Pre-Wait!

I can’t even consider myself to be waiting for news yet, because the manuscript just went out. If this were a rational woman, writing rationally about a realistic reality, she would know that no editors have even opened the file yet, or read my agent's pitch letter.

FACT: It is way too soon for any human, constrained by Earth's space-time-continuum to have even skimmed my book!

Yes, a rational writer would know how foolish it would be at this way-early-fetal-baby-point, to start jumping when the phone rings, knocking the fresh coffee onto the lap. 

She’d know how pointless it would be to obsessively re-check her e-mail every six and a half seconds, and yet. Wait. I’ll be right back.

Nope. Nothing yet.

But I cannot attend to the many, many chores neglected & postponed during those last, lingering pre-submission weeks because that would require moving several feet from the keyboard. Perhaps moving entirely out of view of the screen...worse, out of earshot of my incoming e-mail ping!

So, here I sit, embarrassed in front of myself, impatiently wishing away hours that I’ll never have again in this lifetime. Eagerly waiting to be older, wrinklier, stiffer of joints, closer to death. 

Alas, so much for be-here-now. So much for mental health, or rational behavior, or mind over emotion, or being even the tiniest bit able to Serenity Prayer myself outta here.

Have I learned anything from the past? From an entire adult life and long publishing career of waits?  HA! NEVER!

xo Amy

Endings

Endings torment me.

There's not much we can do about reality, but for the record, I do not approve of real people dying mid-life leaving their story arc dangling unfinished. Nor do I approve preventable deaths that infuse grief with outrage. Or that mix grief with regret for the undone. Or worse, those that mix sorrow with guilt and shame over the un-doable. A clean sad is almost okay, but that's it, death-wise. 

To a lesser degree, I hate when relationships end with no tidy narration or honest reviewing of facts... When expectations fizzle, and events fall short of their promise... when love just wanders off... And yet, movie endings almost always enrage me for doing exactly what I hate real life for not doing: ending neatly.

Film/shmilm, I don't expect truth in movies. Much more important and infuriating to me is when the end of a NOVEL feel tacked on, unearned, bull-shitty, false. A stupid ending destroys the book backwards, as if the story is being sucked back in through its asshole to puke itself inside out.

But obviously, the book endings that torment me most often are the ones I need to write.

I have had more angry letters from readers for allowing evil to prevail in Poison Ivy than I’ve even had for using poopy language in Side Effects! (that's a lot) People want a happy ending. We want to believe in justice. 

Me too, I wanna! But we can't MAKE ourselves believe things just because we want to. And we can’t write what we don’t feel to be true.  

Isn't it dishonest to misrepresent human nature as we understand it? Isn't it a lie to tell our readers that everything happens for a reason, if we don't really think life works that way?  Or that bad people get their comeuppance? Or learn from their mistakes? Or even recognize mistakes as mistakes? Or that life is fair? Or that anyone profoundly changes? 

Writers who believe that, can write it, I suppose.

But I have not yet, in my 58 years of life seen anyone change in any deep way. Not really. I look at my two kids, both essentially the people they were from their first breaths. My life-long friends... fundamentally unchanged by all that life has heaved their way.  Sure, we all learn tricks of presentation, learn to serve ourselves with a garnish... but change the inside squishy stuff? Nah.

We in the story biz have certain responsibilities though, right? Responsibilities that often translate to Happily ever after or at least, Ah ha! I now see the error of my ways cliche’s. To avoid them is to cut into our own profits. More importantly: To avoid them may be to disappoint our readers who are counting on us to get our heroine safely to shore... To piss off the very kids we seek to entertain.

Sigh. Endings torment me. Living them, watching them, reading them, writing them. Perhaps all my novels and life experiences should end mid-sentence with: And then a Giant Monster appeared on the horizon! Oh no! A giant HUNGRY Mons--! 

xo Amy  

Boo! Blog!

What I remember about childhood Halloweens in Detroit:  

1. We (and by 'we' I mean my best friend Birdy and I) could run around the neighborhood at night, in the dark. 

And

2. We could wear makeup and jewelry and long skirts and be gorgeous Gypsies. Or we wore lovely flowing veils and were beautiful brides.

Here we are in all our radiant splendor. I assure you, the way we appear to the jaded adult eye had no bearing on the way we felt. We knew we were beautiful, graceful, lovely beyond compare, in our kitchen curtains.

