At the end of the novel-writing month in November, everyone who participated got an e-mail telling us to put it aside for a few weeks and then read it again and see if we thought it was worth more time and effort. So I haven't touched it since Nov. 29th. I pulled it out again this afternoon and read through about half of it. It was pretty dang disappointing.
I was so happy with the experience of doing it-- how charged/energized it made me feel -- that I had decided in (the absence of actually reading it) that it must be pretty good. But it's not. And it's not necessarily because it's badly written, although there are certainly a lot of parts that need work. It's more a fault of the way it's set up. The story is told through the journal entries of a 13 yr old girl named Sarah. And unfortunately, a very significant part of the plot has to do with when she is silent and when she isn't. So unless you're paying attention to the dates and noticing when she's silent, which I never do when I read a novel like this, it just doesn't work. I tried adding in journal entries from her friends during the spaces where she is silent, but that only partially solves the problem-- they convey the passage of time, but they're boring compared to Sarah's struggle to come to terms with her mother's death. What the heck can happen to them that will balance out the death of a parent? Nothing that I can think of without getting into absurd soap opera kind of stuff.
So I'm feeling bummed. But not entirely. It was still eye-opening for me to figure out that I can do this, and that even though it made me crazy at times, I liked doing it. And those are some pretty good things to know. I think I am going to work on it some more because it really isn't even finished, I just ran out of time at the end. But I don't think it is worth a major effort at rewriting and revising. ..................... darn it.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Monday, December 25, 2006
All done-- well except Christmas dinner with some friends tonight, but I only have to bring dessert, which is already done, so that's easy. We had a great Christmas this year, nothing too exciting but everyone is happy and it was a lot of fun. And we were only up until about 11 last night, a change from the years when we were up till 1 a.m. fixing all the Santa stuff.
The weather was spectacular yesterday, which is so unusual that everybody in town was outside just standing in the sun. We've had several weeks of "inversions" this year, which means it is sunny and gorgeous up on top of the mountains and foggy, gray and frozen down here where we actually live. (You can check this out sometime on Big Mountain webcams, not today, but sometimes from the summit cam you can see bright sunshine and a floor of clouds stretching out forever-- you'll note that we live UNDER those clouds....)
But anyway, yesterday it was gorgeous so we went out to the woods and cross-country skiied for a couple of hours. It was fabulous and even wore out our irritatingly energetic dog. I had to go grocery shopping, but other than that haven't been to a store since Thursday, which is a good thing because I hear it was wild.
We always have our neighbors over for Christmas breakfast around 11. I think I must have overdone the vodka in the bloody mary's (oops) because I'm ready for a nap.
Aunt BeaN
The weather was spectacular yesterday, which is so unusual that everybody in town was outside just standing in the sun. We've had several weeks of "inversions" this year, which means it is sunny and gorgeous up on top of the mountains and foggy, gray and frozen down here where we actually live. (You can check this out sometime on Big Mountain webcams, not today, but sometimes from the summit cam you can see bright sunshine and a floor of clouds stretching out forever-- you'll note that we live UNDER those clouds....)
But anyway, yesterday it was gorgeous so we went out to the woods and cross-country skiied for a couple of hours. It was fabulous and even wore out our irritatingly energetic dog. I had to go grocery shopping, but other than that haven't been to a store since Thursday, which is a good thing because I hear it was wild.
We always have our neighbors over for Christmas breakfast around 11. I think I must have overdone the vodka in the bloody mary's (oops) because I'm ready for a nap.
Aunt BeaN
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas music
One of the best things about Christmas is the music. There are certain songs that just make me smile. For example-- the California Guitar Trio rendition of "Jingle Bells" and "Happy Christmas (War is Over)." And I love the Three Tenors and the Polar Express soundtrack. I have several compilations that have music from the 40s that are great, and of course there's Canadian Brass. But I think my favorite is Harry Connick Jr's first Christmas album,"When My Heart Finds Christmas." It has my all-time favorite Christmas song. I think of it as "Moms Everywhere Christmas Eve Song" because the words, with full gospel choir accompaniment, are something to the effect of "...and I pray on Christmas, he'll get me through another day..." It is so awesome, I listen to it several times a day when things get a little hectic, because it makes me dance around like a nut. I tried to figure out how to include a clip, but apparently you can't do that unless you go through the flash programming thing. They have it on amazon, though, even though the clip fades out right as he gets to my favorite line.
But Christmas this year, though stressful, is so much better than last year that I'm grateful for that alone. Last year at this time I was on a prophylactic migraine med that made me crazy (almost literally). I am grateful beyond belief that I'm not taking it anymore. Christmas this year has been a joy, just because it's the season, of course; but also by comparison. Sometimes it's the little things that make you happy.
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night--
AB
But Christmas this year, though stressful, is so much better than last year that I'm grateful for that alone. Last year at this time I was on a prophylactic migraine med that made me crazy (almost literally). I am grateful beyond belief that I'm not taking it anymore. Christmas this year has been a joy, just because it's the season, of course; but also by comparison. Sometimes it's the little things that make you happy.
Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night--
AB
Saturday, December 23, 2006
I'm still plugging away at "The Life You Save May be Your Own." The part I'm reading now (about Flannery O'Connor) is much more interesting. Since it's two days before Christmas I (of course) have a ton of stuff to do today but I just read this last night and wanted to post it here. O'Connor wrote this in a letter to a student:
"I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of our times. It's hard to believe always, but more so in the world we live in now. There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not."
Nice to find a kindred spirit (even if she's been dead quite awhile).
It's snowing here, it looks more like a picture postcard out my window every minute. Just hear those sleigh bells jing-a-ling, ring-ting-ting-a-ling, too....
Aunty BeaN
"I don't think you should write something as long as a novel around anything that is not of the gravest concern to you and everybody else, and for me this is always the conflict between an attraction for the Holy and the disbelief in it that we breathe in with the air of our times. It's hard to believe always, but more so in the world we live in now. There are some of us who have to pay for our faith every step of the way and who have to work out dramatically what it would be like without it and if being without it would be ultimately possible or not."
Nice to find a kindred spirit (even if she's been dead quite awhile).
It's snowing here, it looks more like a picture postcard out my window every minute. Just hear those sleigh bells jing-a-ling, ring-ting-ting-a-ling, too....
