Apr 18

How do you choose a writing journal?

Just like magic wands, a journal must choose you.

As a child, I expressed my deepest thoughts, heartbreak and angst in various hardcover journals, college-ruled notebooks and at least one Dear Diary with a metal lock. Did you pour your heart out in a journal? I still journal, but not as much as I used to. I wish I could say that’s because I have no adult angst, but I can’t lie. To make sure I carve the time out to reflect on myself, “journaling more often” is one of my New Year’s Non-Resolutions I committed to with my writers group.

My old journal ended today after five months of use. In my younger days, I could’ve blown through that purse-size, 4”x6” journal in less than two months. And in my younger days, I would never have used such a small book. Regardless, I need a new journal.

I have a collection of journals ready for words waiting for me on my bookshelf upstairs. Too many, one might say, but I hold an emotional attachment. Besides, can you ever have enough journals, whatever the style?

Dancing space sheep swirl around me, complete with glitter and memories.

Dancing space sheep swirl around me, complete with glitter and memories.

As I slide my hand down the row, examining each spine and shape, I think about reducing my stack. Here’s an opportunity to donate old journals I no longer enjoy writing in, either by size or style, and toss out ones with bad karma. I’m thinking of a specific one given to me by an ex-boyfriend’s mother, but I may have used it already. I don’t recall what it looks like when a bright purple spine pops out at me. Friendly bubble letters beckon me with one word: Journal. I pull it off the shelf and cradle it in my hand, staring at the cover. At least 30 seconds pass before I figure out that the abstract glittery shapes are sheep floating in space. It’s rather trippy.

Each white, lined page of the 5×7″ book is bordered with a quilt-like pattern of muted mauve hearts and stars. Sometimes I prefer pages with lines to keep my sentences straight and even, and other times, wide-open blank pages inspire me. Sometimes I like to write on bright white to show a pen’s true color, while other times my eyes want a muted tan or yellow page. This portable, lined, white-page journal in my hands seems fine to me. The psychedelic cover makes me weirdly happy. Now to flip to the inside cover and see if I made any notes about the journal’s date or where it came from.

Karma’s a bitch.

This journal was a birthday gift 15 years ago from a friend I no longer talk to, mailed to me at a previous job that was absolutely vile.

This is the kind of karma I was talking about, so I set it aside, not even putting it back on the shelf. There are plenty of other journals here. A leather dragon-covered book is too heavy. One large notebook has a handmade cover with buttons on it, a good memory of the person who made it for me, but a bit awkward for my needs right now. I don’t want this other one with a wooden cover. That blue Moleskine is too small. The ring binding on another is too big. Nothing fits my mood except the funky sheep journal.

This empty journal is scrawled with memories. I taped the original mailing label inside the front cover, which is why I know from where it was mailed. Just seeing the company name brings back stomach-churning memories of the underpaid job with the stuffy upstairs office where I worked. I remember the two sloppy mistakes I made that make me feel uncomfortable and stupid to this day, and the disrespectful ex-boyfriend I worked with who constantly yelled insults at me.

During that time, I had my friend, that lovely woman who knew me well enough to know I’d enjoy a fun-looking journal, perhaps a dollar store find, and mail it to me at work to brighten my day. Even today, I recognize her thick, curvy handwriting from the numerous letters we mailed each other. We met during one of my most unique summer jobs. And for reasons I don’t recall now, we immediately became friends. I took my first trip to Walt Disney World with her and a friend. She and I took a road trip to Salem, Massachusetts one Halloween weekend. The last good memory I have with her is bouncing on her friend’s outdoor trampoline on the afternoon my boyfriend-now-husband called to tell me he bought a new car, the car we still drive today.

She and I lived about seven hours away. I only saw her when I drove home to see my parents, and even then, I didn’t always have the time for the extra 2-hour drive. This one weekend, however, I was home for a long weekend and my Sunday was completely open. We could meet halfway and catch up in person, so I called her.

