Fallen Angels

It's rare to see a hummingbird, at least, it is where I happen to live.  Occasionally, however, one will appear in the yard, flitting quickly from branch to branch, never staying long, gone as quickly as it arrived.  Always unexpected, always moving, always so startlingly small.  Barely bigger than a large bug, one never expects to see them anywhere but in the air.  We never think of them ceasing movement, never think that they might alight, might nest, might die.  Until one day, during your daily walk, you find one on the side of the road behind your house, broken, lifeless, forgotten.  Your heart stops for a moment then, in empathy, helpless dread.  You wonder if it was the same one who'd last paid your little yard a visit two weeks before, and you wonder how it died.  Did it meet with some malicious accident?  Was it struck by a car?  Or did its wings simply get too tired?  Did it struggle for life at the end, for flight or did it drop like a stone?  Did it cry?

Photo Credit: The photo is my own.

Not in My Hometown

The Human Trafficking Law Blog recently posted a NY Times article reporting on the sentencing of two human traffickers recently convicted and given life sentences.  Here's the link. While this is an obvious victory for justice, the case hit close to home for me - literally.  The ring was operating on a side street on my way hope from work.  People were enslaved just blocks from a place I work, five houses down a side street I drive past several times a week.  

This nightmare doesn't just happen on the other side of the world, it happens on our commute home.

The clock in my dusty dashboard reads 9:17 am as I cruise past, too afraid to stop.  The dented street sign reads ‘Rose’ but nothing is blooming.  Sparse grass sprouts stubbornly from thin cracks in the littered sidewalk.  An orange cone balances precariously on the edge of the road, as if I needed a warning to be careful here.  Swarthy men lounge beneath a brightly colored billboard encouraging them to shift their priority to faith.  Which of them knew, which were involved and which are as horrified as myself to find out what's been happening here? It's hard to tell from inside my car, but I am too afraid to stop and ask.

Photo Credit: The photo is my own.

Really Very Amazing That Suddenly Started

Oftentimes in severe periods of low self esteem and wracking self-doubt a writer will while away her procrastination hours perusing writing websites that offer tips and tricks of the trade.  During one recent period of obvious non-productivity, I came across the following link: 

"Very" and Other Useless Words to Erase Forever

The link (from Writer's Circle, a blog I follow and respect) points out the redundancy of the word 'very' and five other words that, according to the article should never be included in our work: 'suddenly', 'really', 'started', 'that' and 'amazing'/'awesome'.  

While my first instinct was to troll my manuscript and erase every occurrence of each word with virulent and unrepentant conviction, I did have the presence of mind to reconsider.  While I did not entirely repeal the cull, I did realize that this is merely a suggestion, and not a hard rule.  It did make me aware of the overabundance of most of these words, and I will admit to pulling several instances from my text as a result of the search (apparently 'suddenly' is my personal favorite of these alleged no-nos) I did come across certain situations where the use of the word in my text felt both useful and illustrative. 

Suddenly I am really starting to consider embedding the sentence fragment “really very amazing that suddenly started” somewhere in my novel to see if any haughty editors ever notice.  That would be so amazingly awesome.  

A Picture is Worth 131311 Words

Three years.  Three years, three hundred thirty pages, one hundred thirty one thousand three hundred and eleven words.  Fifty seven missed meetings, seven dozen sleepless nights, one alienated husband, one bored dog, three confused sisters, twelve annoyed friends who are sick of hearing it, two rejected editors, forty three bookmarked research websites, fifty nine hours I didn't spend with my mother which I may regret later.  Then Giovanni Squatriti comes along and tells my entire story in one damn picture:

On a brighter note, the next time someone asks what my book is about, I can just show them this. 

And, by the way, Louis Vuitton, it's so cute you think anyone cares who made the trousers.   

Photo Credit: Francisco Lachowski by Giovanni Squatriti for Essential Homme

Follow the Monster

The rough draft is done.  After three years, even I had begun to believe that I truly had poured my heart and soul into this book.  On the re-read, however, it became apparently obvious that it just wasn't all that good.  How could this be?  I believe in it. Now, more than ever, I know I am meant to be doing this.  This book is my purpose, the reason for my life.  I was born to do this.

So why does it still suck?  Why the casual, but repetitive flirtation with 'Delete All?'

It's not that I can't do it.  No.  The flashes of brilliance are frequent and startling enough to convince even my insecure mind that I can.

The answer is that I didn't pour my whole soul into the book.  I'd only put in the good parts.  I censored out what has been scaring me.  The anger that has been building up inside me, a lifetimes worth, that, that has to go in.  That has to finally rip its way out of the prison of my tortured brain and pour itself out onto the page.  I have to show the world what I spent a lifetime terrified it would find out.  Every dirty little secret, every hidden quirk, every nasty thought, all the filthy little harmless fetishes.  All of it needs to come out, because once I have nothing to hide, only then will I have nothing to fear.

Stories aren't written about heroes.  A hero is nothing without an antagonist.  Without a villain, at best, he's a well developed character who's already living his happily ever after.  No one over the age of four will ever want to read that.  No one reads books to see what happens to the hero.  We read to see what the villain is going to do next.  What new treachery, what new horror, what new pain can he inflict on our long suffering loyal hero to satiate our lust for conflict and feed our quenchless desire for empathetic righteous indignation?

We are not hero worshipers.  We're rubbernecking ambulance chasers.  We are the chronically morbidly curious.

We are human, so we follow the monster.

And we're right.

For without him, there is no story.

On a completely unrelated note, if there is a heaven, I think God looks like Francisco Lachowski and we just get to sit there all day and watch him smile.  (For the record, I've always liked that shirt.  Nordstrom.  Good stuff.)