Aunty BeaN
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Christmas always reminds me why I love Christianity, even though I'm not a very orthodox Christian anymore. It's been stretched out of shape by fundamentalists and literalists and big-money evangelists, but if you can get a fresh perspective on it every once in awhile, there's still so much there-- and Christmas is the best example, in my opinion. The story of God, the big guy with the infinite cosmic power, deciding to make his grand appearance on earth in the form of a baby (a BABY!!) is such a wonderfully bizarre concept that you just can't help but appreciate it. I'm not even talking about taking the story literally, it's the concept I love, even if you just read it as a myth.
In an age where we are being told on a daily basis that the answer to the world's problems is more military might, bigger armies, more guns, and so on, here is solution of the Christmas story: a tiny, helpless, vulnerable baby, born to an unwed mother from a poor, politically oppressed people. We've heard the story so many times that it's hard to remember how strange that is, how utterly confounding.
I can already hear somebody saying: but miraculous birth stories are a common historical occurence for that time period, and yes I do know that. but as the introductory story of the Christian scriptures, it makes for a thought-provoking start-- even if, maybe especially if, you don't take it literally. Even as a child, it was the most meaningful part of christianity to me, far more so than the crucifixion and resurrection.
...the world in solemn stillness lay / to hear the angels sing....
Aunt BeaN
In an age where we are being told on a daily basis that the answer to the world's problems is more military might, bigger armies, more guns, and so on, here is solution of the Christmas story: a tiny, helpless, vulnerable baby, born to an unwed mother from a poor, politically oppressed people. We've heard the story so many times that it's hard to remember how strange that is, how utterly confounding.
I can already hear somebody saying: but miraculous birth stories are a common historical occurence for that time period, and yes I do know that. but as the introductory story of the Christian scriptures, it makes for a thought-provoking start-- even if, maybe especially if, you don't take it literally. Even as a child, it was the most meaningful part of christianity to me, far more so than the crucifixion and resurrection.
...the world in solemn stillness lay / to hear the angels sing....
Aunt BeaN
Thursday, December 07, 2006
OK, so back to the topic at hand. A couple of months ago I downloaded a recording of Julia Sweeney on a radio program called This American Life. She was talking about her experiences with her own and her brother's cancer. I really enjoyed it, and made a fool out of myself cracking up while driving around alone in my car. So I decided I would download more of her stuff. So I found interviews with her on both Fresh Air and To The Best of Our Knowledge (all three of those are great public radio programs, check them out sometime). She was talking about her new one-woman show called "Letting Go of God" in which she describes her experience in first of all coming back to the Catholic church as an adult after something of an epiphany, and secondly her subsequent decision to leave the church because she just couldn't buy it. She now considers herself an atheist. She is, as always, very entertaining and very interesting and she brings up a lot of excellent points to think about. Both interviews are very good.
Recently I've been having yet another of my ongoing periods of questioning everything. I've had a few moments where I've stood at the brink of atheism and looked over the edge and thought about taking the plunge. I think there are people out there who are raised in a religious environment, as I was, who take this plunge easily-- they decide they can't do religion the way they were raised, walk out the door and never look back. But for me, it would be huge. It would be an entirely new way of looking at the world. Even though I left the religion of my youth some twenty years ago, I've never ceased to believe that there is something beyond our conscious selves that we can connect with. I'm not sure what it is (God, Nothing, collective subconscious, who knows). To believe that there is absolutely nothing beyond that which can be perceived with our five senses, would be an extremely different way of looking at things.
But on the other hand, I'm also fascinated by some of the implications. When she initially returned to the church, she did so because she had had a spiritual experience. In a really low moment in the middle of the night following a divorce and illness, she had a profound experience of the presence of what she thought was God-- a sense of light and warmth and connection with all of everything, and a definite sense that there was something/someone there that she had connected with. So she went back to the church she had been raised in (Catholic), and it was her experience of closely investigating Catholicism that led her to leave the church and seek explanations elsewhere. Where she eventually found answers that made sense to her was in science, which led her to become an atheist. So of course Terry Gross asked her, so now that you're an atheist, what do you make of that experience, that spiritual epiphany? And her response was that she now thinks of it as the random firing of neurons in the right front parietal lobe of her brain (or something like that, I may not have gotten the terms right).
Now I've heard this argument before and I don't get it. How does the fact that we now know which neurons fire during moments of profound spiritual experience prove that we're not having the spiritual experience??? That makes no sense. The fact that we know which neurons fire when we smell garlic doesn't mean the garlic isn't there. I'm not arguing with her decision to become an atheist, I'm arguing with her explanation of what happened when she had that moment. Every time I listen to an atheist talk about their beliefs, I get the same impression. They want to believe they're being totally rational and logical, but they have no explanation for spiritual experiences beyond the obvious: neurons firing. And I've had a number of what I consider to be spiritual experiences. So for me to ignore those and say, "Oh, it was just neurons firing," would be as irrational as it would be for someone who has never had a spiritual experience to take a leap of faith just because someone else says so. This isn't saying what I want to say, I may have to try it again later.
The interview from "To The Best of Our Knowledge" also had a couple of interviews with other people in the same program. And with both of the atheists interviewed, the inconsistency seemed the same. The part of their argument which is very valid isn't with spirituality, it's with religion, and with people who use religion as an excuse to not think. And I think that this is an excellent point and one which all of us who are believers should take very seriously. But it doesn't prove that spirituality doesn't exist. It doesn't even prove that God doesn't exist (which one of them acknowledges). I think there must be some middle ground somewhere, where you don't allow your faith to let you take shortcuts into muzzy-headed reasoning, but you also allow for the fact that there is an element of human experience that is spiritual. So that we work on figuring out what that means instead of just saying, "oh, it's random neurons firing."
So in short (ha! I gues this hasn't been short). OK, so in summary. These interviews are fascinating, I highly recommend listening to them. They made me think a lot. But in the end, they weren't particularly convincing to me in deciding the questions that I'm dealing with right now. I may still end up deciding that there is nothing out there. But neither of these atheists convinced me that their way of thinking is that much more reasonable than the way believers think.
I'm starting to think in circles here so I will stop. I'm sure there will be more on this topic because I've barely scratched the surface.
Oh, joy, you're thinking.
the goose is getting fat....
Aunt BeaN
Recently I've been having yet another of my ongoing periods of questioning everything. I've had a few moments where I've stood at the brink of atheism and looked over the edge and thought about taking the plunge. I think there are people out there who are raised in a religious environment, as I was, who take this plunge easily-- they decide they can't do religion the way they were raised, walk out the door and never look back. But for me, it would be huge. It would be an entirely new way of looking at the world. Even though I left the religion of my youth some twenty years ago, I've never ceased to believe that there is something beyond our conscious selves that we can connect with. I'm not sure what it is (God, Nothing, collective subconscious, who knows). To believe that there is absolutely nothing beyond that which can be perceived with our five senses, would be an extremely different way of looking at things.
