Fresh French

While in Roanoke, I bought a lot of books. I can't help myself. I felt proud of myself for not going to the Green Valley book fair. That's an awful temptation. O didn't even buy any books after the author visits. But I still bought a good handful of other books at the faculty reading. I figured these people I knew and I was happy to get their signatures in the books, too. And then I also received a few gift books from a sweet teacher for my tutorial, in effort to help me with my Sleeping Beauty story by giving me some Medieval history books. Oh boy, history. Yes, I will have to read some history. I actually did read some library medieval history while I was in Roanoke, and it was pretty interesting. You should be proud of me.

But after receiving all these books, I came home thinking I was eager to read so many of them. I just couldn't decide.

Well, because I had taken so many of my own books with me down to Roanoke, and then with the acquisitions, I had a lot of reorganizing to do. I took just about all my books, even the ones that stayed, off the shelves to re-order and even changed the shelves for some topics. I did another project too to make room, but that's another story.

Anyway, in all of this self-enforced rummaging, I ran across this French book that I'd bought in Princeton like about a year and a half ago--le Petit Nicolas. And that was suddenly what I wanted to read. French. All of a sudden English didn't interest me at all. I felt this certain tiredness of English. All of these silly American stories, blah! They all seemed the same. Why couldn't English be like French?

Well, I just finished it tonight, and I have to say it was pretty sweet. Funny, clever, sometimes a little sad--as you'd expect from the culture. Sometimes it was a little predictable. I guess that kind of comes with all kinds of literature. But overall definitely enjoyable. I think I'm going to have to go get some more French books. Is that Green Valley Book Fair still going on?

Just kidding, I think I can read some English again, but I will be reading more French. It's just Fresh. What can I say?

Good and weary

Tomorrow is the Francelia Butler Conference for which we have been planning for just about a year now. I've been the co-chair for the Food/Decorations committee with my friend Dorina, and what a blessing it's been to work with her! I have to say.

Because of her cooking talents, we easily divided the duties so she was over food and I over decorations, though we still did a lot of planning and working together.

But so today, the title--good and weary. As it's the day before the conference, we had to get the place ready. So I've been back and forth between my apartment and the Visual Arts Center (VAC) where the conference will be, three or four times today, and then finally settling in to decorate for about, well, probably two and half hours, I guess. Counting the back and forth and the waiting for people, though, I was busy with it for a little over four hours.

But it was good and fun! I'm not complaining at all. My body is very tired and sore in a few places, probably from laying the construction paper feet to mark the path, and then the other stuff, walking around on an uncushioned cement floor.

The body needs those weary moments, though. I loved the decorating part, seeing things come together. I think it really does look good in there. I'll post some pictures.

And I was so glad for all of my helpers, most of whom had lots of better ideas for things than I did. I was glad for their initiative and willingness to be there. What great people! I wish I'd taken pictures of all of them working--just got a few.

And now I'm ready to write again!

Happy Independence Day!

I don't know that my Canadian family reads this much, but since there independence day is close to ours, in the US, I don't want to leave them out, nor any reader in a happily independent country. Today just happens to be ours, and I'm grateful to celebrate it.

Actually, speaking of Canada, I've found myself a few times in the past accidentally putting on one of my Canada T-shirts on the 4th of July. Sometimes because they happen to have red and white in them and look a little patriotic, other times just because they felt right for my mood that day, like any other day--the colors and fabric and style. And you know, I just realized--here I go again, talking about clothes! Gee whiz!

But anyway, so today I was actually conscious of what I put on and happily found my red Boston T-shirt clean in my drawer. Got the colors and the right country this time. But not only that, Boston has significance in our fight for independence, so I felt even better about wearing it. Nice reminders of the actual wars and fights our forefather and mothers went through for our freedom.

Another difference about this year was my locale. I've been in Roanoke on the 4th for the past three summers, but living on the other end of town. Since I'm on campus this summer, I found myself able to "hang with the Hollins crowd" --attend a little barbecue at the apartments and then watch the fireworks on a hill on campus. From there, we had a view of four or five different firework shows. For none of them did we have the best view, and I think they were also small shows this year. It sprinkled a little while we were on the hill so I wonder if there wasn't more rain down in the valley were most of the shows originated. But all the same, I had fun spending time with friends.

