Life in the Slow Lane

I seem to have temporarily (let’s hope) lost my writing mojo.

I was messaging my sister today and I mused how funny it is that we go through some things with our blinkers on.

“Blinkers?”

“Like the horsies,” I wrote.

Blinders is what I meant, even though, until she called me on it, I would have sworn that horses wear blinkers. (It makes it so much easier for the old-order Mennonite traffic.)

So that’s what I’ve been up to lately—moving slowly through Word docs, cooking dinner at half speed, vainly trying in vain to make a memorable Inauguration Day for Caleb and his crew—blinkers on, trying to find the mojo.

I Did It

I ordered my family Snuggies.

Proof of Minor Ways in Which I Am Optimistic

1. Part of me believes that, sometime in the future, Ann Coulter will announce that she’s been acting for years as a rogue scholar of Constitutional law, testing the limits of free speech.

2. I keep playing Scramble even though it’s physically impossible for me to beat Erin’s score of 274.

3. Raw oysters.

Getting Schooled

We had a pretty groovy holiday. My big news is that I’m taking a fiction writing workshop with Jincy Willett, she who wrote some of my very favorite books. (Have you read The Writing Class yet? Crazy good, yes?)

I haven’t taken a workshop since I was but a lass, in college and then a couple years later at an ill-fated two-week stint at Warren Wilson College (from which I came home and immediately got pregnant, conveniently answering the question of what I would be doing in the near future). I’ve become significantly bossier since then, and I was worried that I’d be very bad at being a student. Sort of the Dwight Shrute of the class.

But I enjoyed myself—I’d almost forgotten what a workshop is like. This one is online and uses discussion boards and chat rooms to happen, which is a little weird because you can’t see the reaction of the person whose work you’re critiquing. (On the other hand, I suppose the writer on the other end can roll his or her eyes and flick off the screen and mock you if he or she wants to.) And did I mention the instructor is Jincy Willett?

I’m trying not to be all gushy and ass-kissy, but there was this moment when she asked us to introduce ourselves and say a little something about what we’re working on and about our favorite writers. You know who I wanted to say. But I didn’t.

More Soon

We are sick-ish, and I must work.

But I must also go on record as saying that if that someone permanently destroyed the master copy of that goddamned Bender Ball commercial—you know the one, with that woman who has too much saliva in her mouth, saying, "I love my abdominals. I love my belly"—I would feel better.

Thanks.

Happy, Merry

For my grandpap’s November birthday, I got him a pen, as seen on TV, in which you can record messages. From the commercial, I thought the gift was a little bittersweet, a good present for someone who’s experiencing “senior moments” or has had trouble with absent-mindedness. The gift giver is led to believe that, if you care, you can prevent a loved one from forgetting why he went to the grocery store. You can make it so your friend or family member doesn’t wander around a parking lot for hours, looking for the car. You can give the joy of memory, prevent the embarrassment of forgetfulness, become a human ribbon tied around a finger.

In reality, Grandpap and Gram took it to the bowling alley and used it to punk members of their bowling league.

Here’s to good surprises and joy and peace of mind for everybody this season. See you in 2009!

Pick Up Your Pencils, Boys and Girls

This morning, I went to Caleb’s school for a Writers’ Hot-Chocolate House (a coffee house for the under-eleven set.) A group of the kids had gone to the museum to participate in a writing contest where they penned a poem or story inspired by one of the pieces of art. The teacher ran the readings beatnik-style: The lighting was low, the writers sat on a stool, and we snapped our appeciation.

With a few exceptions, the boys in the class seemed to focus on plot (a robot’s head was punched off, a sumo wrestler ate some art, a stone that could blow up the world was revealed). The girls? All up in character and motivation. (But WHY were you murdered?)

Which is pretty much the gender stereotype of adult writers, too. Even setting aside the obvious spy thriller/ chick lit divide, there’s this idea out there that women writers create memorable characters and men writers create ground-breaking changes to the form. Me, I’ve mostly been of the opinion that book publishing is a weird enough creature that gender is a minor factor in whether a book is successful or not.

And yet. I’ve been thinking about character a lot. I’m better at it than plot (I say, as I’m plotting this thing I’m writing within an inch of its life). Maybe it’s the hot chocolate talking, but after this morning, I’m just a teensy bit more open to the idea that if women are better at character (a big generalization, granted) and character is less valued than form (another big generalization), then women writers might have a harder row to hoe than men writers.

Last night I was reading Bitch magazine, and there was a discussion of an article they ran on ambition. “[I]t’s harder for women to have a strong, colorful persona without appearing like a hobo,” one commenter wrote. “The range of acceptable personalities is still wider for men.” Not everyone agreed, but still.

There is a class of literature, no matter how widely acclaimed, I won’t read. It’s the tale of the older guy who, fearing his mortality, has an affair with a younger woman. I know this story. It’s called About Half the Dads of People I Know, and there are no surprises in it. But other than that, I’m pretty much open to characters of all sorts. No matter who’s writing a book, I do like a strong character. It can compensate, in my mind, for a weaker plot in a way that a strong plot can’t compensate for a squishy character.

Am I being such a girl for thinking this way? Or is my own bias—that I’m better at character than I am plot, that I’m a lady writer and reader, that I don’t think I have many biases against strong female personalities—showing through?

I don’t know the answer. But this whole strong personality thing might explain some of the reviews of Practically Perfect. There are definitely positive ones (for which I’m very grateful), but I’m always taken off guard by the negative ones that aren’t criticisms of the book but of me. One called me an “irritating personality.” Another claimed that if she knew me in real life, she wouldn’t want to spend much time with me. (Aw, please?) And the local daily may or may not have equated me with Paris Hilton (the book review writing was unclear).

Or maybe it doesn’t explain anything at all. I haven’t set up a Google alert for, say, A.J. Jacobs so I don’t know if his personality gets enmeshed in his reviews.

Thoughts, questions, concerns? What do you think?