Weekend Update

It's been over a week since I checked in... and, as usual, I've been busy.

I spent the holiday sifting out a bunch of activities, but, lo and behold, I've managed to add a bunch of other activities in just as swiftly. I've set up and opened an art gallery show, developed two college courses--one in-class, one online--and I've started on a new theatrical journey with my two little ones. 

Believe it or not (for those of you who've been checking in some lately), my brave little son sang well enough that he's been cast as OLIVER TWIST. Yup, he was floored, amazed, and a bit overwhelmed at first--as was I--but we're settling into this new evening pattern of rehearsals and singing and practicing lines. Kind of cool, actually. Nope, it's flat out AWESOME! This is the beginning of a long-running involvement in theatre for him, I think. Even better, my daughter has found her place in the company, and I have a part, too, so we all get to attend rehearsals together. 

I'm also about to attack the project of costuming the show--hurray! Costuming is my favorite kind of sewing, and the added bonus of outfitting Dickens' characters doesn't hurt, either. It'll take some time and prep, but it's going to be truly fun as I work through it.

Plus, I'm gearing up to work again on my spirit book, and I'm in the cogitation stage for a whole series of novels set here in Bainbridge. The research I do for this other book will be helpful in creating the atmosphere of the series, and I hope to eventually do a great deal to add to the tourism possible in this particular area. 

I'll let you know how it all goes. I know it sounds ambitious, but I can't help that. My life is too short not to get stuff done.

Anything ambitious on your plate lately?

Will You Stop Patronizing Me?

I'm an easy going kind of girl. Really, I am. I can pretty much get along with anybody. You can be stupid, and I'll help you get a clue. You're going to be imperfect (everybody is, you know, even you), yet I'll look over the imperfections easily. I have many of them myself.

But just patronize me, and you make an enemy for life.

So many have tried it. One guy in graduate school--a creative writing major--made it clear what he thought of literature majors. We had to work in a group together, three creative writing majors and me (a lit. major), and when the other three were going off on a tangent with planning, I said, "I don't quite understand."

Without blinking, this person leaned over, patted my arm, motioned to himself and the others, and said, "Don't worry. We're very creative people. We'll make sure you're okay."

I wanted to slug him. But since I am a pacifist, I didn't.

There was no shortage of such people in graduate school and academia. Usually it was a teacher of questionable worth who made it a point to patronize and insult the worth of the other teachers or graduate students around him/her in order to feel superior. But I always hated it.

Theatre has traditionally been a place for this as well, but until this last week, I hadn't really encountered it here in the community production of The Sound of Music. Sure, we have a couple divas, and they share their own little dressing room, keeping themselves aloof from the rest of us... but they haven't been too annoying.

Until yesterday.

We were just about to begin our second week of shows last night, and the girl who plays Maria came up to me with a few "suggestions." First, she wanted a bit more stage business for something, since she didn't feel like she could move the way she wanted to without it.

Okay. No big deal. I'd made adjustments for her before. Easy stuff.

But then she pulled out the patronizing card. She put her hand on my arm (always a bad sign), and said, "And be loud. When we sing together, especially. First the audience hears me sing," she says, "and then when you get up there, well, you know." And she makes a face.

Really? Did we have to go there? Three more productions, and we might never have to work together again. But she can't wait. She has to pull out the patronizing card and slap me across the face with it. I could spend the rest of the blog ranting about her acting skills, but I won't. She's not bad. And she can sing. And how well she does it is none of my damn business, since I'm not the director.

But neither is she.

I am grateful to be in the ordinary dressing room, and I'll take this as another reminder of how not to behave towards other people. We all have different talents, different strengths, and different weaknesses, and it's not my job to step on others while on my own personal journey.

It's also my job to do my best, despite the comments, and to do so with a positive attitude. Perhaps what upsets me most is that, even after all of these years, comments like this still bother me.