Here are just a few pics. I know they look hazy--it was dusky and dark, so I used the night setting on my camera, but that setting doesn't still movement very well. I kind of like it though--it fits with my appreciate for candidness, like there should be motion depicted when motion is taking place.

Validation with a Cinderella Connection

I've noticed that I tend to include little this and that about clothes quite a bit on here, and yet I haven't really considered myself a terrible clothes fanatic. But then in class the other day we had to write down memories of our childhood and I was drawn to remember that I did have a bad habit of judging people based on their clothes, and well, I was quite a bit more clothes conscious when I was in junior high and even to a certain extent in high school. Not that I sought people who were really highly fashionable. No, they just had to have similar level of moderation to mine--not even the same style--just this undefined level of balance between too slummy and too haughty. Perhaps there was a certain level of maturity in that because it seemed once I got to college just about everyone was "just right." But then again, maybe I'd matured by the time I was in college, and it just didn't matter so much any more. Perhaps that's why I look back to those college days with some longing. I could wear blue jeans all day and nice tops and feel I was "just right," because that was just generally what everyone else did. None too haughty or too lowly.

But then the working world came along, and new rules came into play. How I hated that transition. I really would prefer to wear blue jeans all day. That's probably why I was such a pill at that place of work where I did data entry--I wrote about it before but I've since deleted that post because I felt bad about it. Anyway, you might remember it regardless. I think part of it, too, was the money issue. I was a really poor graduate school drop-out at that point, and so when they changed the rules and said I had to wear pants to work, well, what's a girl supposed to do? Most of the pants I owned were pajama pants I'd been sewing with my recent acquisition of a sewing machine, as I strived to improve my skills.

Now we come to the Cinderella connection comes. Nancy Willard is our writer-in-residence this summer, and she came to speak with us this evening. It was a wonderful speech, too. Quite different from a lot of our author guests who talk about their writing career and all that--which is fine, too, not to disparage them. I'm always glad to hear about those things. But anyway, so in Nancy's speech, she was talking about the writing craft with particular attention to the narrator's voice. Things I've learned about before, but the stories she shared were a little new and different. One of them was a Scholastic editor's demand for a new retelling of Cinderella under the belief that what drove the love for the Cinderella story was not the prince, not the pumpkin, not the wicked steps, not even the glass slipper, but the dress. Girls love the Cinderella story because it validates the idea that a change of clothes will create enough of a change so as to change their whole life. I would have to nod my head to that. It makes perfect sense. That's why, as the Scholastic editor based his theory, so many young girls want to dress like Cinderella for Halloween.

So why is that validating for me? Well, I can relate. I still feel, even in my recent work experiences that clothes tend to make you or break you. People notice what you wear and treat you accordingly. That was a point I was trying to get to in that old post I deleted, but couldn't quite get there because all of the experiences weren't adding up. But I think it's true, within certain contexts, expectations. Anyway, I'm dropping this now because it edges so much on judgment that I don't want to cast out.

Aside from the work place, and even the school place--even now being back in school, I'm not as comfortable dressing just however I want to dress because, well, perhaps because it's summer and everyone doesn't just wear blue jeans and nice tops. There are all other kinds of levels of modesty and casualness and fanciness going on. I don't think I base my friendships on how people dress now, but for some reason, clothes are still on my mind under some premise that they can make or break me. Of course it's a total fallacy, which is probably why the Lord had to warn against love of clothing in a few places in the scriptures. But anyway...

I'm not done, nor even "there" yet--that's not the whole of the connection! What I've been trying to get myself to is the literature connection. That considering the high profile Cinderella has in literature, the number and variety of the stories she shows up in, in one form or another, her story is pretty significant to the reading population. So, for a blogger who does like to write about this that and the other thing but who tends to write more about clothes in oddball form and books and writing in slightly less so, but still oddball form, my world is starting to come together to make some certain degree of sense. Clothes and books--there really is a connection.

