Even More Advice from David Copperfield

I've interspersed some rather lovely advice from David Copperfield with some horrid whinings of my own, but--thank goodness for you--it's time for more Copperfield again.

This little tidbit comes from the littlest tidbit of the novel, a super tiny dwarf named Miss Mowcher, who spends a few scenes flirting around with men and entertaining while David looks on. David doesn't take a liking to her, but once a mutual friend shows his true colors (I'd tell you who, and what he does, but that would spoil the story), she reveals she had no part in the deception, and shows she's as true a person as anyone, but has had to put on a show of sorts because of her chromosomal condition. 

She tells him she has no choice but to act as she does just so that she can survive in a world where she is deemed to be so different (because so small), and she promises to do all she can to help remedy the situation, even though she is not the cause. And as she leaves David, she tells him:

You are a young man.... Take a word of advice, even from three foot 

nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects [Dickens' words, not mine] with

mental, my good friend, except for solid reason.

You see, even though she was small and not the standard of beauty, her heart and mind were good. And even though the friend who had betrayed them both was very handsome and seemed kind, he was truly a selfish, egotistical user. 

This reminds me of a story I was told about the film Tootsie. Artists spent hours on Dustin Hoffman's make-up, but when they showed him the product, he thought they were kidding. He said something like, "Why don't you make me pretty?" and the make-up artists told him that was as pretty as he was going to get. Hoffman was deeply affected by this, for it suddenly occurred to him how many women he had passed by, had ignored, because they didn't fit his standard of beauty. And yet, dressed as a woman, he was the very kind of woman who would have been ignored. (If you haven't seen this movie, it's really very good. Bill Murray alone makes it worth watching, but Hoffman is also spectacular). 

I know what it's like to be passed over. It still happens to me, and has ever since I can remember. Yet I also know, with a sinking in my gut, that I have done the same to others. I have judged on looks alone, and I am a lesser person for having done so. I've likely missed out on some pretty spectacular people. 

Down Time

I woke up this morning, and for the first time in several weeks, I didn't have a huge list of things to do for teaching. Okay, I did, but the list is for a class I start in three weeks, so I can't say I feel the tremendous heat of fire under me to get the stuff done. 

I know, I know, I will regret this soon. 

Still, it meant I had most of the day without anything pressing on me. I called a few people I hadn't spoken with in far too long, cleaned the kitchen, and then told myself, "Hey, self, you could finally write something!" 

Oh, to write after so many dry months of not having the time. Oh, to pick up my laptop, and instead of logging into my four different e-mail accounts (I'm not kidding), just avoid the Internet completely, opening up my play about two people at an airport and working on it, or planning out more of my revision of my Thomas novel, or even revising my Ark novel (I've been waiting to do this since June)! 

But that's not what I did. I played games, I played around, I read books to my kids (Okay, that's a good thing to do), I made dinner, I set myself out on a blanket on the lawn and read the last few pages of David Copperfield. Only after I'd put my kids to bed did I try to write.

That would be an okay ending, if I spent the next few hours writing. But I didn't work. I read through the short play so far--and I still like it--but when I sought the next real shift, the next touch of dialogue, my mind came up blank. Suddenly I felt like the last place in the world I wanted to be was here, with the laptop in front of me. I didn't want to write. Even setting this down, I admit I feel a bit writhe-ish (I must be taking a page from Uriah Heep), and all I want to do is go upstairs to bed--and not write tomorrow, either.

I can't say I know for certain, but I don't think this writer's block is going to be good for me long term. Any ideas for how I can get myself out of this writing funk?

Blind! Blind! Blind!

This next little bit of David Copperfield pith is from Chapter 35, and, surprisingly, the advice is not direct. David is in love with a silly, vacuous little girl named Dora, who gets him all hot and bothered every time she shakes her curls at him, but who seems intellectually incapable of being serious for a single minute of her life. 

