Haunted

I'm not sure I've put much thought into the things that haunt me. Too often, these things appear in my writing as if by chance, or perhaps fate, if you're so inclined to believe in such a thing. I'm sure it has more to do with the fact that the written word has always been easier for me than anything else. I look at the stories we all have to tell and often wonder what separates writers from other people.

Maybe this is because I am a writer. 

Two weeks from today will mark the twenty-eighth anniversary of the day my maternal grandmother was shot and left for dead. In what has come to be known as a warning tale for other relators and an end to realtor safety in our small town, is something that is more than just a tale told to pass the time. This is my history. This is my real life. 

This year, my grandmother's attacker, E. Beauford Cutner, is up for parole, and this fact not only terrifies her, but our entire family. While discussing petitions and reasons for why this criminal should not be granted the freedom he tried to take from my grandma all those years before, she marveled at the way I was able to explain my frustration and anguish over what is happening. And I know that the words I spoke were easier for me to speak to her than anyone else. I know she wishes I could write her story as it really happened, and while I'm no genie nor djinn, I would like to grant her such a wish. But I'm not sure she realizes her story, the amazing, resilient person she has become, is already there in my writing. 

I know it's not the same as writing a biography based on her bravery. While I would describe myself as a fiction writer, I find my own anguish and obsessions within my fiction. There is an essence of myself on every page because I am the writer and the creator and though I am not the characters, they are part of me. 

Within the DREAMER DUOLOGY, my current WIP, I am trying to figure out what happens to a world when safety is obliterated, when fear sets in, when lives are at stake.

I look back at the way my family survived my grandma's attack along with her; rebuilding the people they were to become the guardians and healers and protectors they needed to be: for themselves, for their children. I grew up in a house that valued text messages and phone calls to relay locations and destinations because my mother wanted us all to be safe. And I'm sure many parents would be the same way, but for us, it feels like we know evil exists in the world, and so, we all must be guarded against such things and persons. 

Now this kind of conscientious life has allowed me to create a character traversing a dangerous landscape. And there is a violent act that mirrors my own thoughts about what happened to my grandmother all those years ago. Though I was not yet born, the stories of this have been relinquished, and to me, sometimes, the stories mean more because that is a language I speak well. 

Helping my grandma organize her thoughts for her victim letter, which she will be presenting to the parole board soon, made me see that much of what she has to discuss is the idea of the unknown, the fear of the the what if; too many possibilities to name. And I realized that all writing deals with the unknown.

Writers take a blank page and fill it, often before they know what needs to be there to make the story feel right or perfect, which any writer will tell you never happens upon first draft. If anything, the what if is a feeling, a need to figure things out, and I know for me and my family, we are hoping to figure out what life will be like if this man does gain parole. 

Fortunately, we have time on our side. And I have my words to help me figure this all out. I am called to the page, much like other people are called to protect or to heal or to lead.

Writing is my life. 

My family is my life.

When I think about the way E. Beauford Cutner shot my grandma three times, in the head and the neck, leaving her for dead; the moment in which I might never have had the chance to meet this wonderul woman, I am haunted by what could have been. 

Like any writer, I am haunted by stories.

I am leaving this here as a way to explain to my grandmother, and maybe, even you, for not being able to write her story the way it deserves to be told. It is something I can't forget, something I can't fathom.

Too often, I think the difficult things fossilize within us until they're ready to escape. For now I hope the words I've taken from her experience, this unending work ethic she's given me, the times I've pondered the meaning of saftey and fear and fate, will all help me finish my novel. 

* 2018 update: E. Beauford Cutner is once again up for parole.

Please help us to keep this man where he belongs by signing our petiton HERE!

Fangirling Over Fangirl

I just finished Rainbow Rowell's young adult novel, Fangirl, and I'm so sad it's over. Reading this book was like finding a piece of sea glass on the beach when you're not looking, like wishing on a fuzzy dandelion and having your wish come true. It was completely unexpected, but so rewarding in the end. Picking up this book, I knew it would be good; I'd already madly in love with Eleanor and Park when I read it back in January.

There was something about Cath, Wren, Reagan, and Levi, which made them seem so real despite the fact that they are just characters in a book. They are flawed, imperfect, and speak their minds honestly. And for the short time I spent with them in this fictional world, they were like my best friends. I connected with Cath as a writer and lover of a fandom, which many people often snub. But luckily, like Cath, I've found friends who support my love of all things nerdy. I have family to supports me, too, and a love for the stories I've read, and the stories in my head. 