But on the other hand, I'm also fascinated by some of the implications. When she initially returned to the church, she did so because she had had a spiritual experience. In a really low moment in the middle of the night following a divorce and illness, she had a profound experience of the presence of what she thought was God-- a sense of light and warmth and connection with all of everything, and a definite sense that there was something/someone there that she had connected with. So she went back to the church she had been raised in (Catholic), and it was her experience of closely investigating Catholicism that led her to leave the church and seek explanations elsewhere. Where she eventually found answers that made sense to her was in science, which led her to become an atheist. So of course Terry Gross asked her, so now that you're an atheist, what do you make of that experience, that spiritual epiphany? And her response was that she now thinks of it as the random firing of neurons in the right front parietal lobe of her brain (or something like that, I may not have gotten the terms right).
Now I've heard this argument before and I don't get it. How does the fact that we now know which neurons fire during moments of profound spiritual experience prove that we're not having the spiritual experience??? That makes no sense. The fact that we know which neurons fire when we smell garlic doesn't mean the garlic isn't there. I'm not arguing with her decision to become an atheist, I'm arguing with her explanation of what happened when she had that moment. Every time I listen to an atheist talk about their beliefs, I get the same impression. They want to believe they're being totally rational and logical, but they have no explanation for spiritual experiences beyond the obvious: neurons firing. And I've had a number of what I consider to be spiritual experiences. So for me to ignore those and say, "Oh, it was just neurons firing," would be as irrational as it would be for someone who has never had a spiritual experience to take a leap of faith just because someone else says so. This isn't saying what I want to say, I may have to try it again later.
The interview from "To The Best of Our Knowledge" also had a couple of interviews with other people in the same program. And with both of the atheists interviewed, the inconsistency seemed the same. The part of their argument which is very valid isn't with spirituality, it's with religion, and with people who use religion as an excuse to not think. And I think that this is an excellent point and one which all of us who are believers should take very seriously. But it doesn't prove that spirituality doesn't exist. It doesn't even prove that God doesn't exist (which one of them acknowledges). I think there must be some middle ground somewhere, where you don't allow your faith to let you take shortcuts into muzzy-headed reasoning, but you also allow for the fact that there is an element of human experience that is spiritual. So that we work on figuring out what that means instead of just saying, "oh, it's random neurons firing."
So in short (ha! I gues this hasn't been short). OK, so in summary. These interviews are fascinating, I highly recommend listening to them. They made me think a lot. But in the end, they weren't particularly convincing to me in deciding the questions that I'm dealing with right now. I may still end up deciding that there is nothing out there. But neither of these atheists convinced me that their way of thinking is that much more reasonable than the way believers think.
I'm starting to think in circles here so I will stop. I'm sure there will be more on this topic because I've barely scratched the surface.
Oh, joy, you're thinking.
the goose is getting fat....
Aunt BeaN
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
The Intellectual Frontier
There are a lot of wonderful things about the place where I live, foremost among them being world-class scenery. Sometimes the view of the mountains to the east of here is enough for me to drive off the road. I've lived here for almost fifteen years now and it still captivates me.
What is severely lacking is intellectual stimulation. There are plenty of smart people and artist-types around, but still you have to go looking if you want to have a conversation about something other than skiing or hunting. That's an exaggeration, of course, but there's an element of truth, too.
If you have the kind of brain, as I do, that requires a certain amount of fodder to keep its continual chomping satisfied, you have to go out and find your own. Hence, the reading projects. And more recently, Audible.com. It is the most incredible, amazing treasure trove. I initially joined to get auidobooks that I would download to an iPod and then that would (supposedly) motivate me to get some exercise. The exercise part has only been somewhat successful, but in the meantime, I've turned into an Audible.com junkie. It is unbelievable what you can find there.
I've discovered that I don't really like audiobooks, because I can't skim over the parts that are boring, and the narrator often reads far more slowly than I do. BUT, there are radio broadcasts on any topic you can imagine-- interviews, book reviews, radio journalism, you name it. Thousands of them. So I get to have the illusion that I am listening to cutting edge stuff, stuff that makes me think and question and figure things out, even though I live out in the middle of nowhere. It's fabulous. The reason why I say it's an illusion, though, is because often the interviews I'm listening to are two or three years old. So it's new stuff to me, but if you actually lived somewhere where people are intellectually involved, this would be old news.
But hey, it makes me happy.
So, just to prove that I do sometimes listen to my readers, I'm going to stop right there and not keep going on to a discussion of the interview I was just listening to ('scuse the dangling preposition). I do periodically try to keep my posts short but it just doesn't seem to work.
More later. Plus my son is about to get home from school with his buddy Keith and they will need something to eat.
SWAK.
Aunt BeaN
What is severely lacking is intellectual stimulation. There are plenty of smart people and artist-types around, but still you have to go looking if you want to have a conversation about something other than skiing or hunting. That's an exaggeration, of course, but there's an element of truth, too.
If you have the kind of brain, as I do, that requires a certain amount of fodder to keep its continual chomping satisfied, you have to go out and find your own. Hence, the reading projects. And more recently, Audible.com. It is the most incredible, amazing treasure trove. I initially joined to get auidobooks that I would download to an iPod and then that would (supposedly) motivate me to get some exercise. The exercise part has only been somewhat successful, but in the meantime, I've turned into an Audible.com junkie. It is unbelievable what you can find there.
I've discovered that I don't really like audiobooks, because I can't skim over the parts that are boring, and the narrator often reads far more slowly than I do. BUT, there are radio broadcasts on any topic you can imagine-- interviews, book reviews, radio journalism, you name it. Thousands of them. So I get to have the illusion that I am listening to cutting edge stuff, stuff that makes me think and question and figure things out, even though I live out in the middle of nowhere. It's fabulous. The reason why I say it's an illusion, though, is because often the interviews I'm listening to are two or three years old. So it's new stuff to me, but if you actually lived somewhere where people are intellectually involved, this would be old news.
But hey, it makes me happy.
So, just to prove that I do sometimes listen to my readers, I'm going to stop right there and not keep going on to a discussion of the interview I was just listening to ('scuse the dangling preposition). I do periodically try to keep my posts short but it just doesn't seem to work.
More later. Plus my son is about to get home from school with his buddy Keith and they will need something to eat.
SWAK.