“I can’t,” she said. “I watch football with my boyfriend on Sundays.”

I never knew her to be a sports fan, but I was a far-away friend in town for the day. “What’s it going to hurt, taking one afternoon off?” I asked.

“I can’t. We watch football on Sundays.”

I understood that sports aspect with guys; my boyfriend-now-husband watched college football on Saturdays. He liked it when I watched the games with him, but if I wasn’t there one weekend–like this weekend I was currently away for–his life didn’t end and we didn’t break up. I’ll be there to watch games with him weekend, but I will not be within driving distance of my friend next weekend.

“Not just this one Sunday?” I asked her, hearing my voice rise in a pleading tone.

“We watch the game together,” she replied.

I never met her boyfriend, but I got the sense he was a demanding man.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but my friend was always independent. If she hadn’t been dating him, I was sure she’d make the time to see me. I told her how hurt I was, how I thought he might be controlling and I was saying that because I was looking out for her, as a friend should, but in the end, I lost the argument. We spoke once or twice on the phone after that, but she stopped returning my calls. I lost my friend.

I was surprised to receive a sympathy card from her when my dad died. She must have been on the overall distribution list when I emailed the news out. That was a nice gesture, really touching, but I didn’t know what to say, where to begin again. I don’t recall mailing a reply to her.

Now this journal calls me. I don’t know why. Does the journal want me to fill it with good memories, turning something positive out of a bad memory? Is its purpose to just fill the pages and “git ‘er done” and out of my life? Does my journal want some closure for me? Some reminder of better times, or is it a nudge to do something more?

All I know is that the two floating cosmic sheep make me smile, and I have to choose this as my next journal. Maybe with a wave of a metaphysical wand, I’ll figure this out by the end of the journal. Or maybe the last page will be just a last page.

Apr 16

The Kingdom Belongs to Children

Max crouched down, squished himself in between two other six-year olds and waited eagerly, like a compressed spring about to uncoil, for his turn.  He looked up at his older cousin, Alexandra, and whispered, “What’s a sin?”

He was a little embarrassed and hoped no one other than Alexandra had heard him. She had seen what was going on between him and the other boy. She would understand that it wasn’t Max’s fault he hadn’t been completely listening to Miss Becca, his vacation Bible school teacher.

He thought it was nice that some of the married teachers, including Miss Becca, didn’t always want to be called Mrs. So-and-So. Miss Becca let you call her by her first name, as long as you added “Miss” beforehand. Max first met Miss Becca in church. She sat next to him a couple times during worship service, and every now and then she taught his Sunday school class. Max liked the way she paid attention to him when he talked with her. She looked him right in the eyes and didn’t seem bothered by any of his questions.

Today, she asked that everyone call her Lady Becca. All the lady teachers, the girls, and she were strolling around like royalty, with their chins up and heads high. When she spoke, she didn’t pronounce words like she normally did. Everything she said seemed more proper and formal, and to top that off, she taught the boys how to bow and the girls how to curtsy.

“Too bad for them,” Max thought. Bowing was so much better. It didn’t require practice like the girls were doing. Boys were way more cool. They could pretend to be brave knights defending a kingdom. He was glad that his mom knew about the medieval theme and let him take a toy sword to the summer program. Swords weren’t normally allowed at church. Max figured this week would be fun.

When Lady Becca had explained what a sin was, Max was distracted by his new friend, Aidan, who kept trying to take Max’s sword away from him. “Just for a minute,” Aidan had pleaded, but Max knew better than to give up his plastic weapon. He might never get it back! It was no wonder he missed some of what his teacher had said. He was lucky just to have caught the most important part: only one person in all of history has never sinned. “But what exactly are my sins?” he silently worried.

Without hesitating, Alexandra simultaneously answered the question he asked out loud and the one he was thinking. She said, “A sin is anything you do that’s wrong.”

“Thanks, Alex,” he softly replied.