I can't wait to go back and read this lovely piece of YA lit. again, but I'm also saddened because I'll never have the unknowingness the next time around. There is something so perfect and magical about reading a really good book for the first time. But there's also something wonderful about reading your favorite book again and again because you never read it the same way, even if the book doesn't change. You're the one who's changed. And because you've changed, there are certain lines you pay more attention to, which make you smile a little brighter, phrases to break your heart, and scenes that still make you cry. 

I think that's the beauty of all books. Having the ability to go back and spend time with some of your favorite people in worlds you enjoy is important to stay positive, to have faith in this world when bad things happen. And for me, it's even more important because it shows words and stories are still important, making me believe my words and my stories are important. too. And I can't wait to share them with the world. But until then, I think I'm going to fall into fictional place I love!

Waves. Words. Writing.

Leading up to leaving for Myrtle Beach a few days ago, I tried to get all of my work done so I wouldn't have anything to do while on vacation. I succeeded for the most part. And even though I finished my current submission for grad school, I felt words building within me today as I walked down the beach. It was beautiful; calm. The only sounds were the gulls and the waves lapping at the shore. Even with all of the white noise, my brain seemed loud. Not with worries, nor mindless prattle, but rather lines for stories and poems.

I suppose Eugene Ionesco was right. I guess a writer never really has a vacation. And I know that even when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about writing. I guess that just makes me a writer.

It's so easy sometimes to get caught up in all of the stress and deadlines, which go along with writing in grad school. But then there are days when the words are just there, when the story is so deep it might as well be 20,000 leagues beneath the sea. And I understand why people talk about the mystery and vastness of the ocean sometimes. Looking at the tumbling topaz waves makes me believe in the possibility of life, in the possibility of things, which seem impossible in the world. I suppose that's what I'm trying to find in myself, and in my writing. So for right now, I'll enjoy these waves, the sound of words in my head, and the feeling that comes with filling a blank page with writing.

Finding Strength and a Mighty Pen

It seems it's been more than a month since I've written here, which feels strange. I guess it's not that I didn't have anything to write about. If anything, I've had too many thoughts as of late, and I haven't been sure how to write them. So I kept those thoughts close, guarded like secrets.

I guess I should start by saying that I completely massacred BOOK ONE, and brought it back to life. At first, it was scary. But then, it wasn't. Tearing apart my own world made it that much easier to rebuild. Maybe it wasn't so bad because I wanted to experiment. Or maybe it's because I've gotten good at rebuilding things. Either way, BOOK ONE is better than I ever could have imagined!

Want to know the best part?

I finally know what it's all about. And not just BOOK ONE. I know the theme for each book AND the series as a whole. When people ask (and they do ask) what it's all about, I can finally explain it without rambling and sounding like I don't actually know the answer. And this realization has helped me put the pieces of this book back together!

Looking back over the past two months, I'm not really sure how I got through them. I guess when we look back at the difficult things in our life we're not sure how we've made it. Maybe we're all stronger than we ever believed. And maybe, all you invisible readers out there don't know why you're so strong. But lucky for me, I do. Every day, I strive to be as strong as my maternal grandmother. She's amazing, which makes it hard to believe anything could ever break her. And I think that's what everyone in my family and community believed, too. And I think we all still believe that even though she's been diagnosed with breast cancer.

I kind of hate that word: cancer. It doesn't even sound good in my mouth. But I guess, if I've learned anything through this, it's that my grandmother IS breakable. We all are. But she has the strength to put herself back together again. I think that's astounding. And even with this diagnosis, she is still the same wonderful person. In trying to wrap my mind around all of this, of course I've been writing about it, even if I haven't been writing about it here. 

Writing is the only thing, which gets me through the ins and outs of life. And I suppose, unknowingly, I started this new, memoir-ish kind of project, but I'm not quite ready to write about that yet, either. I am, however, going to try to keep my updates more frequent, because I wouldn't want to forget any of the crazy, amazing, labor-intensive last months in my first semester at SNHU. I have just two more submissions, and then residency, which I can't wait for! But right now, I must go! I'm leaving for Myrtle Beach tomorrow and have nothing packed.

May my pen be mightier...

Out of Creation

Today, looking back at all my old stories and poems, I got to thinking about how much I've changed. Not only as a writer, but as a person as well. And I guess the reason I really started thinking about this journey so much is because of John Green.

In his TED talk, Green explained:

 "I believe that what we map changes the life we lead…that while maps don't show you where you will go in your life, they show you where you might go."

And this really stuck with me, because I look at these different stories and I see how they've mapped my life as a writer, and a person who wasn't always very happy. I think I can honestly say that I am happy with how my life has turned out now. I'm happy with the person I've become, with the things I've accomplished, and with this thing that fills me up every day with the need to write. That is what makes me happy, and I love it.