(I am the shorter one, Roberta is on the Right) 

Then there were the lost years, where Gypsies and brides turned to witches and real brides.

Fast forward to Los Angeles. Upstairs apartment, funky neighborhood. I don my witches’ hat and nose, paint the face a sickly green, add lines and creases. I wear the trailing black slip and boots. I fill a giant bowl with candy.

And there I sit, all witched up and no one to scare. Not one kid comes to our door. Trick-or-treaters: zero. I cried.

Move to a different part of town. Oh boy! Kiddies to scare and scar! Oh cackle oh joy! Three little girls come as princesses, lipstick, blue eyelids, lots of jewelry.... and BAM! I’m in tears again! Biological alarm clock blares without warning: MUST HAVE DAUGHTER TO COSTUME IMMEDIATELY!!!   

I obey. Children come, they grow, they go. 

Now: Time again to dress. I take my lovely, latex nose out in preparation. Shake out the hat and slip and boots. Each year it requires less time and effort to achieve the same warty, wrinkled effect. The candy is bought, the neighborhood ripe with kids. No tears this year. I'm old and safe. Happy Halloween my friends!

Boo!  Amy 

Viva la SKYPE!

Once upon a time, in an acting class at Lansing Community College a boy named Treadwell and I were assigned to a scene study. I don’t know what the play was, or what set us off, but for some cosmic or chemical reason, we couldn’t look at each other without busting into giggles. Even when we averted our eyes, the sound of one of us trying to breathe, or utter a line, reduced us both to sweaty, face-cramping, pants-peeing hysterics.

Not a bad way for a friendship to begin. 

Treadwell's Painting

The details are dim for a while after that. I know that when we were unpaid slave/apprentices at summer stock we got a gig house/pet sitting for some poor overly trusting couple. I remember finding and hooting over their sex toys. And although we'd promised to leave their huge dogs outside at all times, we ended up letting them in to have a pee party on the carpet and eat the couch and shred the curtains. 

Eventually I moved away and got married a couple of times. Treadwell moved to New York and fell in love with a Swede or Dane or something named Dougas. I never felt totally comfortable with the absence of an L in Dougas’s name. And when he carted my pal Treadwell across the world to live in Germany, I felt my suspicions of his L-less-ness were utterly justified. 

For a few years, like 12 or 20, Treadwell came to visit once a year or so.  His english got worse as his German improved. He started putting his words in the wrong order. By then he and Dougas had become hot-shot Psycho-Drama-Therapists holding workshops all over Europe and Scandinavia. Treadwell was too busy to come to California, and I had too many babies and other excuses to go to Germany, where everything they said sounded like, "Put the Jews in the oven!" to me.

All we had was the telephone and e-mail and we both got lazier  about even using those. Dougas died, Treadwell got sick. Months would pass. Many months. 

But: I SAW TREADWELL TODAY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS!!!!!!

Not because either of us got off our asses, but thanks to the grand, glorious, miraculous, generous, brilliant invention of SKYPE!

It wasn't just his disembodied voice on the phone. But his beautiful face! In motion! With actual Treadwell-esque expressions! His cigarette smoke curling in real time! He held up his new dog for me to meet and I showed him mine. He showed me his most recent paintings, and I showed him I still had the one he painted for me ages ago. I saw his new mustache and the way he plays with it. And there was the tattoo I’d forgotten about on his wrist. His smile. His blue blue eyes. And, of course, his incomparable Treadwell laugh. 

So, whatever nasty things I may have said against technology in the past, I take it ALL back.

xo Amy

Writer's Madness

Sometimes I swagger through the house feeling tall and mighty and brave and brilliant.  Sometimes I hunch, scratching in the dirt, strangling the weeds, muttering defensively to myself.  Sometimes I hurl myself at the household chores with the tearful fervor of the newly saved, and sometimes I stare unblinkingly through the front window stuffing toast and jam and toast and jam and toast and jam into my face. 

And although none of these physical, mental, emotional states may take place in my office, at my desk, facing my computer, they are all about writing.

The book I'm working on now is all things to me from celebration to self loathing. 

Maybe it was like this with all my books. I don't know.  I can't remember writing any other books.  Like falling in love, and breaking up: it's always the first time.

Do dentists and data processors find themselves periodically dancing to the intestinal rumblings of an unknowable beast during their work day?  