Aunt BeaN
Monday, December 04, 2006
The three of you who read the original Aunt BeaN's blog will remember that I occasionally make up reading projects for myself. This time I'm reading a book called The Life You Save May Be Your Own, which is about Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor, all 20th century Catholic writers who corresponded and considered themselves colleagues. Then the idea was to read a book(s) by each of them-- I have The Long LOneliness (Day), Seven Storey Mountain (Merton), The Moviegoer (Percy) and The Violent Bear it Away (O'Connor).
I was going to read The Life You Save first, but I'm having a hard time slogging through it. It's not exactly boring; let's just say it's interesting in a dull kind of way. Since the time that I usually pick it up is right before bed, I rarely get more than two pages done before I'm falling asleep. (That's not always the case with me-- for a good book, I'll read past midnight, no matter how tired I am.) And since it's quite a long book, that means I'm barely a quarter of the way through it, even though I've been working on it for a couple of months now. So now I'm just trying to get through the preliminary stuff-- their early lives, etc-- to get to the point where they started writing and then I think I will break off and read the other books. I've read a fair amount of Percy and O'Connor before, so I'm especially looking forward to those.
will keep you posted.
oh, I just crack myself up sometimes.
AB
I was going to read The Life You Save first, but I'm having a hard time slogging through it. It's not exactly boring; let's just say it's interesting in a dull kind of way. Since the time that I usually pick it up is right before bed, I rarely get more than two pages done before I'm falling asleep. (That's not always the case with me-- for a good book, I'll read past midnight, no matter how tired I am.) And since it's quite a long book, that means I'm barely a quarter of the way through it, even though I've been working on it for a couple of months now. So now I'm just trying to get through the preliminary stuff-- their early lives, etc-- to get to the point where they started writing and then I think I will break off and read the other books. I've read a fair amount of Percy and O'Connor before, so I'm especially looking forward to those.
will keep you posted.
oh, I just crack myself up sometimes.
AB
Sunday, December 03, 2006
I sit at a computer at work for probably at least 5 hours Mon-Fri. Then I spent the last month obsessively working on that dang novel. And managed to totally throw out my neck and shoulders, mainly by typing so much. I see a chiropractor who practices the sacral-occipital method, which is a way of helping your body adjust itself rather than just getting "cracked" (which I've also benefited from at times, but this is different). She spent my whole 30-minute appt this past week trying to undo the damage I'd done to my neck. So I was going to stay off the computer this week (except work, of course). It didn't go so well. First my daughter had an emergency regarding a project due on Friday--- and since I had been the one to tell her to do it the way she was doing it, I sort of had to come to the rescue. Which involved finding some shareware software, downloading it, installing, getting it to work, helping her figure out what she needed to do, etc-- that was Wed and Thurs night. Then yesterday we decided we needed to finish the online part of our Christmas shopping, so that was another two hours. So I shouldn't even be sitting here, and I don't really have anything to say even.
Well, I can report one thing. I tried to make hot spiced cider using a combination of apple juice and cranberry juice (leftover from Thanksgiving). Not a good idea. Now you know. Just use the apple juice.
Back in a few--
AB
Well, I can report one thing. I tried to make hot spiced cider using a combination of apple juice and cranberry juice (leftover from Thanksgiving). Not a good idea. Now you know. Just use the apple juice.
Back in a few--
AB
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
There are five days left in the NaNoWriMo and I just passed 20,000 words. Making it unlikely in the extreme that I will get to 50,000 by the end of the month. Early in the month, I wasn't worried about being behind, because I knew I had a bunch of time coming up at the end of the month. But you know, life intervened-- I could list all the little things that happened, but the specifics don't really matter. Yes, I could have stayed up until 1 a.m. making up for time that got lost, but I didn't. I have been plugging away at it, though, and for that I am very proud of myself. Not that many years ago, I would have just quit. But I've been writing 500-1,000 words a day with not all that many exceptions. I took four days off when we had out-of-town company, a couple of days off when I had to re-think my whole plot, a day off when my son was home sick. But other than that, I've worked on it every day.
The main thing I've learned is to just keep typing. The hardest part there is to ignore that little voice that is saying, "This is a pile of crap, what's the point?" "This is boring. No one will ever want to read it. Why are you wasting your time?" "No one talks like this [dialog being written]. This is stupid. Just stop embarrassing yourself and give it up."
Because... and here is the best thing I've learned.... as long as I can ignore that inner critic, this has been really fun. Thinking up ideas and turning them into words is something that is endlessly entertaining to me, even if it does turn out stuff that is boring to everyone else. (with the obvious parallel being this blog). And I've learned a few tricks about how I work that have helped, too-- things that I sort of knew before but hadn't ever put into practice. Like: I usually start with the endpoint, and then do the bulk of the writing to figure out how that endpoint happened. Example: I was plugging along with Sarah's school year. I had this really good idea for something that would happen in April, but I didn't feel like I should write it until I got there. But I was totally running out of steam, so I finally decided to jump ahead and write the April scene. That scene poured out like it was inspired and as I typed it, a half-dozen other ideas for things that needed to happen along the way appeared spontaneously. Then I remembered that I'd had this experience before the last time I tried writing fiction-- I would start with a certain scene that came very vividly to mind, thinking it was the beginning. But as it turned out, the rest of the story ended up being about how the characters got there. Which is different than what I've read about other writers doing, but if it works for me I guess it doesn't matter.
So anyway. Yesterday when it finally sank in that there was no way I was going to hit 50,000 words, I was kind of depressed about it. But today, I'm just glad I did this. It was fun. I hope I can do it again next year. And I hope I'll hit 30,000 anyway-- there's still five days to go!
The main thing I've learned is to just keep typing. The hardest part there is to ignore that little voice that is saying, "This is a pile of crap, what's the point?" "This is boring. No one will ever want to read it. Why are you wasting your time?" "No one talks like this [dialog being written]. This is stupid. Just stop embarrassing yourself and give it up."
Because... and here is the best thing I've learned.... as long as I can ignore that inner critic, this has been really fun. Thinking up ideas and turning them into words is something that is endlessly entertaining to me, even if it does turn out stuff that is boring to everyone else. (with the obvious parallel being this blog). And I've learned a few tricks about how I work that have helped, too-- things that I sort of knew before but hadn't ever put into practice. Like: I usually start with the endpoint, and then do the bulk of the writing to figure out how that endpoint happened. Example: I was plugging along with Sarah's school year. I had this really good idea for something that would happen in April, but I didn't feel like I should write it until I got there. But I was totally running out of steam, so I finally decided to jump ahead and write the April scene. That scene poured out like it was inspired and as I typed it, a half-dozen other ideas for things that needed to happen along the way appeared spontaneously. Then I remembered that I'd had this experience before the last time I tried writing fiction-- I would start with a certain scene that came very vividly to mind, thinking it was the beginning. But as it turned out, the rest of the story ended up being about how the characters got there. Which is different than what I've read about other writers doing, but if it works for me I guess it doesn't matter.