He has just been expounding on the greatness of Dora to his wonderful friend Agnes, whom he grew up with, to an extent, and we readers have all figured out by now that he's infatuated with the wrong girl--and only later does he figure this out, long after he had married and settled down with Dora. As he is walking out the door...oh, well, I should really let Dickens describe it:

...Oh, Agnes, sister of my boyhood, if I had known then, 

what I knew long afterwards--

There was a beggar in the street, when I went down; 

and as I turned my head towards the window thinking of 

her calm seraphic eyes, he made me start by muttering,

as if he were an echo of the morning:

"Blind! Blind! Blind!"

In that one moment, when David was about to make a huge mistake, there was a portent, out of the blue, frightening him out of his stupidity, telling him how blind he was.

It may sound creepy to you, but don't you wish you had a portent, somebody who could hop out of a back alley at you, shouting, "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!" when you are about to commit a huge mistake, or yelling "Cop! Cop! Cop!" when a policeman's sitting around the bend with a radar gun? 

Of course, what did David do with the portent? He ignored it. Only long afterwards did the scene occur to him, far too late to have done anything about it. Perhaps those same portents shout at us, but we ignore them, too, and keep heading headlong into the messes we create for ourselves. 

If only we'd listen!

More Advice from David Copperfield

I know it's been a while since my last David Copperfield post, but I promised you more good advice from Dickens' memorable characters. I am not quite finished with my rereading, but I have a great bit of gold from David Copperfield's great aunt Betsy Trotwood. She is a lady who made a notable appearance as David's mother was in labor with him, and she sat by patiently, waiting for her beloved "niece" to be born. When she found out it was a boy--David--she left without another word, and she didn't appear in the story again until David, friendless, hopeless, a starving runaway, shows up on her doorstep, filthy and looking just as much a boy as before.

But she doesn't walk away from him the second time, although she does take to calling him Trotwood Copperfield instead of David. She learns a great deal from this young man, even in her old age. And when he is about to set off into the world, she gives him some advice in return. She says, "Never... be mean in anything; never be false; never be cruel. Avoid those three vices, Trot, and I can always be hopeful of you."

Now, all I can wish is that every parent and guardian gave his or her children the same advice, that the world taught its kids to be kind, to be true, and to cause happiness instead of pain to those around them. Think of how different the world would be if we lived like this. War would be impossible, for no one would knowingly intend harm to anyone else. Gossip would be unacceptable, for if one began sniping about someone else, those who heard the snipe would refuse to take part. 

Would all sadness cease? No, of course not. We would still do stupid things. We would still make mistakes. But instead of laughing at someone we accidently knocked to the ground, we'd hold out a hand and apologize, and we'd truly be sorry we'd hurt them. 

This advice has caused me to do all kinds of nice things just over the last week. I took my kids to the library today, even though I didn't have time (they were almost teary from the books they found). I saved the last piece of carrot cake for my husband (and I really wanted it, too). It made me sign three people into one of my day classes even though I only had room for one (I just couldn't turn the other two down!). 

I still have much to learn from this little kernel of wisdom. I should paint it on the walls of my office, so that I can read it through every day. I'd be a better person if I did.

Feeling Lazy...

Remember the Simon & Garfunkel song, "Feeling Groovy?" Okay, so I'm too stressed to feel groovy, but with two new classes looming in front of me (they start tomorrow), I have no choice. Yes, I'm prepared. Yes, I've taught them before. Yes, the syllabi are turned in and probably copied by now (I hope), and yes, the first class is merely me up at the front scaring the pants off all the students by telling them all the course requirements.

But I'm still tense. Instead of singing, "Feeling Groovy," I'm humming "Feeling Lazy." I have two more syllabi to create, for two classes beginning in October, and I really need to have the courses completely set up this week, before the rest of my classes get out of hand. 

But each time I get online, I balk. "I don't want to!" the baby voice inside me whines. "It's Sunday!" she continues, "Why can't I rest on a Sunday, just one day per week?"

Unfortunately, the truth is, I can't. I need to get this done. So even this blog entry, yet another attempt to stall, must end. I need to get to work. No lazy days for me!

Weeding Wisdom

I will get back to David Copperfield, but I was weeding yesterday, and as with the last time I weeded, I tend to philosophize as I pull out the horrid junk out from around my rose bushes. (I shouldn't be that mean when discussing these plants, but they really are annoying.)