2nd Novel

Although I would never ever in a million thousand years suggest it, I'm coming to learn that the true test of your learning in an MFA program doesn't come in the completion of your thesis, but in the completion of the second book after your thesis. I think it's absolutely wonderful to get so much help with workshops and lessons and everything on the thesis, and I'm so glad I've had the help I have on it. And actually, I'm glad too that I'll have the continued opportunity to workshop another potential novel. But as I've finished the first novel, and I await comments from my thesis advisor, I'm trying to write another and finding myself pretty stuck. I have a few ideas, actually, so it's not for a want of ideas, as I've struggled with over the years, it's getting them going. I hear Keisha's lesson from last year on ignoring the internal editor, which I argued about with her --well not really, I was just trying to get it--But now I get it! And yet, I can't get it.
Press on, I guess, right? I'm so looking forward to one more summer at Hollins!

Published!

I got an email this weekend saying my poetry submission was accepted for a journal at San Diego State University. They were looking for poems and short stories for children 10-14 with a theme of "Night Rhythms" and what do you know, I actually had one of those! I've actually been working on this for a long time. Should I tell you how long? Anyway, most recently I had a version critiqued last summer at Hollins and when I saw the call for writing, I took upon myself to make some of the suggested changes, and some others as well. What do you think?

Pacific Waves
To see, to see…
anything but pomegranate paws
laced with cold steel fingernails
scraping on the baseboard in the dark.
She sits up in her basement level bunk bed,
stringing in the curtains for her sails.

The frame rattles in time with the whirring
of the water heater in the storage room next door,
whirring, wearing, worrying.
The ghosts have already dirtied
the powdered milk with sketches of their names
(They can only come if she asks)
hovering, hoping, and whispering

pleas...Before the water escapes…
Before she floats through the window
and out to sea...
She’ll ride Pacific waves
through Hawaii and the Seychelles
and maybe into Singapore,
Where snores will transform into lullabies
and sing a poor girl to sleep.

Miracles on Maple Hill

The fictophile is back in business! I found a book I liked again! Were you worried about me? You should have been. I was worried about me. I think I've mentioned this one--it was one I pondered about buying. Well, the truth is that it is not LDS fiction, unfortunately, so the story still goes that we need a good one of those. But it was good! So nice to know there are LDS people out there who can write well! And she didn't just write well, she wrote beautifully. Her use of language was exquisite and pacing was tremendous. It's not surprising it won the Newbery, regardless the year.

I was glad, though, to have taken the Family Story class at Hollins a couple summers ago because it helped me to appreciate it on a different level where I might not have as much otherwise. It seems during that time frame, and maybe earlier, the family story was a little more predominant, though not always called as such. Basically, the family story is what it says it is--a story about a family. But there are a few more things to know about it. For example, not all, but those of that era are more episodic than plot-driven, and my professor's experience from teaching this style to undergraduates is that it needs to be understood to be appreciated, particularly among the younger generations who are used to quicker-paced plot-driven stories. Episodic stories do have a cohesive plot-line, but it's not as strong as the plot-driven. Usually every chapter has a stronger smaller plot, conflict-resolution scenario.

Additionally, although in Miracles the narrator did focus on one character more than the others, often in family stories, there isn't necessarily one individual character with more attention, rather the main character is the family. Although I don't think Enright is the professor's favorite all-time author, I do believe she's his favorite family-story author. Perhaps this is why I have the impression that her work in the Melendy quartet seems to embody best this genre, but it almost might be that this is simply why she's his favorite--because it does so. Some other authors we read were Edward Eager, Kenneth Grahame, and E. Nesbit. I'm sure there are many others as well. We also read some more contemporary stories that didn't follow the style as closely, but we looked at how the similarities weaved through.

In any case, in Miracles, though Marley gets the focus, the story is still about her family, particularly about her father's growth and about her adjustment to an admired older brother who is outgrowing the desire to explore with a kid sister. But it's also about the broader human family, understanding a more holistic meaning of loving your neighbor and taking care of each other during hard times and during beautiful times as well.

In sum, a must read! Whether you'll like it or not, I think it will be as good for you as the aromatic maple syrup it makes you hunger for throughout the text.