In the Wings

Waiting for the cue

For the first step in the light

Brighter than day

Breathing deep

Mind at rest

And buzzing

All at once

The crowd is there

But it's the story that moves me

(Not the applause)

The lines

The songs

The beatific face

I show them

Time to play pretend

To step out of my life

For a short while

To forget everything

To forget myself

To be another life

To live another dream

To see the world another way

If only for a moment

Time Off

I'll miss all of you over the next few weeks, but I'm off tomorrow on a cruise with the hubby, and we will likely be out of touch with everything while we're gone. I'll check in when I get back, just in time for final run-throughs of the musical to go on, and then performance. (Whew, I am busy!)

I'm still taking my laptop with me, though. Got to keep writing! I'm in the midst of a play, and I hope to finish the rough while I'm gone, since a few other ideas are niggling at me, as well.

Hope the next two weeks are productive for you all (or restful!), and I'll see you when I get back.

What's Your Motivation?

Sure, my title is an acting question--I remember the times in college, when even actors with no lines had to figure out their motivation as we worked on a play. The truth is, though, we are all motivated differently, and my students show varied kinds of motivations, some of which I share.

Now, I do have a few students who lack motivation. I'll admit that right off. I just don't see these students very often, since they aren't motivated enough to come to class (or even motivated enough to drop the class so that they don't fail it). All the rest of my students are inspired by some form of motivation:

1. Judgment

This particular motivator is people-centered. Either students go to class because they know their mom will wonder why they are at home when class is happening (and they don't want to upset her) or they want to get good grades so the parents (or girlfriend, etc.) are proud (instead of disappointed), or they may even fear what their teacher thinks of them. I was a member of the latter, although I do understand that what a stranger thinks shouldn't really matter. The point is that these people are working hard, not because they really think it's important, but because other people do, and they want to be judged favorably by those people.

2. Competition

I can't say this is a motivating factor for me--the Navajo blood in me is too strong--but it certainly is for my students. Some of them want to know what everybody else's grade is--tests, quizzes, papers, everything. Envy is the name of the game here. These students might not care that much about what grade they receive, as long as it's the best grade I dish out. However, since I dislike this particular tendency, I never tell them anything. (Other students' grades are none of their damn business.)

3. Grade

For these students, the grade is a sign of whether or not they will make it to heaven. An "A" is average for these people (although a "C" is supposed to be the average), and anything less means they failed. Call them overachievers--I know I do--or perfectionists--I call them that, too--but they are also very hard workers, for they aren't competing against other students in class but against the perfection they imagine themselves capable of. The only problem with this motivation is that it causes students unnecessary stress, and it's stress on the GRADE, not on the LEARNING. Which leads to the (next to) last motivation.

4. Desire to Learn

This is my favorite, but it's not that common. Most students are in my classes because they have to be. They need so many English credits to get an associates or earn their certificate in welding, so they enroll because they have to. But the rare student comes in, takes a course, and then returns for another one which he doesn't need, just because the course will teach him something. I knew a class once--taught by an adjunct instructor--that was told three weeks before the end of the class that, to give them a break, the teacher was canceling the last few weeks and dropping the final research project. They walked, en masse, straight out of her classroom and to the Dean's office to report her. They were furious that she had robbed them of three weeks of learning. Such an event is rare, yet I do see small signs of this nearly every day, when students express frustration that they get a good grade in some class yet feel like the course itself didn't cover anything important. One student recently commented on a religion course, saying, "You know, I took the class because I wanted to learn about different religions--because it interested me--and I haven't learned anything. It's a complete waste of time."

Now I'm looking over at my little NaNoWriMo calendar, and I am glad I posted in my sidebar. I was unable to write on the novel until late last night, but seeing a red mark on day three was highly motivating. Is it because that calendar is public, and all of you might see it? Nope. Is it because my mom might check out the page? Nope. Am I competing with another NoWri? Nope. Is there a grade involved? Nope.

My drive comes from another source, one I haven't discussed, but one that drives nearly all of us, except for those rare students who never show up for class. It isn't what others think of us, but what we think of ourselves that matters most. I don't want to see my calendar filled with red marks. I care about what I think. That is my ultimate motivation.

Growing Into

Many, many years ago, I looked and acted far different than I do now. I wore baggy t-shirts and big clunky glasses, and people pretty much ignored me (or at least that's how it seemed). I was a shy nerd, quietly acing tests but afraid to make too much of myself. I did everything I could to hide everything I was.

