Support

This post is for my friend Jamie.

There is an image that I have been unable to get out of my head, my  lovely and talented writing coach, Marnie Freedman, says that most writers just really want to write in a cave, and when they're done they want to place their work just outside the cave, where someone can come along and take it to the world and then they can just withdraw back inside. I feel exactly like this. All this social media is scary and requires so much work.

Any day of the week I either love or loathe my work intensely, and even when it is more loathe than love, I am blessed enough to be surrounded by people who always love it, no matter how terrible it is or how much it just isn't working, they think it's brilliant and want to hear more.

I need to remember that I am a very lucky girl. I need to remember that even if no one outside of my inner circle reads my work, just the practice of writing and sharing makes me a writer. I also need to remember to say Thank you. Thank you for being in my life and supporting me no matter what I do. Thank you for wanting to read the musings of my crazy mind. Thank you.

“A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends.”

― Friedrich Nietzsche

Where's the line?

I believe in marriage equality.

Maybe I should be more vague about my feelings on this issue, because I have no intention of ever talking politics or religion and I want to promote a feeling of inclusiveness on this blog, rather than turn people off, but there it is.  I believe so strongly that I cannot fathom the other side.  I have had conversations with friends who are intelligent and loving, who are on the other side of this argument, but in the end I just don't get it.  I don't understand why anybody could be against someone loving someone else until death do they part.  If we have learned nothing else from history, we should know that when all else fails, even faith, it is love that remains and endures and allows people to get through the toughest of situations.  Love should be supported and encouraged.

I say all of this because I just finished reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.  For years I have heard how great it is, but resisted reading it because I am not a "sci-fi" girl.  Once I started reading it, I could not believe why I waited so long. It's one of those books that transcends the genre and is so universal that even 20+ years after it was first published, the themes feel current and modern.  I loved the characters and the message of empathy for those that are different or separate from you.

And once I was through with the book, I turned to the internet to read about the other things that Card had written.  Instead, I found articles about the horrifying things that he has said against marriage equality.  I will not repeat them here.  But it made me sick.  Sick that anyone who writes with such beauty and understanding could feel the way he does about other people.  And sick that I had supported him with the purchase of his book.

Which got me to thinking, Where do we draw the line?  I will absolutely stand up for Card's right to have and express any position he likes, but I can also choose not to support him.  And then I started thinking about the inextricable link between artist and their art.  I think Ender's Game is a wonderful book and that it should absolutely be read, but in that way am I strengthening his position by giving him an audience to which he could spread his hate?

I choose not to eat at Chick-Fil-A for the same reason, I do not go to Carls Jr. because I think their commercials are sexist and promote a bad message, but I have relented on similar stances on Best Buy, Target and Arco, because I wondered if it was really worth it.  Also, is not supporting a business because of a viewpoint, really the same as holding an artist's viewpoint against their art?  Should they be separate and appreciated as different?  Maybe as an artist, I want to believe the best in my fellow artists and its hard for me when they don't live up to the expectations that their exceptional work makes me have for them.  I don't know.

I would love to hear what anybody else thinks.    

“Human beings may be miserable specimens, in the main, but we can learn, and, through learning, become decent people.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game

My People

Writers are my people.

I love books. I mean crazy, I could live in a fort built of my books because I have so many, love. When I was in Elementary school and we did Read Across America, I had crisscrossed the country several times before most of my class had gotten to the Mississippi. I have always written stories, but it was something I did in addition to whatever else I was doing in my life.  I never considered that the voices I heard in my head would someday get so loud that they would demand that they get their turn.

I'll admit it.  Until recently, I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  While my friends left college and got on with their careers, becoming teachers or professionals, I killed time.  I knew that I was not an office type of person, I would never be satisfied working a 9 to 5 job, but I also  found out that I was really good at dealing with the details of other people's lives.

This year, finally, after years of talking about it, I applied to an MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Spalding University and I was accepted.  The day I heard was an amazing day and something finally clicked for me.  I haven't started the program yet, that will come this July in Dublin, but I know that I have finally found the place that I belong.

Yesterday, I went to a panel of YA authors at my local Barnes and Noble.  Standing in the back, listening to them talk about their novels and the writing process, watching them banter with the audience, I could see myself doing that.  I would be happy doing that.  One of the voices in my head broke away from the rest and whispered, "These are your people."  More specifically, I think YA writers and readers are my people.  I am starting on a journey and I hope along the way, I will find more of my people.

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.”
― Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life