Alexandra preferred to be called “Alex.” That’s what her mom called her, what her dad called her, and what Max called her, usually. Alex was pretty smart…and she paid attention. Or, she paid attention…and was pretty smart. One way or another, she seemed to know about God’s son who came down from heaven to be with people. Alex was fourteen and old enough to be Lady Becca’s youth helper. All the teachers had at least one of the older kids to help teach the younger children about the stories in the Bible.

Lady Becca described Jesus as both God and man but a man like no other. She gave examples: He had never lied; never cheated; and never hit his brother, not even once. She said, “Lots of people liked Jesus because he was good at fixing things. Many people hated him because they didn’t know him very well.”

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Jesus' words as recorded in Mark 11:45 (NIV). Photo by Kelly Bixby

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Jesus’ words as recorded in Mark 11:45 (NIV). Photo by Kelly Bixby

Alex added, “Other people had no feelings whatsoever about him, because they had never heard of him.”

Max took the piece of paper that Lady Becca held out to him. He noticed that it was shaped like a hand, so he held the paper up and compared it to his own. His palm fit inside the paper’s edges almost perfectly. It was as if Max had spread his fingers wide, plopped them upon a single sheet of paper, pencilled up and down, around and around, and then cut along all the lines to end up with the paper he was now holding. Max followed Lady Becca’s instructions and wrote his name in crayon on the front of it.

Lady Becca’s red velvet gown swept the floor as she continued moving about the room, passing from person to person, with the goal of giving everyone their own hand-shaped sheet of paper. She wore a stretchy silver fabric band around her head. It had one lone ruby-colored jewel in the center and wasn’t meant to look like a more elaborate, richly adorned crown. After all, she wasn’t “Queen Becca.” But she was dressed like someone who belonged in a castle.

When Lady Becca walked towards Lily, the tallest girl in the class, Max could see Lily’s eyes widen in anticipation. He didn’t think it was the paper she was excited about, however. He saw that she longingly eyed the bejeweled, golden scepter in Lady Becca’s left hand. The decorative staff was just slightly taller than Lily herself, who was about four-feet tall. Purple and gold ribbons streamed from the top of it to halfway down. Max guessed that each girl in the class was hoping for the opportunity to run around waving the fancy stick in the air and making the ribbons fly.

“Get rid of all the frilly stuff, and that stick just might come in handy,” Max muttered to himself. Then he heard the girls collectively sigh when their teacher tucked the prop under one arm so she could finish passing out sheets of paper.

Lady Becca said that everybody except Jesus sins. Max thought that didn’t make sense, because everybody knows the only things babies do are eat, sleep, cry and poop. Sometimes they smile too, but that’s just when they have gas. (He had heard that from Alex, who was too polite to say, “fart.”) How could they do anything wrong? They’re babies. Maybe Lady Becca didn’t know what she was talking about.

After thinking more about it, though, Max realized that Alex couldn’t be completely right either. Max was able to make Alex’s baby brother, Theo, smile just about any time Max tried. All he had to do was look Theo right in the eyes and make a big and wide smile first. A lot of times, he also made Theo giggle by doing that. There wasn’t gas at all.

It was nearly Max’s turn to stick his sheet of paper onto the Styrofoam cross that leaned against a makeshift wall inside the classroom. The paper was meant to represent one of Max’s sins, and the cross represented the real, wooden one Jesus died on. Around the top hung a crown of thorns similar to the one Roman soldiers had used to jab into Jesus’ head to torture him and make fun of him. This was serious.

Over 2,000 years ago, Jesus sacrificed himself so that people’s sins could be forgiven. Couldn’t God just change the rules? God can do anything He wants! Why did God want Jesus to die? Max was beginning to see how little he understood sin.

Max wasn’t quite certain if he was wrong by not sharing his sword with Aiden. “He should have brought his own. This one’s mine, and that kid might ruin it,” Max reasoned. Yet somehow, deep inside, he didn’t feel very good.