And so it happened that I tended to surprise people. The teacher who set up high school graduation, convinced that I wouldn't be able to put two words together in front of a crowd, assigned me to give the welcome address (instead of the valedictorian speech, though I had the highest GPA). But, to everyone's surprise, my little speech was funny, and entertaining, and, well, really good.

When I auditioned for The Wizard of Oz in college, I walked up to sing a solo, and the director later told me she was cringing, anxious that I was going to totally embarrass myself. But then I sang, blew everybody away, earned the part of Dorothy. Yet she and so many other people had expected nothing from me. I'm not sure that I expected much more--I just knew I liked to sing.

That's the funny thing about expectations. If I expected myself (or anything or anyone else) to be perfect, I would likely be disappointed. Yet I have been lucky to go through life with people not expecting a great deal from me. Sure, I could have used that as a crutch, but I have grown to use it as a challenge. "Oh, you think I'm nothing?" I say to myself. "Just wait and see."

I just returned from an interview with my husband, one where I was almost as analyzed as he was. I feared I wouldn't do so well, that my nerves would get the better of me and I'd catch foot-in-mouth disease... but then I realized, with a shock, that I was expecting too little from me, that I was dismissing my capabilities. And when I was actually in the thick of things, I did fine. I did better than fine. I was good. And it was easy, maybe even easier than giving that graduation speech, easier than singing onstage. It felt natural. It felt like me.

Even a few years ago, I couldn't have done it. And if anybody had seen me in high school, they never would have expected me to do well, either. I would really surprise them now. But I've grown up a lot since then, and every day I become more and more my genuine, un-shy, beautiful, capable self. And I even sometimes surprise myself.

I guess I've grown a lot from that shy kid with the big glasses. Have you?

Whisperings

My play is calling to me.

Well, its characters are, and that means I need to devote the afternoon to writing (once my classes are over and I've eaten a little lunch). You see, my characters had been talking and interacting all night while I slept, and they gave me a rather interesting dream.

I dreamed last night that I was with a film star... though now the identity of the star escapes me. It's not the first time I've dreamed of film stars. I always pick the weird ones, too, the ones I'm not at all attracted to, like Rutger Hauer, Bobcat Goldthwait, etc. I once dreamed Desi Arnaz had asked my mom to marry me, and she was trying to urge me into it, even though he was really, really old (he died less than a week after I'd had the dream).

Anyway, I had separated from my husband and hadn't seen my two kids, and this star was trying to woo me into becoming his significant other, furnishing his fabulous apartment with stuff he thought I'd want, etc. I was holding back, cautious, wanting to visit my kids and husband, but when I went to our house (a brownstone in Chicago, a place and kind of house I would never live in, mind you), I discovered that my husband had left for Europe (probably in anger that I'd left) and the kids were living with my mother-in-law.

The frightening part of this is that everything was unemotional, as if I was afraid to feel anything about my husband, or this actor guy, or my own kids. I was numb, rather like the female character of my play is feeling. I kept wondering, while dreaming, what was going to happen to wake me up, and I realized that the only thing which could break me out of the misty funk I was in was my husband--his physical presence, his touch, a word of caring or recognition.

I woke up, and suddenly I knew what to do with my characters. They fell into place beautifully, and I knew that my main character had to know, in some real, certain way, that her husband wouldn't abandon her, that he'd be glued to her no matter how broken she was. Only then could she heal. If she thought he could get up and leave, she'd leave him first, just so that she wasn't the one left behind. And he needed the same assurance, that she wouldn't leave him like she'd left her own father, left so many other boyfriends before she'd met him, left so many jobs, left places and friends, anything that wore on her too much. His greatest fear was that she would take off, and he'd never see her again.

Heavy stuff for a morning, I know, but I appreciate my characters working through this for me, so that I could have the answers when I woke.

Now if I could just figure out who that film star was.

Dressing Up

Just for once

Pretend

To be something

Someone

From another time or place

Robotic

Piratical

Olympian god

Lying, you say

Play acting

A childish game of pretend

Perhaps it is

But children know the truth of this

The clothes, the lace, the parasol

May not be the modern you

The you projected to the world

But it reflects the something of yourself

You keep

Deep

Inside

The someone whom you hide

And shut away

The someone others

Never understand

Shut it away no more

And play

Be open to the you

You can learn from

The you you can become.

