Letting Go

4 Replies

You’re a write eejit when you treat your manuscript like your baby.
I’m not the overly sentimental type—or at least I do a good job of hiding it. I wasn’t the one blubbing like a baby at “Mary Poppins” (not looking at anyone in particular, man-mate!) But I confess, when I put my youngest on the bus to kindergarten for the first time, I did feel that mother-child bond stretch out like an over-zealous rubber band, and it brought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye. That wee one that had been clamped to my hip and shin for five years, had just blown me a kiss from the other side of the road and hopped merrily on the bus without a backward glance.

Okay, okay, I hear you groan—not another Mommy blog. Well, yes, but just this once, and only to make my point. (I’m not above exploiting my kids.)
So it’s with trepidation that I prepare to send premier child off to college. What if I didn’t get it right? What if I read all the wrong child-rearing books? (Actually, I don’t think I read any.) But what if I didn’t feed her enough kale or Vitamin D. Maybe I shouldn’t have had her vaccinated, and maybe all those fluoride treatments were a mistake. I didn’t teach her to ride a bike. I didn’t talk enough about sex, or maybe I said too much. I showed, but didn’t tell. Maybe I suffocated her character—didn’t let it evolve naturally. Should I have insisted she not swear so much?

Baby-Bird-Learning-to-Fly1-251x300

And then I pull myself up short, because I’m being as neurotic about my parenting of my daughter as I am of my books. Can you parent a book? I hear you ask. Yes, most definitely, yes!
You have sleepless nights while it’s in the newborn phase—lying awake for hours wondering if you’re doing it right. You can’t imagine how your baby can ever grow up and demand less of your attention. And then slowly you hit your stride. Sometime you’re cruising along taking every corner like a pro. Other times you’re flailing around like a one-legged roller skater. Sometimes you get to the stage where you just want to throw up your hands and yell, “I quit!” But you can’t. You’re in it for the long haul. And then there are those few and far between days when every, just every little thing, is bloody brilliant.
And as with parenting a child, there comes a time when you have to push that offspring out of the nest. No more editing, looking for stray commas, dangling modifiers. You’ve given it a good talking to and told it to do its best, and never go home with a guy who’s weirder than its brother, and . . . It’s all about giving it wings and letting it fly.

Reckless+Abandon,+photo+by+Peter+Brannon+(A+baby+owl+learning+to+fly)

Photo by Peter Barron

 

Cotter Pin

4 Replies

1bike2 Old Bicycle

You’re a write eejit when your cotter pin takes a hike.

One summer I was waiting tables in Montauk, Long Island. I bought a cheap bicycle to get from my flop pad to the beach to the restaurant. It worked, barely. Some sage person advised me that the reason items of machinery (the names of which I am not privy to) clicked around and around when I pushed down on one of the pedals, getting me nowhere fast, was because my cotter pin was missing. Well, today, the cotter pin that keeps my brain from banging around in my skull failed to report for duty. You know that feeling when your gears are spinning but not engaging?

I faffed—don’t you just love that word—around for the day. I poked at my latest query letter. Godricks jockstrap, they’re hard to write! Why are there fifteen ways of saying anything?

The clichéd: When Miranda loses her boyfriend to sexpot Lavinia, it can only mean one thing—she must discover her inner diva and fight back.

The colloquial: Miranda goes apeshit and swears she’ll get her pound when Lavinia, the local ho, jacks her two-timing piece of sh*@ fella . . .

The businesslike: Miranda’s boyfriend cheats on her with the popular girl in town. Miranda takes up pole dancing and swears revenge.

Okay, lame examples, but you get my point. Not a task to be undertaken when your cotter pin is slipping.

The Ramblings of a Write Eejit

4 Replies

I’m a write eejit . . . if I think I stand a chance of competing with all the brilliant people out there blogging about how bloody brilliant they are.

So, here’s what I’m proposing: I sneak in the back way. Instead of wit, Pulitzer prize-winning writing skills, and amazing connections in the blogosphere, I’ll use good old self-deprecating humor. The Irish are brilliant at poking fun at themselves; they raise it to a fine art, think of Samuel Beckett or Graham Norton.

By definition, self-deprecating means I’m going to have to talk about myself—a lot! Who else’s head can I crawl inside and poke around in, lifting flaps of skin here, squinting down bundles of neurons there, looking for a snugget (even smaller than a nugget) of enlightenment?

And on the subject of enlightenment—be honest, folks, who isn’t looking for the answer to that Big Question, Why Are We Here? I mean there’s got to be a reason that gobs of oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen and (okay, I didn’t get chemistry, but I was very good at biology) all came together in such perfect harmony (think Coca-Cola Christmas ad) and allowed us mortals to flower into existence. Or why a particular batch of DNA soup produced me. So, I hear you ask, what is that reason?

To think our way out of the box, of course. If you don’t know that yer a right eejit.

Let’s face it, thinking outside the box is the only way forward. Early man could have made a mental note to avoid that stretch of river bank where the ooze sucked you in up to your knees, but instead he scooped up a handful and squeezed it between his fingers, feeling its smooth elasticity and bingo, he got a crazy idea . . . he could shape this goopy stuff into a pair of cupped hands and the dense clay would hold things, like water, grain, and berries. Actually, truth be told, it was far more likely early woman was sitting on the river bank trying to snag a few minutes peace and quiet while the kids were happily making mud pies when she had her eureka moment.

Either way, it—creativity—happened, and civilization took a step forward.

I firmly believe we all have that deep-rooted creativity in our genes. Of course it manifests itself in myriad ways in say, the tech world, the business world, or art world. But it’s the driving force behind progress. The reason we’re here is to get creative. What are you waiting for . . . off you go now and get busy with the glue gun, or the pen, or the spade, or the drum machine.

cave-painting-of-primitive-hunt-thumb25057391

beckettGlasses

You’re a write eejit . . . if you think you can keep your writing and family life separate.

2 Replies

Here’s a typical afternoon in my house.

Okay I just have time to edit—

“Mom! The cat’s playing with a half-dead chipmunk and my soccer coach is going to bench me if I turn up with only one purple sock and by the way I flunked my Spanish test and what’s for dinner and did I tell you Tim is staying over and why is child no. 3 allowed to watch Halloween, Part 8 you wouldn’t let me see that when I was five?”

. . . now where did I file that synopsis and was it the short one or the long one? And did I send the critique of that sex manual to—? Oh god, the school guidance counselor is going to think I’m a sex addict when he finds it in his inbox. He’ll probably call child protective services and . . .

“Mom! I’m scared and I just know I’m going to have nightmares and can I sleep in your bed tonight.”

. . . what was I making for dinner . . . and oh, there are my glasses, in the fridge with the deli slices . . . HAS ANYONE FED THE CATS? . . . must remember to clean up the chipmunk guts from under the . . . oh, that gives me an idea—where’s a Post-it note . . . credit card bill, hoped I’d lost that . . . glass of wine . . . aaah!