So anyway. Yesterday when it finally sank in that there was no way I was going to hit 50,000 words, I was kind of depressed about it. But today, I'm just glad I did this. It was fun. I hope I can do it again next year. And I hope I'll hit 30,000 anyway-- there's still five days to go!
Thursday, November 16, 2006
I'm pretty sure I was not meant to be a novelist. It is like pulling teeth to keep on writing this thing. Every word is like pushing a boulder uphill. And I'm not even that far along, I just passed 10,000 words this afternoon! I keep waiting to get my second wind where the words pour out the way they did for the first 5,000 or so, but it hasn't happened yet. I'm not giving up yet, though. I just want to see how much I can get done, even if it's not 50K. It will have been worth doing even if I never get past 20K, I've really learned a lot.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
So here's the thing. My nano was supposed to be told from the point of view of a 13 year old girl who's mother has just died. How I came up with that is another story but I'll save it for another time. Originally the whole thing was going to be told through her journal entries. The problems with that, when 50,000 words are required, are quickly evident. 1) 13 year old girls don't write 1,000 word journal entries. Mine are coming in at anywhere from 50 to 400 words, and it takes a whole dang lot of those to add up to 50,000. 2) She quits writing in her journal for about six weeks after her mom dies, and after that, her entries are even shorter and sparser-- two in the month she starts writing again, and then 3-4 per month for several months after that. So it is almost impossible to get a lot of words. But the story arc, at least the way it exists in my head at the moment, takes place in the space of about a year-- so in other words, I'm about six months into it right now with 8,000 words, and it's going to be nearly impossible to get more than about 15,000 done the way I have it in my head-- even if I pad pad pad and add a bunch of scenes with a traditional 3rd person narrator.
THere is a perfect solution: she is part of a group of four really close friends. So instead of the story being one girl's version of a year in her life, it could be told by four different voices, each of whom has her own things going on. Four x 12,000 words or so and there you are. Some of it I've already figured out: one girl's dad is an alcoholic, one's parents are hyper-religious. But it's a huge mental shift. Until I figured out this word count thing, I had only planned on Sarah's story. And I've gotten pretty attached to her. part of the problem is that I just don't want to tell the other girls' stories.
But on the other hand, it would also solve some major problems-- like this way the reader would get to find out what was happening with Sarah in the weeks when she wasn't writing at all or not much. example: there is no description of the memorial service, because I figure Sarah would have been too numb and miserable to write about that. But I could easily have one or all three of her friends describe it.
OK, not that anybody wanted to know all this but it's what I've been thinking about all day today. If I'm going to stay in the nano "competition" I really don't have any choice-- and it will probably be good for me just as an exercise. But it's going to take a few days to regroup, I think.
it feels like wrestling with peanut butter.
H&K,
Aunt BeaN
THere is a perfect solution: she is part of a group of four really close friends. So instead of the story being one girl's version of a year in her life, it could be told by four different voices, each of whom has her own things going on. Four x 12,000 words or so and there you are. Some of it I've already figured out: one girl's dad is an alcoholic, one's parents are hyper-religious. But it's a huge mental shift. Until I figured out this word count thing, I had only planned on Sarah's story. And I've gotten pretty attached to her. part of the problem is that I just don't want to tell the other girls' stories.
But on the other hand, it would also solve some major problems-- like this way the reader would get to find out what was happening with Sarah in the weeks when she wasn't writing at all or not much. example: there is no description of the memorial service, because I figure Sarah would have been too numb and miserable to write about that. But I could easily have one or all three of her friends describe it.
OK, not that anybody wanted to know all this but it's what I've been thinking about all day today. If I'm going to stay in the nano "competition" I really don't have any choice-- and it will probably be good for me just as an exercise. But it's going to take a few days to regroup, I think.
it feels like wrestling with peanut butter.
H&K,
Aunt BeaN
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
So here it is a week later and I've only written about another 1,200 words in my NaNo. I do have a good excuse-- my mom was here visiting for four days. And I have some free time coming up, so I hope I will be able to make it up. But I'm seeing the value in having told a few people that I'm doing this: I think if I had kept it a secret, I'd just bag it at this point. I have just under 9,000 words written and my plot has pretty much petered out. (I could permit this post to be printed almost perfectly with p words but I imagine it would get boring.) The ideas I've come up with so far for subplots and backstories and descriptions don't interest me very much. but I think that is part of the point-- or at least, the point that I needed to get out of this: sometimes it is more important to get it done than to get it perfect. Now doesn't that sound like something that should go on a poster somewhere?
So since my eyelids are starting to shut of their own accord, I'm going to bed now but I'm hoping some sort of huge inspiration will hit me overnight and I'll be ready to go tomorrow when the school where I work has an "early out" (the kids go home early, which means I get to, too). It would be great to be at 12,000 before the weekend. That's my goal. but as you can probably guess, I'm pretty good at rationalizing.
Love,
Aunt BeaN
(typing is my life)
So since my eyelids are starting to shut of their own accord, I'm going to bed now but I'm hoping some sort of huge inspiration will hit me overnight and I'll be ready to go tomorrow when the school where I work has an "early out" (the kids go home early, which means I get to, too). It would be great to be at 12,000 before the weekend. That's my goal. but as you can probably guess, I'm pretty good at rationalizing.
Love,
Aunt BeaN
(typing is my life)
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
So the same day I started this new blog, I went hunting through the support section to find out how to include a link. I know a little HTML, but I just wasn't sure how you do it in this context. But while poking around the support pages, I discovered NaNoWriMo, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month. Turns out some guy named Chris out in the Bay Area has declared November to be National Novel Writing Month, and the challenge is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. It's been going on for 5 or 6 years now-- the first year with a handful of participants, this year with more than 70,000.
I don't exactly believe in fate, but the fact that I discovered this on October 29 seemed a little too pointed to pass on. So I went to Borders and got the NaNoWriMo book (No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty, which you can also find at Amazon). I'm always in favor of reading a book about something when it allows you to put off actually doing that something. And eight days into the month of November, I have written almost 7,000 words-- behind schedule (you're supposed to average 1,667 words a day), but I'm OK with that. The reason I'm telling all of you is because I'm likely to be writing about this quite a bit.