Nipping Off Interests?

An old friend from church called a few days ago, telling me, "Forget about writing novels. You should be a poet! Write more poems like the ones in your blog, and then publish a book of them."

About a month ago, my husband suggested I concentrate on my playwriting, since it's where I write my best work (in his opinion), and where I'm achieving the most success.

I've written several short prose pieces for writing groups lately, and with each one, other writers encourage me with, "You should turn that into a novel!"

So, which is it? According to a professor with whom I interviewed at Indiana State, "No great writers ever achieve success in more than one genre." He was obviously ignoring all the exceptions, from William Shakespeare to Emily Bronte to D. H. Lawrence. Okay, he was obviously an idiot. I knew that then. I know it now.

The truth is, practicing poetry helps hone one's prose, for one becomes attuned to the sound of language, learning to say meaningful things in as few words as possible. And poetry is the best choice on days when I don't want to use punctuation or obey rules.

And prose is great practice for keeping the plot moving, concentrating on more than one element at the same time (scenery, action, dialogue) without losing track. A tough job for this Piscean, yes, but great practice!

Playwriting has similar qualities to poetry, for it does depend on the rhythms of language--yet this language is all spoken aloud, and in dialogue between characters. This dialogue has poetic elements, but it still needs to fit into (usually) more realistically spoken conversation between characters, so the rhythms have to be more subtle.

Even my other pursuits feed into these. Painting helps me visualize setting in prose, images in poetry, and the scenes themselves in playwriting. Colors, shapes, and textures all play into these--textures seeping into my poetry and prose so that readers can feel as well as see what is going on.

Music leads directly into all three genres, helping me practice mood, pacing, and rhythm. I even incorporated a scene of total pantomime into one recent play, set to music played on a bass violin. Even now I listen to music when I write certain scenes or poems, hoping to capture the mood of a piece of music as I write. Some of my characters have theme songs, which I hum as I write.

So do I really need to pick one genre and stick with it? I joked with my husband that none of my pursuits had panned out as of yet, so why abandon any of them?

Honestly, even if one brings me some success, I doubt I'll ever put any of the other ones down.

Awful Theatre and an Awful Legend

We went to "one of Seattle's best kept secrets" last night, a little light-filled holiday park called the Lights of Christmas, and as part of it, we saw a premier of Miracle on Candy Cane Street, written and directed by the leader of a local community theatre troupe. 

It was awful. It was painful. The stage was filled with child actors (mixed in with a few adults), the audience was filled with their relatives, and my husband and I found ourselves glancing at each other at nearly every line. The audience loved it. My kids loved it. They laughed at the almost complete unintelligible villain, who was dressed in a black satin cape, of all things, like the villain in a melodrama. (I kept waiting to see the Boo! Hiss! signs.) He was French, and we know how inherently evil French people are. The song numbers were stolen from Enchanted, The Lion King, and The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (no, really!), and the plot of the play was more contrived than my smile when my husband's discussing every hole of a golf game he just played.

I could go into more detail, but I won't, for I don't want this to get too long. Besides, the worst part of the play wasn't the performance, it was the play's pseudo-Christian premise, the "Legend of the Candy Cane." 

In case you are unfamiliar with this, and you love candy canes, please stop reading now. Really. Just stop. Even writing this down is enough to gag me, so if you continue on, know that you have been warned. 

The "legend" states that the candy cane symbolizes Jesus. And here's the proof:

1. It is in the shape of a shepherd's staff, symbolizing both his birth and that he is "our shepherd." 

2. If you turn it the other way, it's a "J" for Jesus.

3. The white of it symbolizes his purity.

4. It has three red stripes, to represent the Holy Trinity.

It's this last one that really kills me, though:

5. The stripes are red, to symbolize Christ's blood.

Ack! Gag! I haven't eaten yet this morning, or I know I'd be chucking it up (sorry, Stephanie!). Why this last thought is such a comfort to people is beyond me, especially when they put one of those little canes into their mouth and suck all the red off it! It's as offensive as the Easter when a well-meaning relative gave me a chocolate cross. I'm supposed to eat a chocolate cross? This is how I'm supposed to celebrate Christ, by sucking his blood and chomping down on the thing he was crucified on? 

