Renewed Passion for Death Man

It's true that much of my best work is done under the pressure of a deadline when it gets right down to the wire.  Today I had some major breakthroughs with the novel I've been playing with for the past almost two years now.  It has become my MFA thesis and today, while engaged in a very long conversation with my father about how one might go about seeking justice and how patience is a virtue when planning an assassination, I realized the problem with one of my characters was age and geography.  

I'm going to just go for it like a race horse on steroids because whatever isn't working, my mentor will tell me, and whatever is working... well, my mentor will tell me.  I'm just going to throw it all at her and see what she thinks because I feel like this novel turned over a whole new leaf today.  I was stressed and struggling and now I have a sweet little character who may or may not live and if he does live, well, hell, I might just give him a sequel!

So far I've accomplished a pretty good portion of what needs to be done for this packet.  I'm really sad because I won't have a fresh amount of pages for her since I'm redoing some of it - that means she will be getting a pinch of older material to go along with the new stuff.  I think if I can edit like a mother fucker we might be in the clear.  But that is for Monday.  All day Monday!  And then I have some more time to work on Tuesday in the back room at work.  I have to be there at 8:30 for an hour long store meeting and then I am just going to stay put until 12:45 when I have to work my five hour shift.  Usually, when this happens, I use that time to read but this time around it's gonna be a revise and edit day for the entire Simon chapter.  Also I might shorten the chapters and push the pace a little.  I can always slow things down - honestly I find it's harder to speed them up, so lets push it now and create less of a problem later.  

Giggles

Earlier today Hannah and I laid down on the bed and cuddled.  I petted and massaged her neck and scalp because she had a killer headache and that seemed to be helping.  Well I started to doze off and entered that strange place between awake and asleep where odd strange  images pop into my head and strange words leak out of my mouth.  It's like a stream of conscience acid trip.  Today I had two images.  The first image was of a shelf in a thrift store.  On this shelf was a variety of knickknacks one of them being a really pretty bronze hued owl bracelet with green and pink stones set in the eyes and along the wings.  For some reason this made me giggle. And so I tried to tell Hannah about the bracelet I'd just seen when another image popped into my head.  

This time I saw kitties.  But they were doing that wacky Frankenstein's Monster creeper walk where they hunch up their backs and bolt away on their hind legs.  And this time the giggle in my throat came out as a laugh.  I often laugh in my sleep.  The sound of it is apparently so disturbing it wakes Hannah up, which is a feat in and of itself, and frightens her enough that she usually squishes a pillow on my face to either silence me or kill me (anything to make the laughter stop).  Today I laughed and laughed until I just about choked.  I laughed until I couldn't breathe and then I trembled and sobbed.  Hannah told me that my sobbing is quite pathetic and imitated my face which just made me laugh all over again, which then led to more sobbing.  Just when I was almost finished with the cycle and coming down so that I could breathe normally, Hannah curled up next to me and said cutely, "You're so weird."  

I love her.  Because she puts up with this insanity.  This isn't the first time I've giggle-looped into tears and it certainly won't be the last, but this was a particularly draining episode and I had to do a round of 'cool down' snickering and sniffling before I was finally able to get up and function for the day.  And that's just one of many strange behaviors and mood swings that Hannah has to put up with on a daily basis.  I would pity her if I didn't also know she has the best lover this side of the Mississippi giving her orgasms whenever she demands them.  Yep.  I might be overselling myself a little.  But I don't think so.  

A Surprise Visit and a Few Good Books

Today at work one of my Solstice MFA fellows came by the store!  Geographically this is very cool.  He's from Oregon but is driving through to Montana and stopped at Post Falls to hug and squeeze none other than me!  K introduced me to his wife and four kids (aged: baby, 2, 4, and 6).  Apparently when they were driving up, his wife said, "Do you guys wanna meet one of Daddy's friends?" To which their replied, "yes."  But when I rushed out of the store to come and greet them, the eldest, a daughter, cried, "But she's a girl!"  I thought that was pretty cute.  Yes.  Daddy's can in fact have friends that are girls.

But not only was my sex a surprise, I was also of great interest to the second eldest, a son, who asked what my medal was for.  I was wearing a pretty cameo necklace that I had borrowed from Hannah.  It was strung on a pretty white ribbon about my neck and I guess the shape of it reminded him of award medals.  Because when I cocked my head, he asked again, "What did you win that medal for?"  I wasn't sure what to say but I told him I won it by wrestling it away from Hannah, ergo it was a wrestling medal.  To which he was pretty impressed.  