Max thought Aiden looked kind of sad. He remembered feeling that way himself just last week when Alex rode her bike over to visit. She brought an ice-cream sandwich. It was Max’s favorite and she knew it. She hadn’t given him even a tiny bite and ate the whole thing in front of him!

Lady Becca encouraged the class to study the Bible whenever they had questions about how God wants them to behave. She assured them that God wants what is best for them. She said, “God wrote a really long love note and sent his Word for all people. Sometimes it might seem confusing, but the more you read the Bible, the more you’ll come to understand how God wants you to live.”

Max thought, “Alex should take a look at what the Bible says about sharing.”

A moment later, Max surprised Aiden by lending him his sword. Then, the brave-hearted knight, Sir Max, approached the cross and let Jesus take away his sin.

Apr 10

Undressed

In the past few weeks, I’ve been taking an hour out of my day to develop several meet-cutes. A meet-cute is a term used in the movie industry illustrating how the main characters in a romance meet for the first time in a funny way. You can see the full definition on dictionary.com under the idiom for cute.

Generating story ideas for future projects can be daunting. A meet-cute is a fun way to jumpstart the creative process. What follows is one of the ideas that came out of this brainstorming.

 

"Die Geheimnisse Der Liebe", Harper’s Bazaar Germany, October 1996 Photographer : Pamela Hanson Models : Valeria Mazza & Jason lewis

“Die Geheimnisse Der Liebe”, Harper’s Bazaar Germany, October 1996
Photographer : Pamela Hanson
Models : Valeria Mazza & Jason lewis

“You’re not going to school dressed like that!” Sierra Pierson couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. She blinked a few times, trying to clear the vision of her 15-year-old daughter baring more skin then a whore in a heat wave. Penelope, her sweet, innocent daughter, the daughter that still sleeps cuddling her Teddy, who still asks for a kiss good night, stood in the hallway wearing a skirt so high and tight that if she sat down the action would expose her to all of the free world. And the top…Sierra didn’t even want to think about the image burned on the back of her eyelids.

A curse upon her family was early onset Boobitis, and unfortunately, Penelope had grown into said curse in the last year.

“Penelope Olivia Pierson,” Sierra said, pointing to her daughter’s room. “Go change right now.”

Poppy stiffened. Her mouth just started to open as a knock sounded at the front door. They both looked down the stairs.

“Go!” Sierra said. She wondered who would come knocking so early in the morning.

“Mom!”

“No Poppy. I don’t have time for this.” Sierra shook her head and pointed to her daughter. She could tell Poppy was eager for a fight. “I’m late. Why did this have to happen on the first day at the new office? She thought. Dammit!  She huffed in exasperation. “Please go change.”

Sierra started to turn for the stairs. The knocking got louder.

“Just a minute!” she yelled. Poppy hadn’t budged.

“Can I at least wear the shirt?” she whined.

Sierra rubbed her temple where a headache started tap dancing, looked up at the cracked ceiling and sighed. The house needed a lot of work and so did Poppy’s sense of decency. Eyes back on Poppy, she gave her her best evil eye that would melt the paint off an icy flagpole. “Only if you keep on your hoody.”

Sierra watched Poppy smirk. Oh, she thought she could get away with something. Not this time.

“You better keep it zipped. I’ll know if you don’t. I have eyes and ears all over this town, even at your school.” She crossed her arms under her own ample breasts.

Her daughter squinted, gave her the lip-curl and looked like she was going to snarl her displeasure, but decided against it. Good thing otherwise Sierra would have to remind her, what a crazy mother could do to embarrass said daughter. In a swirl of thwarted slutdom, Poppy left Sierra to answer the persistent knocking. Sierra ran down the stairs and yanked the door open as her mind whirled with all she had yet to do to get ready for her new job. “What!”

****

Detective Lawrence (Low) Renicki rolled up to the two-story prairie style house in his pick-up truck and pulled to a stop.  Why his best friend, Burk, couldn’t deliver a package to his sister himself, he would never know. But he owed him, and this was the payoff.