It's a good thing I hate candy canes. I don't think I will ever eat one again. 

Wicked

No, I have not worked on my writing. And, yes, I am writing a blog. I have to. My husband and I watched the musical Wicked last night, and I have such a mixed response to it, I had to write to make any sense of it.

First, let me qualify my response. I have read the book Wicked, and it was terrible. Despite how poorly it was written, how boring, and how meaningless the whole thing was, I still did read it through to the end, and when the end of the novel occurred, I felt like I had completely wasted my time (and a lot of it, since it took a long time to read). Naturally, I was not certain the musical would be any better, but I'd heard good things, so my hubby and I thought we'd try it (buying the cheapest seats for the production, so we wouldn't be too disappointed). 

The good news? The musical retained few elements of the novel--very few--and invented all sorts of other elements, including changing relationships, changing the ending completely, and taking all sorts of other liberties with it. The characters were infinitely more likable and accessible, and they were funnier (which wouldn't have been hard, since the characters weren't the slightest bit funny in the novel). In fact, Glinda the Good Witch was pretty hilarious and stole the show from Elpheba (The Wicked Witch of the West) pretty handily.

The bad news? Well, it wasn't a very good musical. The music was pretty forgettable (I'd seen the most dramatic part of it on the Tony Awards, but I'd forgotten it completely). Plot lines were slim, and the ending was ridiculous.

Even worse, were I the novelist who penned the original novel, I would have run out of there screaming, and I would likely be in jail for killing the first person I saw. I imagined one of my own novels being turned into utter drivel, and the prospect of it made me cringe. Right now I am still cringing.

What's oddest about this is that I hated the novel--it might be one of the worst novels I've read in years--but I am still defensive about the idea of someone's work being mauled to death for the sake of a musical format. I can only compare it to the travesty that is Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame. What Disney execs were thinking when they took the most depressing novel ever (and one I personally love) and turned it into a children's cartoon will be forever a mystery. 

And so will Wicked, I'm afraid. Still, it was fascinating to watch and analyze, from the perspective of both a novelist and a playwright. 

Rather like a train wreck would be fascinating to a railroad engineer.

Re-Writing

Since I've already worked on my play for TWO hours this morning (hurray for me!), I can blog... 

It appears that "revision" was the incorrect word to use for the work I've been doing on my play. I've essentially been rewriting it. Only one scene escaped the scrap pile. 

What have I done to it? Well, after my fabulous playwrights group (I so love them) delved through the first scene, the number one piece of advice I received was "tighten." But I couldn't just take out a few exchanges. I had four women all talking around each other, creating a world where the main character--Mary, the youngest of the four women--had no power, no say in how the others perceived her. How was I supposed to tighten that?

The solution? Not cutting out bits of dialogue here and there. That simply wasn't enough. I printed off the scene, then deleted the electronic copy and started over, this time with the main character and only her mother, who was on the phone with a third character. Suddenly the misunderstandings, the mixed up memories, and the shifts in control occurred between the two most important characters, and no time was wasted in trying to develop two other women who were not key to the play's ideas.

A 26-page scene became an 11-page scene, and went from distracted and manic to focused and powerful. Was it easy? Not at all. But it worked, so I don't mind the extra time it took in the slightest.

Once the two characters were gone, though, all but the second scene fell, too. But I realized that the main weaknesses of the play would also be resolved, and the action would have a focus I could never have accomplished had I held onto those characters. 

Suddenly the arc of the story became clear: two arcs, one with the main character moving up, slowly making choices that would allow her to live, while her mother's arc fell, as her disease ate her mind, turned her into a child, and finally killed her. In the past, readers (actors, theatre people, playwrights) had asked me which person the story was about. Now I knew the answer. It was about both of them, moving in different directions. One story couldn't work without the other.

I have probably an hour of work left, and the play will be done. I already know how the final scene will play out. Amazing what I can accomplish when I don't hold myself back. 

What's most ironic is that this is exactly what my main character learns... not to hold herself back... 

Art imitates life.