It's an interesting process. The point is not to be perfect, not to do any polishing or editing, just to pound out 50,000 words. I've written short stories before, and I've wanted to write a novel, but I've never actually gotten past the planning stage (well, besides one really crappy first draft I wrote about 15 years ago). But I can tell you after only eight days that I can already see the point of doing it this way.
Since the goal is to produce an insane amount of words in a mere 30 days, a lot of wiffly-waffly dithering around just gets slashed. You don't have time to worry about perfection. For example. If I weren't doing this NaNo thing, I would have decided yesterday that I needed to start over with a new plot. But there's no way I could start from scratch on the 8th day and get done. So I pushed through, and what do you know-- after plodding through another 100 words or so , I got an idea that put me back in business with the same old plot.
The problem with my plot is a) it's depressing and b) I don't think I"m going to get 50,000 words out of it. But when I was whining about this to my spouse last night, he pointed out that I can't possibly know that until I get to the end of it. Which is undeniably true. So I'm slogging away at it. It's kind of fun in a way. Like standing at the top of a ski run that's a little beyond your skill level, you have to just point your skis down and GO. At a certain point, you let go and get down the hill-- it may not have been pretty, but you're at the bottom.
The observant among you will note that I figured out how to include a link, too. Feeling just a BIT proud of myself this evening. But my shoulders are sore from all the typing. :-)
Love,
Auntie BeaN
I don't exactly believe in fate, but the fact that I discovered this on October 29 seemed a little too pointed to pass on. So I went to Borders and got the NaNoWriMo book (No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty, which you can also find at Amazon). I'm always in favor of reading a book about something when it allows you to put off actually doing that something. And eight days into the month of November, I have written almost 7,000 words-- behind schedule (you're supposed to average 1,667 words a day), but I'm OK with that. The reason I'm telling all of you is because I'm likely to be writing about this quite a bit.
It's an interesting process. The point is not to be perfect, not to do any polishing or editing, just to pound out 50,000 words. I've written short stories before, and I've wanted to write a novel, but I've never actually gotten past the planning stage (well, besides one really crappy first draft I wrote about 15 years ago). But I can tell you after only eight days that I can already see the point of doing it this way.
Since the goal is to produce an insane amount of words in a mere 30 days, a lot of wiffly-waffly dithering around just gets slashed. You don't have time to worry about perfection. For example. If I weren't doing this NaNo thing, I would have decided yesterday that I needed to start over with a new plot. But there's no way I could start from scratch on the 8th day and get done. So I pushed through, and what do you know-- after plodding through another 100 words or so , I got an idea that put me back in business with the same old plot.
The problem with my plot is a) it's depressing and b) I don't think I"m going to get 50,000 words out of it. But when I was whining about this to my spouse last night, he pointed out that I can't possibly know that until I get to the end of it. Which is undeniably true. So I'm slogging away at it. It's kind of fun in a way. Like standing at the top of a ski run that's a little beyond your skill level, you have to just point your skis down and GO. At a certain point, you let go and get down the hill-- it may not have been pretty, but you're at the bottom.
The observant among you will note that I figured out how to include a link, too. Feeling just a BIT proud of myself this evening. But my shoulders are sore from all the typing. :-)
Love,
Auntie BeaN
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
after four days with no internet access, I was starting to feel a little cut off from the world. Spent quite a bit of time on the phone with my ISP's tech support, only to discover that it was our phone company's fault. They had changed something on our account without letting us know. Shortly after that we were back online again. Didn't have much to say anyway, so I s'pose it doesn't really matter.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
Third time's the charm, right?
My first blog was up for two and a half years, but I only told a very few people about it. After awhile I started to feel like Harriet the Spy sneaking around with my secret notebook (although for the record, it never named names or discussed literal events in my life). Also I was getting bored with it. So for better or worse, I deleted it.
Blog Two came about because after a few months of no blog, I realized that I missed it. But #2 only lasted about six weeks-- for one thing, it was frighteningly boring; for another, I got a little panicked by the recent spate of very public hangings of people who were haunted by things they'd said in the digital realm years earlier. Not that I'd said anything all that wild, but at that particular moment, I thought it wasn't worth the risk.
So here is #3-- I'm definitely older this time around and maybe slightly wiser and we'll see how it goes. I'm going to cheat a little and re-post some things from Blog One so there will at least be something here. I deleted Blog Two without saving it so it is gone without a trace. The main difference I'm planning on here in Blog #3 is that I'm going to send an e-mail out to a few of the friends I think might be interested and actually LET THEM KNOW it's here. What a concept, eh?
And although I haven't sent the e-mail yet, just for the record: the nickname Aunt BeaN came about accidentally. When I created the first blog, the nickname I wanted was already taken. I spent about twenty minutes trying various combinations of things that contained my initials or plays on my initials and was astonished to find out how many people have or use the initials BN. Aunt BeaN sort of spontaneously appeared at some point and it wasn't being used, so I snagged it. I thought about dropping it for this blog, but I've kinda gotten attached to it, so there you have it.
AB
Blog Two came about because after a few months of no blog, I realized that I missed it. But #2 only lasted about six weeks-- for one thing, it was frighteningly boring; for another, I got a little panicked by the recent spate of very public hangings of people who were haunted by things they'd said in the digital realm years earlier. Not that I'd said anything all that wild, but at that particular moment, I thought it wasn't worth the risk.
So here is #3-- I'm definitely older this time around and maybe slightly wiser and we'll see how it goes. I'm going to cheat a little and re-post some things from Blog One so there will at least be something here. I deleted Blog Two without saving it so it is gone without a trace. The main difference I'm planning on here in Blog #3 is that I'm going to send an e-mail out to a few of the friends I think might be interested and actually LET THEM KNOW it's here. What a concept, eh?
And although I haven't sent the e-mail yet, just for the record: the nickname Aunt BeaN came about accidentally. When I created the first blog, the nickname I wanted was already taken. I spent about twenty minutes trying various combinations of things that contained my initials or plays on my initials and was astonished to find out how many people have or use the initials BN. Aunt BeaN sort of spontaneously appeared at some point and it wasn't being used, so I snagged it. I thought about dropping it for this blog, but I've kinda gotten attached to it, so there you have it.
AB
Saturday, October 28, 2006
From June 2005:
Here is a bad idea: go on a road trip with three fifteen-year-old girls and stay in a hotel room that has only one sink. And the sink is in the bathroom. So once one of the four of you goes in the bathroom, no one can use the sink until that person comes out. Not that I'm complaining. I'm being a very good sport about this, really I am.