Low reached over, grabbed the small brown box and winced.  He slowly sat back up and took a couple deep breaths controlling the pain that snuck up on him. It wasn’t as bad as a couple days ago; it was enough to dampen the line of his brow and upper lip though. He’d be dead if it hadn’t for his best friend and partner, Burk, tackling a suspect who’d pulled a weapon and got off a shot.

Low had been recovering for a few weeks now, but it would be a few more before he got back to work. He’d rather be sitting watching a ball game then out running errands, but he owed his friend big time. And this was easy compared to what Burk could have asked for. Walking with a shortened gate, he knocked on the front door.  There was no immediate answer but he did hear some yelling. He looked to the side through the narrow window but couldn’t see much through the thin curtain. It sounded like an argument. He lifted his fist and knocked again, his side throbbing with each bang. Low thought he should just go. He needed to get this done and get back home. Before he could knock again, the door opened in a flourish and he almost dropped the small package but his jaw dropped open instead.

“What!”

All Low could do was stare.

Burk’s sister leaned on the solid wood doorframe, one arm above her head, the other fisted on her hip, the fabric of her very tight, very sheer white camisole, stretched to within an inch of its life. Barely hiding her lace bra, also white, it left little to the imagination. And thank the fashion gods for that, he thought, because they had blessed this woman with the most luscious breasts he’d had ever seen.

“Uh, uh?” Low stammered.

“Well? What do you want?” Sierra questioned with an irritated snap.

Clomping of shoes snapped his eyes to the sound coming down from the second floor. What was her name? Poppy, that was it, Low thought, she was the exact duplicate of her mother, blond hair, blue eyes, a little less curve in the hips, still growing into herself. He guessed, just getting a good hold on her teenage years, maybe.

The girl smiled, looked to her mother and he couldn’t help but look back at Sierra, caught again by all her curves. His fingers twitched to smooth them under the hem of the slick pencil skirt that she had paired with the camisole. He would wrinkle it up as he peeled back the fabric that hugged her hips. Low licked his lips.

When the daughter started laughing, his head snapped up. The woman’s eyes glanced over her shoulder, and then quickly down at where Poppy pointed and laughed. Sierra’s eyes came back up to his and he smiled. He couldn’t help it.

“Oh, shit!” Faster than a cheetah, Sierra disappeared up the stairs. “Just a minute,” she yelled down.

Low chuckled.

As Poppy turned away and walked through an open doorway toward the back of the house, Low thought he heard her say, “Well, that was fun.” And for the life of him he couldn’t remember why he even stopped by. Oh right, he remembered, the package, and laughed again, waiting for the very sexy Sierra to come back down.

His morning just got a whole lot better.

Apr 08

Call Me Plankton, Not Ishmael

Quality literary journals aim to publish works worthy of inclusion in anthologies such as Best American Short Stories (BASS) or the Pushcart Prize. With that very serious statement, I’m more of the mind to consider the acronym, BASS, and fall to the temptation of dreaming about fly fishing and lures named Woolly Bugger and Sneeky Pete Popper. Oh, I didn’t stop there. Videos on the Orvis How to Fly Fish Center show graceful casting and educate in short one minute segments. It occurs to me the pursuit of bass for sport and BASS (Best American Short Stories) for literature require some of the same techniques for casting and choosing lures.

In the great literary fish tank, the food chain dominates. As an emerging author, I am small, like plankton floating among the smallest of fish. Editors in journals or magazines prefer to publish as big a fish as possible. Often, submissions are skewed to published authors with novels on their resumes, and hence, no plankton need apply. Selective editors prefer certain lures with statements of “no simultaneous submissions” to avoid chum tossed overboard and a feeding frenzy.