Or, more to the point: Does a writer's emotional whiplash have anything at all to do with the work itself?  With how the writing is going?  With what is showing up on the page?  

I doubt it.

Here's what I suspect: Since we make up the story, and make up the people in it, and make up what these made up people do, and make up how they feel about what we've made up for them to do... We probably also make up how we feel about them and what we have them doing and why. 

Perhaps by spending all this time emeshed in so much making up we've simply driven ourselves mad.  Although maybe I'm just making that up.

xo

Amy

Doggish Intentions

There I was, innocently trolling facebook when I happened to notice a post by a friend who is forever putting up heartbreaking pictures of dogs who need rescuing. 

I knew I should have unfriended her the moment she started that, but I failed to do so in time to miss this photo.

He reminded me of the crazy dog who was dragged off to the gas chamber in the movie The Lady and The Tramp. Remember him? 

The facebook story was that this puppy needed a TEMPORARY foster home as he'd worn out his welcome with the dog, cats and chickens he was staying with.

A few days, maybe a week... 

Insert romantic montage of this puppy and my puppy, Wally, paw in paw on the beach at sunset, sharing a candlelit dinner of dirty underpants from our laundry bin, frolicking on our bed while we are trying to sleep...

 
The day approached when we were supposed to send him away. 

I balked. 

Negotiations began. Did we need another dog? NO! Did we need more vet bills while our finances are so precarious? NO! More shedding and dog poop? NO! 

Did I want to squash any chance of ever leaving town again at the same time as my husband? 
Was I looking for added unforeseen but inevitable drama and sorrow? A thousand times NO!

And what about the poor woman who was waiting with open arms? Who had already bought him new dog-toys and chews in eager anticipation of his arrival? 

Can you guess the rest of this story?

*Sigh* 
I'm sure there is a lesson to be learned here, but the real question is: What shall we name him?

xo Amy

A Workout For The Rest Of Us!

I know you’ve all been wondering how I managed to regain my girlish figure, so I’ve decided to come clean, so-to-speak.

But first, I shall tell you what didn’t work: My gym membership. Fact: Although I was in good standing at 24 Hour Fitness for nearly a decade, it became increasingly obvious (around the waist, butt, and thigh areas) that paying fat-dues was not actually the answer.  

What did pan out however as a marvelous weight loss boon, was becoming broke! And it was so easy! In fact, it required so little effort on my part that I hardly even noticed it was happening!

First it was farewell to all those high calorie meals out! Then, ta-ta to prepared food brought in. So-long to car insurance for my teens next. More walking equaled fitness benefits for the whole family! No need to drive to the market, all I can afford fits in one bag the perfect size for working those biceps! So, not paying for gas equals a firmer butt and smaller carbon footprint! A win-win-win-um, win!  

Good-bye to the gardener, and good riddance! I always suspected he was a brain surgeon in his old country because he sure was no gardener!  And since (unlike him) I can’t afford a leaf-blower, it’s all rake, shovel, sweep, saw and haul for me! Out in the Los Angeles sunshine the fat melts like magic! 

Meanwhile, the chores inside the house offer a fabulous, never ending work-out as well! Up and down that step stool building buns of steel! Wipe those mirrors and windows -- flabby arms be gone! Bend for towels off the bathroom floor, hoist the laundry basket! Push that vacuum, push, pull, eighty reps! Work it! Again!

And breathe.

Now, shake those rugs! R-e-a-c-h for those cobwebs! Flip that mattress! Then down on the floor to scrub, scrub, scrub! Feel the burn?  

And not only can this all be done without leaving home, I can do it EVERY SINGLE DAY! Switch it out to keep it fresh, laundry and leaf raking on alternate days with floor washing and lawn mowing! 

I think you’ll find that many of your friends and neighbors are discovering these perks of poverty! Look around. See all those empty shops? Where do you think all those workers have gone? Yes! They’ve gone HOME!

Why let the handy-man and plumber reap all the fitness benefits of repeated plunging and hammering? Or the house painter get all that great back and neck work? Why let the house-keeper walk away with your firm thighs and ripped abs? 

Chop that wood to heat and light the house -- unbelievable benefits for shoulders plus no need for costly electricity, you’re dead asleep, by dark! 

Disclaimer: When patching the roof and cleaning the gutters, do be careful on the ladder as the Poverty Fitness Regime does not come with medical.   

xo

Amy