Just kidding. It really is kind of fun. They have so much fun (as I've mentioned before, they giggle a LOT). I haven't quite figured out how to act, though. On the way down, they were listening to music. Well, WE were listening to music, but I mean, they were in charge of picking it out and controlling the volume, etc. A lot of it, to start out with, was "their" music, music that I don't necessarily dislike, but I don't really listen to it, either. I was sort of halfway listening to their conversations (which involve 3 or 4 different topics going on at the same time, in all directions, all at high volume, then all of them suddenly come to a dead stop when a new song comes on so that they can gush, "OH! I LOVE THIS SONG!" Then they listen reverently in silence for about 30 seconds before the chattering starts up again) at the same time I'm trying to figure out if maybe the word the Dalai Lama translates as "attachment" would be better translated as "addiction" and if so, what is the difference between a healthy emotional attachment to someone/something and being addicted to them/it? Who says women over 40 can't multitask?
But then they put in Queen's Greatest Hits, which is one my favorite albums (I still call them albums, can't teach an old dog some new tricks, I guess). It hasn't been six weeks since I did an extremely similar drive by myself (on my way to hear Mr. Rushdie) singing along at top volume to this exact same album. But I know it will more or less ruin their fun if their 43-year-old chaperone is seen to be singing along and enjoying the same music they are. So I sort of pretended like I wasn't paying attention. My spouse wouldn't have, he would have joined right in. But for some reason I always feel like someone needs to be the adult. And I know it's not as much fun for them to crank their music to the skies if the adults in the area actually wish they'd turn it up a little bit louder. HA. So I acted like I wasn't really listening and sang along with Freddie in my head. I love Freddie. The world is a better place because of Freddie.
We got only the first quarter of the drive under our belts tonight, still six hours to go tomorrow. I'm sitting in the hotel lobby typing this on the free computer where anybody in the world could come up and read over my shoulder, which is a strange feeling indeed. I guess I should go get in line to brush my teeth.
Feeling very mature tonight.
Aunty Bean
(get on your bikes and ride)
Here is a bad idea: go on a road trip with three fifteen-year-old girls and stay in a hotel room that has only one sink. And the sink is in the bathroom. So once one of the four of you goes in the bathroom, no one can use the sink until that person comes out. Not that I'm complaining. I'm being a very good sport about this, really I am.
Just kidding. It really is kind of fun. They have so much fun (as I've mentioned before, they giggle a LOT). I haven't quite figured out how to act, though. On the way down, they were listening to music. Well, WE were listening to music, but I mean, they were in charge of picking it out and controlling the volume, etc. A lot of it, to start out with, was "their" music, music that I don't necessarily dislike, but I don't really listen to it, either. I was sort of halfway listening to their conversations (which involve 3 or 4 different topics going on at the same time, in all directions, all at high volume, then all of them suddenly come to a dead stop when a new song comes on so that they can gush, "OH! I LOVE THIS SONG!" Then they listen reverently in silence for about 30 seconds before the chattering starts up again) at the same time I'm trying to figure out if maybe the word the Dalai Lama translates as "attachment" would be better translated as "addiction" and if so, what is the difference between a healthy emotional attachment to someone/something and being addicted to them/it? Who says women over 40 can't multitask?
But then they put in Queen's Greatest Hits, which is one my favorite albums (I still call them albums, can't teach an old dog some new tricks, I guess). It hasn't been six weeks since I did an extremely similar drive by myself (on my way to hear Mr. Rushdie) singing along at top volume to this exact same album. But I know it will more or less ruin their fun if their 43-year-old chaperone is seen to be singing along and enjoying the same music they are. So I sort of pretended like I wasn't paying attention. My spouse wouldn't have, he would have joined right in. But for some reason I always feel like someone needs to be the adult. And I know it's not as much fun for them to crank their music to the skies if the adults in the area actually wish they'd turn it up a little bit louder. HA. So I acted like I wasn't really listening and sang along with Freddie in my head. I love Freddie. The world is a better place because of Freddie.
We got only the first quarter of the drive under our belts tonight, still six hours to go tomorrow. I'm sitting in the hotel lobby typing this on the free computer where anybody in the world could come up and read over my shoulder, which is a strange feeling indeed. I guess I should go get in line to brush my teeth.
Feeling very mature tonight.
Aunty Bean
(get on your bikes and ride)
I'm a little bit Asperger's-ish. (Asperger's is at the high functioning end of the autism spectrum.) I'm pretty sure if I were a preschooler now, I'd be identified as "on the spectrum." I've been thinking about this for awhile. For one thing, I know my credit card numbers. :-) But it's not just that. It started out with noticing ways that I am like my friend's son who is autistic. I don't like to be social. I'd rather be by myself most of the time. The thoughts going on in my brain are a lot more interesting than about 75% of the outside world. (I know what you're thinking, and just hush.) I find it exhausting to deal with other people. There are so many cues to keep track of, so much information coming in about their feelings and how they want you to respond. It's overwhelming. I'd so much rather read a good book, and the older I get, the more strongly I feel about that. I'm not sure if it's because I know more and now pick up on more cues, or if I'm just turning into an old witch. Could be a little of both.
Anyway, here are my exhibits A and B to prove my point. A: social scripting. I was reading a few weeks ago about the way to teach children with asperger's how to deal with social situations, and the way you do it is by teaching them "scripts." Which more or less means, you help the child learn to identify certain cues and what the appropriate responses are. The asperger's child is never going to spontaneously respond correctly in a social situation, but he/she can be taught what the "rules" are and they can actually become fairly adept at social skills as long as they know the script, they know what to expect and why and what's happening. It occurred to me that this is exactly why I'm comfortable socializing with people at work-- which I have to do quite a bit. It wears me out, but it doesn't freak me out, and I think the reason is because there is a definite script. I know my role, I know the other people's role, and I can pretty easily and comfortably manage the ways I need to respond. But if you put me in an unscripted social situation-- say a party where you stand around and make small talk-- I am pathetically, painfully shy. And I am ludicrously, flagrantly prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Even at age 43, I still go hide in the bathroom at parties, sometimes for 15 or 20 minutes.
Exhibit B. Sensory integration. Another problem that Asperger's/autistic kids have is managing all the sensory input that bombards us all the time. At any given moment of the day, you feel: your clothes rubbing against your skin, the seam in your socks, the weight of your jewelry, the temperature of the surrounding air, the sounds of a clock ticking, the furnace running, the microwave going, the refrigerator humming, the radio's on, someone's talking to you. If you don't have sensory integration issues, you can ignore everything in that list and pick out the voice of the person talking to you. If you do have sensory integration issues, it all comes at you with the same value, so to speak-- you can't tell which things are unimportant and can be ignored and which things need your attention. So you tend to shut everything out, because you're so overwhelmed. I remember picking up my friend's son from school one time on a windy day. He stepped outside the door and the feel of the wind on his face stopped him cold. He couldn't screen it out. He just stood there outside the door with his eyes shut feeling the wind, hearing it, feeling the change in temperature, the change in the level of light (or at least that's what I guess he was feeling, he obviously couldn't articulate this).