They weren't able to stay long but it really did make my day!  Aside from K's surprise visit to the store my day was filled with helping pre-teens and teens find starter bars.  I swear today must have been drag your daughter to get fitted day, alternately known as "Please, honey, you can't wear shitty sports bras the rest of your life!"  I fitted three girls - there was a fourth but she didn't let me fit her and she was an absolute sour puss and hated all of our bras (what she really wanted was a Victoria's Secret bra to push up her knockers and ours were just too practical for her).  A couple of the girls I fitted though were a real delight to work with and they went home with a good selection of cute but supportive bras and some matching panties!  

After work I came home and ate all the things.  I ate several slices of a crumb cake that our friend, C, left here as well as a very good sized portion of biscuits and gravy.  I don't even know how I fit it all in there.  I'll chalk it up to period binge and try to eat with greater balance tomorrow.  Speaking of tomorrow, I need to get it over with because I really need a day to just work on homework.  Apparently Monday (my day off) is going to be filled with Kroc exercise, plasma donation, and getting new tags for the car.  This translates into a long ass day.  I also have to go to the library for a while on Monday and pick up some new books and drop off an old one - that book being Zombie.  

E told me not to read Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates, so of course I immediately went off and read it.  I actually really liked it.  There was one part that made me a little sick (the very graphic description and visual aide of lobotomy) but other than that I found the gore and sexual violence to be just disturbing enough to make the point but not over the top.  Overall it was just a heartbreaking novel and written well enough that I found myself empathizing with the killer as well as his victims, his zombies.  I actually really want to own this book.  There's one line in it that I almost want tattooed on me: "If you had a heart, that is how it would be broken." Now that I've read a book that wasn't actually on my reading list, I suppose it's time to get down to business with the ones that are.  Currently I'm reading Structuring Your Novel by Meredith.  And it's kind of amazing.  I'm doing all the exercises in it to map out my Death Man novel and I'm already excited to use it to map out my other novels, too.  

WTF! Alternate Title: Things that Surprised Me During the Residency

I've been home from the residency for almost a week and I'm still processing a great deal.  I took a variety of classes and a few of them left a very definite impression.  My friend, E, taught a class on Point of View and it was a lot of fun and gave me some different ideas about my own work.  I was going to write a good portion of Death Man in second person (and I may still do that) but for now I'm going to stick with the 'traditional forms' and focus on structure more than anything else.  But it was still kind of amazing and I definitely want to write some second person for next residency workshop.  I'll probably make it gross... so, yeah, pretty much what I normally write.

Another class that left an impression was the flash fiction one.  Flash is a both harder and simpler than I had previously thought and while I definitely enjoy reading it, I don't know that I have a calling to write it much.  Then there was the class taught by David Yoo, concerning the openings of YA novels.  It was neat to look at different beginnings and really analyze the 'pow' sentence.  The last class I'm going to talk about here is Laure-Anne Bosselaar's class "You Reading to Me?"  Finally my Theatre Degree paid off.  I got a high five after my reading for her class.  She had some great tips and was so incredibly enthusiastic and energetic that I fell in love with her right from the start.  She was absent from prior residencies due to the death of her husband and so I hadn't gotten a chance to experience this wonderful person that everyone else seemed to adore - and now I get it.  I totally get it.  She's amazing.

Classes aside, I have to say that there were several things that surprised me this residency.  Several of my fellow MFA-ers were absent at the residency and it doesn't look like they are going to be coming back.  This is understandable because Solstice is a huge commitment and sometimes it's a matter of money, or timing, but in the case of one of the students it was apparently a falling out with the director.  And that is surprising.  I wish him the best, though, and I have faith that he will make a difference wherever he goes.  Something else that was surprising was that I had a very good time in workshop with Sandra Scofield.  And it was surprising that we didn't have to talk about that article that I hadn't wanted to read or talk about in the first place (less surprising and more of a relief to be honest).  Another surprise was second person.  That takes some explaining - but just know that it can be much more exciting than people give it credit for.