I think part of this thing, whatever it may be, has something to do with the characters who inhabit not only the Falling series, but my head, my heart, and my life. Though they comes from cities I'll never see, though they, as John Green puts it, "are people I've never met," they still feel real, and I love them for that. I love the people I know they are and the people I know they will be when this series ends.

There is something so beautiful and poetic about creating people, who eventually create you. And that's what these characters have done. They have created me into this writer I always dreamed of being. They saved me. Their words and their stories saved me. And when people bring you back to life, there's only one thing to call them. And that's why they're my saviors. 

Book Love

Today, I wanted to give some much deserved book love to Cinder by Marissa Meyer.

I absolutely loved this book! It was refreshing to see Cinderella be more than someone scrubbing floors and wearing pretty dresses; Cinder is a bad ass female! The way Meyer twists the traditional fairytale, breathes new life into Cinderella, while all at once delivering nostalgic gems hidden within the text.

There is a beautiful moment in the story: 

 "If there was one thing she knew from years as a mechanic, it was that some stains never come out." 

Though simple, this seems to encapsulate everything, which later happens within this delightful retelling. It's exciting to see that other people are just as enthralled with fairytales as I am. I can't wait to read Scarlet and Cress, the next books in the wonderfully eerie Lunar Chronicles.

A Letter To Those Who Wish To Ban Books

Dear You,

You, who try to stamp out these books, which have not grown to harm our children, but rather, have sprouted from the hands and the souls of writers who were once children, who now wish to spark a flame in the mind, and to heal a wounded heart. You who try to say these books are not important, that stories are not important,  have you ever had someone say your story is not important to this world? 

How can you say that children should not see and hear the things that are happening around them? How can you say they should keep their noses out of books, and instead, pressed to the glass of school bus windows where children sit and talk with mouths full of words we'd rather they not speak? How can you say we shouldn't talk about the things, which hurt our children, and torture our children, that come up to our children with a plastic cup filled with beer or whiskey or whatever they can find to drown out the pain? Why would you rather they taste the booze between those sweet lips instead of tasting it through a voracious literary appetite? 

Why should we let girls struggle with weight and rape and the utter pain of a broken heart, alone? Why should we let boys treat girls like they don't matter? Why should we categorize and stereotype the experiences of these young adults? And for that matter, why should we call them young adults if we do not let them behave like adults who are young? 

Why would you take away a hunger for words trailed across the page like spaghetti, wound around the mind like pasta around the tines of a fork? Why would you discourage a belief in books, in magic, in wonderful words, which broaden the mind and make the world beautiful, and true? 

You see, I just don't understand. I am a believer in books. In words. I stories. But you see, I am a writer. And I am a reader. And I was a girl who walked through school hallways with bullies and wounds that could not be bandaged over. But you see, I did not become like those girls on the news. I did not become a statistic. Books rescued me. And that's why I can't understand why you'd take a book from the hands of our children and instead replace it with a smart phone. I can't understand why you'd let these things poison them from the inside out when words could heal them.

 I guess I'll never understand because I believe in books.

Just Another Drop In the Ocean

Yesterday, I briefly touched on my views of book banning, but figured I'd wait and do an entire post about this controversial topic today. Let me preface this post by saying I believe in books, and intend to fight for them as long as there is a fight to be had. As a voracious reader, and a writer who would like to be published someday, book censorship is a topic close to my heart.

Recently, I found that a number of books, including Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, were being challenged at my former high school. At first, I felt outraged, but then, I just felt saddened. Much of my writing grows from these more intense emotions, and this time was no different.

You can find my response to this news in a letter I wrote here. I've thought and stewed and simmered about this since the beginning of January, but I've finally done something about it. I sent a letter to the superintendent of my former high school, and included information to help her understand why no book should ever be banned. And I included why I thought The Bluest Eye held literary and personal importance for students. Then I added a wonderful article and manifesto from 2010 about the dangers of book banning, which you can find here. This is a beautiful and powerful manifesto written by one of my favorite YA authors, Ellen Hopkins. She has certainly seen her fair share of her own books being banned because of the tough topics covered therein. But I've always thought that was what made her books so uniquely important to young adults. 

Of course, I understand why books are being challenged. Books are the most dangerous weapons we have at our disposal; all at once having the power to broaden the mind and connect people, which, can be dangerous. And of course, I understand why canonical texts are used, why they're important, and how the Common Core is changing education. But still, I don't think censoring literature is the answer. 