I can relate to that. I'm not so severe. But I still have to cut the tags out of my clothes if they're stiff. When hiking, I sometimes will have to stop two or three times in the first hour before I get my socks arranged right in my boots, the seams drive me crazy. I can't sleep with my rings on, they rub on my fingers. I can't sleep with mascara on, my eyes don't quite close all the way. If I go outside and it's cold or hot, I can't get busy with what I'm doing and forget about the temperature. I just stand there and feel overwhelmed that it's too hot. If I come home from running errands and my husband has the TV on, the stereo on, and he's playing his guitar, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I can't talk on the phone with someone if the line is static-y, I can't screen out the static, it makes me frantic to get off the phone because that static is in my head.
So when I started reading about sensory integration, I had this moment of AHA! That is ME! All of which brings me to my Wacky Theory of the Week. I was reading in Time magazine (or was it Discover?) about the enormous increase in the number of autistic kids in the state of California, which defies any type of statistical analysis they've been able to think of to explain it away. So I'm wondering, in the spirit of the old Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov SF stories about how the human race might evolve next, if autism is actually a sort of hyper-hyper sensitivity, a sensitivity that extends to the molecular level. A new skill that we are evolving and have no idea how to use or even identify. Just think if you had that much input. If pheromones floating around in the air felt like stones banging your head. If a two degree temperature change felt like a 40 degree change. You'd be nuts. And that's how some of these kids seem. It's just a thought, but it's an interesting one, isn't it?? See, I told you there was interesting stuff running around in my brain.
H&K,
Aunty Bean
GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE
Anyway, here are my exhibits A and B to prove my point. A: social scripting. I was reading a few weeks ago about the way to teach children with asperger's how to deal with social situations, and the way you do it is by teaching them "scripts." Which more or less means, you help the child learn to identify certain cues and what the appropriate responses are. The asperger's child is never going to spontaneously respond correctly in a social situation, but he/she can be taught what the "rules" are and they can actually become fairly adept at social skills as long as they know the script, they know what to expect and why and what's happening. It occurred to me that this is exactly why I'm comfortable socializing with people at work-- which I have to do quite a bit. It wears me out, but it doesn't freak me out, and I think the reason is because there is a definite script. I know my role, I know the other people's role, and I can pretty easily and comfortably manage the ways I need to respond. But if you put me in an unscripted social situation-- say a party where you stand around and make small talk-- I am pathetically, painfully shy. And I am ludicrously, flagrantly prone to saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Even at age 43, I still go hide in the bathroom at parties, sometimes for 15 or 20 minutes.
Exhibit B. Sensory integration. Another problem that Asperger's/autistic kids have is managing all the sensory input that bombards us all the time. At any given moment of the day, you feel: your clothes rubbing against your skin, the seam in your socks, the weight of your jewelry, the temperature of the surrounding air, the sounds of a clock ticking, the furnace running, the microwave going, the refrigerator humming, the radio's on, someone's talking to you. If you don't have sensory integration issues, you can ignore everything in that list and pick out the voice of the person talking to you. If you do have sensory integration issues, it all comes at you with the same value, so to speak-- you can't tell which things are unimportant and can be ignored and which things need your attention. So you tend to shut everything out, because you're so overwhelmed. I remember picking up my friend's son from school one time on a windy day. He stepped outside the door and the feel of the wind on his face stopped him cold. He couldn't screen it out. He just stood there outside the door with his eyes shut feeling the wind, hearing it, feeling the change in temperature, the change in the level of light (or at least that's what I guess he was feeling, he obviously couldn't articulate this).
I can relate to that. I'm not so severe. But I still have to cut the tags out of my clothes if they're stiff. When hiking, I sometimes will have to stop two or three times in the first hour before I get my socks arranged right in my boots, the seams drive me crazy. I can't sleep with my rings on, they rub on my fingers. I can't sleep with mascara on, my eyes don't quite close all the way. If I go outside and it's cold or hot, I can't get busy with what I'm doing and forget about the temperature. I just stand there and feel overwhelmed that it's too hot. If I come home from running errands and my husband has the TV on, the stereo on, and he's playing his guitar, it makes me want to bang my head against the wall. I can't talk on the phone with someone if the line is static-y, I can't screen out the static, it makes me frantic to get off the phone because that static is in my head.
So when I started reading about sensory integration, I had this moment of AHA! That is ME! All of which brings me to my Wacky Theory of the Week. I was reading in Time magazine (or was it Discover?) about the enormous increase in the number of autistic kids in the state of California, which defies any type of statistical analysis they've been able to think of to explain it away. So I'm wondering, in the spirit of the old Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov SF stories about how the human race might evolve next, if autism is actually a sort of hyper-hyper sensitivity, a sensitivity that extends to the molecular level. A new skill that we are evolving and have no idea how to use or even identify. Just think if you had that much input. If pheromones floating around in the air felt like stones banging your head. If a two degree temperature change felt like a 40 degree change. You'd be nuts. And that's how some of these kids seem. It's just a thought, but it's an interesting one, isn't it?? See, I told you there was interesting stuff running around in my brain.
H&K,
Aunty Bean
GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE
From mid-Dec 2004:
Here is the curious thing about being the mom of a 14-year-old girl: The kind of mothering she wants, I'm not willing to give: to be indulged and pampered and treated like she was still 6 years old. And the kind of mothering I'm willing to give, she doesn't want: the eternally vigilant guardian-- be careful, it's a scary world out there, be safe, don't get hurt, don't do anything stupid.
so I guess we just keep slogging through it. It's not that bad, really; not compared to what I've heard from many of my friends. But it's not particularly fun, either.
Aunt BeaN, who is also Mom
Here is the curious thing about being the mom of a 14-year-old girl: The kind of mothering she wants, I'm not willing to give: to be indulged and pampered and treated like she was still 6 years old. And the kind of mothering I'm willing to give, she doesn't want: the eternally vigilant guardian-- be careful, it's a scary world out there, be safe, don't get hurt, don't do anything stupid.
so I guess we just keep slogging through it. It's not that bad, really; not compared to what I've heard from many of my friends. But it's not particularly fun, either.
Aunt BeaN, who is also Mom
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