For the sake of this article, let’s assume BASS is a large mouth bass, which swims in deeper and slower water. Like the aquatic fish, BASS wants only smaller fish that are published in American and Canadian national journals. These journals, the first publishers of a great short story, are baitfish for BASS. And from my research, BASS prefers certain fish more than others. Some might also argue that the editors of these journals work much harder to get selected by BASS.

John Fox, on Bookfox, ranks literary journals and magazines for the ability to publish stories which are eventually selected for the annual BASS anthology. He assigns points for both appearance and mentions. Every Writers’ Resource also ranks the journals using different criteria such as the number of years a journal has been in publication and a broader range of anthologies are considered. The favorite baitfish in these rankings are: The New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s Magazine, Glimmer Train, Granta, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Georgia Review, New England Review, The Kenyon Review and Paris Review.

The Pushcart Prize is the best of the worlds’ small presses for poetry, short stories, essays, memoirs or excerpts from novels. If in our example, Pushcart is a small mouth bass, then expect feeding on the surface in moving water, around rocks and ledges. According to the Orvis videos, a fisherman should observe the food sources in the water and emulate the food with the lure. Upon seeing baby crayfish, use the lure with the reddish-orange feathers and fur.  Clifford Garstang’s Pushcart Prize Rankings also list Tin House, Ploughshares and Paris Review as top ten favorites, but Pushcart draws heavily from Conjunctions, One Story, Southern Review, A Public Space, Zoetrope: All Story, Kenyon Review, and Three Penny.

As the apex predator, the reader, I want what is considered the best, but quite honestly, I enjoy reading everything. At bottom of the food chain, as the emerging writer, I learn and submit to places which might offer an opportunity. My goal is to create my own top ten list and submit them to death. However, I did submit to a February contest in the BASS top ten feeder journals. Although my probability of winning is low, actually infinitesimal, I receive a subscription to the review which makes it a win for plankton, apex readers and the journal’s overall readership.

Apr 06

Dare to Be Different

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” – Herman Melville

 

As the only female in my undergrad speech class, I comfortably delivered the speeches required by the professor’s syllabus. Comfortable that is until we received a new assignment, a five to seven minute demonstration speech using props, pictures, or other visual effects. After each presentation, our classmates would make comments about the subject and the presentation.

Testosterone filled the classroom as each student quickly stated what his subject would be. Topics included: how to fix a lamp cord, how to replace a garbage disposal, how to change the oil and oil filter in a car, how to give basketball officials’ signals, and how to use various repair tools.

Still living at home, I was used to my father doing all household repairs. However, he did teach my sister and me the difference between a Phillips screwdriver and a slotted screwdriver, a wrench and a ratchet, as well as vise grips and pliers. He taught us how to use a hammer without damaging a finger, how to clean walls bottom up to avoid streaks, and my favorite: how to jiggle the handle of the toilet to stop it from leaking. I knew a few repair tricks, but I knew I couldn’t compete with the men in demonstrating how to fix anything.

I didn’t pick a topic immediately and chose to be the last speaker in the rotation. What could I possibly demonstrate to a group of men who would give informative speeches showing their expertise in fixing a myriad of things? After much thought, I selected my topic, practiced what I would say, and carefully prepared my props.

On the day of my presentation, I opened my bag of visual effects in front of the class and said, “Today, I’m going to teach you how to make a dress.”

The look of surprise on the male professor’s face was priceless. I held up a large piece of fabric and a simple dress pattern and said, “This is what you start with.”

Putting those items aside, I held up a piece of fabric with pattern pieces pinned in place. I held up a pair of pinking shears and explained that they were preferable to plain scissors because they prevented the cut fabric from raveling. I described how darts are made to provide a smooth fit over the curvy parts of a woman’s body. I showed how I sewed a zipper into the dress.

All eyes were on me as I ended my demonstration speech with, “This is what the finished product looks like,” as I modeled the simple black form fitting dress. The applause that followed was heartwarming, but the positive comments told me that I succeeded.

I dared to be different. When have you dared to try something different?