Why am I talking about this here?

Do I hope all of you invisible readers out there will understand how important books are? Yes, of course. But I also want you to understand that you have the power to stand up for these books, for your ideas, and for your right to read. In my quest to begin a campaign against book censorship, I found a wonderful website, which reviews banned books and explains why they are important. You can find that website here.

I passed the website along to the superintendent as well, and then reached out to R. Wolf Baldassarro, the writer and publisher of that amazing website. I wanted to share my gratitude for his site, explaining how it helped me organize my thoughts around this campaign. He very graciously emailed me back yesterday, and thanked me! And then, he emailed me again with a link to his page where he not only thanked me, but said some very poignant and beautiful things about this cause. You can find his post here. 

In the post, he said something remarkable:

 "We are each of us a drop of water, but together we can wash away the fear and ignorance of the world."

So I suppose, though I am just a drop in this vast ocean of people fighting against book censorship, my drop makes that ocean bigger. His post ended by saying that "the ripples have begun. In time it shall become a tidal wave." I am hoping all of us, the readers and the writers of the world, can become that tidal wave.

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Although yesterday was Lewis Carroll's real birthday, I thought it would be more appropriate to wait until today to celebrate this amazing writer! After all, today is his unbirthday, a term coined by Carroll himself in Through the Looking Glass. Looking back, Disney's Alice in Wonderland is probably my favorite film from childhood. I used to watch it at my grandma's every time I was sick, and now, I'm just as enthralled with Wonderland. 

I think it is Carroll's world, among others, that taught me it was okay to have an imagination, to dream, to create a world of my own, which, I now have done with my writing. I still think about the beautiful, mysterious, and dangerous world Lewis Carroll created, keeping that as one of my touchstones as I write fiction, and especially while I write the Falling series.

Despite any controversy that surrounds this story and its creator, I think it's fair to say that he deserves a shout out on his un-birthday for everything his books have given to me. I agree with Einstein who said:

 "if you want your children to be intelligent read them fairytales."

It seems today, so many people are afraid that fairytales and fantasy will rot children's brains, or worse, turn them into practitioners of black magic. And so, they ban these books, they hide them in locked cabinets. But what these people seem to have forgotten is that the heroes in fiction mirror our real life heroes, and so too do the villains.

Before I get too far off on my quest to end book banning, let me just say Happy Unbirthday to Lewis Carroll, and to all you invisible readers out there who are also celebrating your unbirthdays today! 

I Spy a Writer

I organized all of my writing materials today, and seeing tangible reminders of all I've created proved writing is just as much a part of me as my fingers or toes. I started playing "I Spy," a game I so loved as a child. I guess I loved it because even then, I was a tiny observer; someone who loved searching, who loved questions, and clues. No one ever guessed mine because I always picked the most minuscule thing, finding it so beautiful.

Today I did the same thing! I played "I Spy," and discovering I am a person who has had the strength and dedication to finish writing a novel, to revise it, to believe in it, and to keep going with a vision I've had for almost five years now.

I realized I am someone who is a collector of sorts. I have envelopes stashing every note I've every taken for the Falling series, all of my files for character development, and copies of every manuscript I've worked on, showing just how far I've come as a writer. I have folders with first drafts, revisions, and feedback. And I have it all stored away so someday down the line, I can look at all those ideas.

I've learned I'm someone committed to the craft of writing. I have over nine books, which have to do with this craft. Sure, I've only read about half of them, but it is my dedication to being a better writer, which I unearthed among these books.

I also found that I take advice (well some of it anyway) very seriously. I have over eleven notebooks filled, or almost filled, and it's all because I read you should always keep a notebook handy. Now I have a notebook or journal for everything, and I love that I can tuck away notes and quotes and book ideas until I'm ready to see them again

Along the lines of being organized, I also realized that I am somewhat binder obsessed. I have seven binders right now, spilling over with too many pages. I have a binder labeled Writing, which houses everything I've ever written from a limerick about pickles written back in seventh grade, all the way up to the latest short story I've finished.

I have a Keep Calm and Write On binder, keeping all of the feedback I've gotten for BOOK ONE. I have one binder with general information, character sketches, notes, and even sections for every book I've planned in the Falling series. There is a binder for poems, short stories, and even other book ideas I'd like to pursue. I have a skinny binder with the pages of my first manuscript, one which shall not be named. And the behemoth of them all is my binder with the research I've done on publishing with practice query letters and feedback from my earliest BETA readers. Somehow, having all of that stored in brightly-colored binders assures me I'm organized, I'm passionate; I am a writer.