If you'd like to read my other entry on the matter, I think it's on my defunct blog, so it's been a while since I wrote on the topic. I am struck, each time I do some gardening, by how informative it is about life--especially about my writing. Here are a few little kernels of what I learned yesterday:

1.  Get a problem out by the roots, and it won't come back. I can't tell you how many times I've pulled the leaves off a weed, only to see it come back in a week, stronger than ever. In my writing, I often tend to lop off a little scene that is giving me a sign of some bigger problem, rather than deal with the bigger problem. When I go back through the novel or play, though, the problem is still there. It won't go away until I take out the true cause, and that requires digging. (It also leads to the next item.)

2.  Get a shovel, and use it. When one revises a novel (or play), one might be more eager to fix a comma splice than delete an entire character, or scene, or situation. One might not want to admit the climax stinks, or that the whole beginning premise is absolutely lame. But if one doesn't take a hatchet to the work--or if one isn't at least willing to hold the hatchet out there, looking for places to hack--the real substantive changes will not occur, and the spine of the work is going to be weak.

My last piece of advice comes thanks to the neighborhood dog, who detests when I am weeding anywhere near the back fence, and thus barks savagely non-stop, hurling himself at the fence (which shudders) when I get quite close to it. So, here it is:

3.  It is very hard to weed with a dog barking savagely in the background. It makes me think of bursts like the NaNoWriMo concept, to write a novel in a month (it's coming up in November). If I have a huge deadline looming, if I feel as if a dog is barking at me over my shoulder, not only will I work less efficiently, but I will be miserable while I'm doing it. That stupid dog made gardening a chore when I normally would like to do it. Surely, after years of living here, it has to know I'm not coming through the fence, and surely I know it won't get to me, but the dreadful sound make me shudder (like the fence), and they set my hair on end. Not a good way to garden. Not a good way to write. 

It's almost fall, almost time for all the plants to take a breather--and that's good, since I have two classes starting in less than a week, and two more starting mid-October. Lots to do!

The Wisdom of Wilkins Micawber

*Before I get into today's blog--I have an update from yesterday's: It seems the little boy I mentioned refused to go to school at all, and he actually started hyperventilating at the prospect of another day there. Not great news. The mother doesn't know how she's going to pull this off.*

Now to today's:  

I've been reading--well, re-reading for the third time--Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, my favorite of his books, and the most autobiographical of any of them. (Please don't tell me I don't have time to do this. I know. I'm at expert at filling my life with tons of projects I have no time for). 

Anyway, the characters are eccentric and funny, disturbingly real and joyous (no wonder I like them), and they are also full of good advice. One such lovely character is that of Wilkins Micawber, a man fashioned after Dickens' own father. David Copperfield lives as a boarder in this man's house for about a year, and when Micawber is about to move away, he gives him two pieces of great advice. Here's the first:

My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. 

Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him! (p. 230)

Who knew that Micawber and I agreed on this. It's the reason I make obsessive lists, the reason I work hard every single day, blogging here before I've even dressed for the day, grading papers at the first opportunity, using every second of the day to do something useful and creative. But what happens if we procrastinate? I know exactly what happens, at least for me: the waiting projects loom over me, weighing me down, waking me in the middle of the night. Stuff undone undoes me, and my life is harder because of the put off tasks, not easier. 

Now to Micawber's other piece of advice, one most Americans could very well pay attention to:

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen, 

nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty 

pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, 

result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, 

the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and -- and 

in short you are for ever floored. As I am!   (p. 231)

Obviously, Americans are not paid in pounds, nor are they likely to earn only the equivalent of twenty, but the point is still the same: live within your means, and you will have peace of mind, security, and resulting "happiness." Live beyond your means, and accumulate debt more and more each year, and your stress will grow with it, it will pull from future income, and you will be in "misery." In this case, Wilkins Micawber knew the truth of this because he lived it, spending months at a time in debtor's prison because he didn't live within his means, even while his wife was nursing twins and his family were starving.

I could rant about this for a while, but I won't. The quotes pretty much speak for themselves. I'll have more kernels of truth next time, different advice from another unusual character.