Graduation went off without a hitch, too!  For all the stressing and worrying over it that I did, it really came together and looked elegant and simple and didn't detract from the graduates or the overall relaxed feel of the after party.  In fact it was kind of perfect and that was a great surprise because I had nightmares over that shit!  Another surprise was getting to spend some time with J (an amazing writer who helped me embrace second person!), someone whom I didn't get to spend much time with before.  I had such a fun time talking to her about shared Catholic upbringing and all the brainwashing and guilt that went along with it.  Then we got to talking about Buddhism and at the end of our conversation (this was a completely sober conversation by the way) I realized, much to my surprise, that I needed Sandra as my mentor.  And I'm working on Death Man as my Creative Thesis instead of Summer of August Hunt.  Hence the 'WTF' in the title of this blog.  I never thought I would have put Sandra as my first choice (I did put her as second choice my first semester) but after less than a week of being her mentee, I'm so incredibly glad that I did.  Surprise, surprise.

Another surprise that wasn't exactly unexpected, was that Yoda finally passed away.  He was Hannah's soulmate and familiar for fifteen years.  He was my good friend and companion for the last six.  She took him in to be put to sleep while I was in Boston.  It was the night of the final graduate readings and I was sitting with J.C. and Mar when I got the text.  Yoda's gone.  And I broke down in a way I honestly hadn't expected I would.  I'd already had a good sobfest over him before I left, when he was still alive and I could hold him and cry on him and tell him I loved him.  But when I got that text I just lost it.

I feel a bit spoiled in a way because poor Hannah was in Idaho and while she did have my family and a few good friends around her, I had the entire Solstice family around me and I was very touched by how caring these writers could be and how sensitive they were, never giving off the 'oh, it's just an animal' vibe.  They understood and took me under their wings and I wish Hannah could have felt the hands on healing of such a community.  As it was she kept in most of her grief until I got home.  And I'm glad I'm here now to help.

And last surprise: we got a new kitten.  Not to replace Yoda by any means because you can't replace the great Jedi Master no matter how hard you try, but the kitten has helped to distract us from our emotional pain by causing physical pain with her delightfully razor sharp claws.  She is a pure delight and fits in perfectly.  She farts quite often, yet another sign of her belonging with Hannah and myself.  And right now, even as I type, she's curled up next to Hannah on the bed, passed out after a crazy run through the house including attacking of my feet, chewing of pencils, stealing my coffee, and knocking over everything I needed to work on homework for the night.  She's precious.  Her name is Narcissa.  Hannah spells it with only one 's' but I can't help myself.  I need the double 's' in there.  Also my parents have taken to calling her frog - or at least using frog as a verb for her every movement (she's frogging over there, she's frogging on your shoes, etc.).  Again, she's pretty much perfect for us right now, kitty farts and all.  Which is a pleasant surprise indeed.

Fourth of July and Other News

Yesterday, I worked all day long and wished our fifteen-ish customers a Happy Fourth.  I wanted to go to a Blue's Concert in Liberty Lake after work but we had a crazy late customer and by the time my boss and I finally got out of there, I was pretty much dead.  So I headed to my Aunt's house for some Polish Horseshoes, lots of nummy food, and good times with my two younger boy cousins.  They are both really fun and they really like Hannah and I.  We want to take them camping sometime this summer but it's just finding time.  The younger of the two, he's sixteen, really wants to hang out and has a very dry wit.  He told me as we were leaving, "seriously, we need to all hang out this summer, just the four of us, we can get drunk, or murder someone, I don't care, we just need to hang out."  It was kind of adorable.

Today I went to a potluck/water fight with the IEPG.  We had a good time.  It was very low key.  I had planned on playing with the kids and getting all soaked but I ended up spending my time chatting with the adults.  We brought donut holes because I'm a doofus and didn't buy the ingredients in time for what I had wanted to bring.  The kids really enjoyed the donuts though so it was all good.

In other news, our kitty Yoda is essentially on Hospice care.  He's an old diabetic baby that seems to have failing kidneys.  It will be a bad, bad day when he finally goes, but in the mean time we are going to cuddle and love him to bits.

In other, other news, I'm getting ready for the residency.  I leave on Wednesday.  I'm nervous and excited and still have quite a bit to do.  It seems I am always 'almost' ready but never fully prepared.  I know that this time around it's also because I'm so scared about the fact that many of my friends are graduating.  I want to extend this whole program out another couple of years just to cling to certain people including mentors.  I can't believe that in January I will be graduating.  Maybe.  If I can get a good solid thesis done and ready to go.  Hah!  It's very much go-time for me, but I think I'll be okay.  I know what I need and that's more library time.  For some reason I'm very productive at the library.  I think it shall become my home away from home once more this next semester.  My last semester.