburst

As too much

Too ugly

Too close to feeling

Drop the boring act now

Stop stuffing emotion down

Behind the rib cage

That's not where it belongs

Pull it out and wear it on your arm

Flaunting it to every friend

And stranger

Wallow in it until it sets your hair on fire

Press it to your dear one's face

Until they know how much it means

Until they know the real you

Until they, too, can pull out

The pain

The love

The giddiness of expectation

The hope

That hides within

Just feel

And you will see the world bloom

Into a passion

Never seen before.

Bore Me

Go ahead

Bore me

Tell me for the eighteenth time

How you and the wife first met

Or what your third grade teacher once called you

When calling you that was okay

Before parents sued

Before teachers were fired for stuff like that

Tell me again where you got your watch

God knows I've needed one to add to my

Already extensive collection

And please tell me how kids should be raised

How tuna is best made into a salad

Why tomatoes aren't as tasty

As they used to be

Go over the chemical composition of

Latex paint

Or the effect of tornadoes

On Wal-Mart's consumers

Or how hair follicles go gray

And when

And why

And the day you first got

Your first gray hair

And what you did with it

Once you'd pulled it out

Go ahead

Blather about it all

With little fear

That I will copy all your wisdom

Down

After all

I wouldn't want my novels

To become famous

For boring people

To death.

Not Getting Anywhere

My kids and I tell stories most nights before we get to bed. It's an exercise in off-the-cuff storytelling. The listeners are allowed to pick one item each (an animal, a straw, a pillow, a bar of soap, etc.), and then the storyteller creates a story with the items.

My kids do pretty well at using the items, yes, and we have a great time giggling. But as listeners, we often urge the storyteller to "get on with it." That's because the storyteller sometimes spends so much time on the mundane that the meaning of the story never happens.

I could claim my kids are just not cut out to be writers. But there's no way I'd say something so inane. This is not a fault of the young. We ALL do this. We tell a joke, but take so long with the detail that the punchline falls flat. We talk about our day, whining about all the little things people said or did, or the flat tire, so that by the time we're done our significant other is either asleep from boredom or his/her eyes are bleeding (sleep is preferable).

We don't want the story to lag, so just as we fill our speech with "uhs" and "ums" to fill in the pauses, we fill our writing with details that mean nothing, that add nothing, and that do nothing but distract us (as writers) from what is important.

I'm revising a novel now, and my number one job right now is to pare. If it doesn't add something to the characters, the drama, the point, the situation, it's going to get cut. I don't want the reader wondering when I'm really going to get to my point. I want it infiltrating the very first sentence of the novel, permeating every scene, every shred of dialogue, everything.

Be mean to your words. If they don't fit, they're out.

Living in La-La Land

I was sharing my cat story this morning, only to find out from a veterinarian's assistant that my cat cannot possibly catch anything from me--that my blog story telling you about my cat catching the flu was absolutely false, that I was "living in La-La Land," as she put it. 

And that made me wonder: Was I truly living in La-La Land? Was my whole world a fantasy, where everyone wears period clothing, magic is totally real if only one believes deeply enough, spirits and angels exist, and I really am destined for amazing things?

You see, I think that's the whole problem. The world I've been living in for some months now isn't fantasy at all. It's a world where kids say nasty things to each other when they think I'm not listening, where everyone fights over everything, where a flu bug keeps me from being normally active, where clothing doesn't quite fit, where dishes keep piling up and trash starts to stink, even where the outside temperatures reach 90 and I don't have any air conditioning. It's a place where everyone eats too much, including my 8-year-old daughter, where I mostly feel bored, where I have a huge cable package and nothing good to watch, where life is mostly lame and uneventful, or if something does happen it's something that I don't want to happen.

THAT, my friends, is not La-La Land. It's Craptacularville, and I detest it, but for the most part it's the world I live in. And that's why I've been cranky for so long. That's why I haven't been writing, why I haven't bothered to send books off to publishers, why I haven't done all sorts of things I wish I'd done. 

But today, and forever, I'm choosing fantasy. Screw the world where kids are mean and only think poop jokes are funny. Screw the world where food doesn't taste that good (unless it's a thickly layered carrot cake) and where the most fun I get in a day is doing dishes. I'm going back to magic world--to my favorite La-La Land--and I'm going to spread magic around, do the things I most love, tickle my kids into a better frame of mind, play in magic sprinkler outside to cool down, and have an absolute blast. 

Screw reality. I've got some fantasy to live out... and so do you. 

I'll share my stories with you, if you'll share yours...